We just took delivery of both Cleave and Vanessa and Virginia. When the big lorry turns up with our boxes of books (and the wine delivery for some big local hotel, and a load of fencing wire for the estate up the road) we tremble in fear and anticipation. Firstly, will they have survived the transit? Just think of the prisitine, mint copy of the book you pick off the bookshop shelf – and then realise that some forklift in Glasgow has picked up the whole lot and dumped them in the back of a dusty lorry. You wish that people only handled books like the guys in museums with the white cotton gloves. But it ain’t so. Well, apart from a couple of copies at the top they were pretty well intact. Now we have to worry that the cover colours will be all wrong. Quickly see that it’s not so. Now unpack one and see if page 45 is before page 32 or not – seriously, we bought a book recently by a very famous author/ big publisher and a page of the index randomly appeared half way through and then all the subsequent pages were out of synch. Would it be our fault – would we have to pay to pulp a thousand books and buy another lot ? I’ll tell you – I haven’t unwrapped a set of examination results recently – but I have every sympathy. But as far as we can tell we have 2 new additions to the shelf with all their bits intact. (Like the 4 goslings now wildly attempting to stand on their oversize floppy feet.)
But here’s a question for you - Cleave is an anthology of new Scottish women’s writing. A lot of the really big names right through to almost first-time writers. Short fiction, short prose, poetry and every shade between. We are very proud of it. Its the sort of project you can only make into a book with belief and energy. But have a guess at how many copies you think it might sell? I mean, what does a small publisher actually do to break even – sell 30,000 or 400? Its more than just a random question. Lots and lots of people want to do art, and particularly writing these days. But its an interesting question as to where all this stuff goes – and what it actually means to be published. Given that there is no public funding, and there hasn’t been for Cleave, when would you consider it a success to have put such a book out there in the shops? Somewhere in the no-man’s land between creativity and commerce – that’s publishing when you are doing it right – we think. What do you reckon?
David
