The greatest thing about being a publisher is that … you publish books. You also see some great writing. There are some other things that we have to do that are less pleasant. One activity is somewhat tedious, often very rewarding and occasionally heart-breaking.
Checking presence on the Internet
Yes, it’s that narcissistic activity: Googling yourself or a particular book. You’ll often find a great review or a pleasing sales ranking. Sometimes you’ll find a mediocre review and a more modest sales ranking. And occasionally you’ll find a very poor review with maybe one star and worse still, it may appear to have been written by a troll. In the greater scheme of things, the latter isn’t actually all that worrying. There are bound to be some poor reviews occasionally and frankly, personally, if I see a one star review I’m likely to buy the book – it won’t disappoint. In fact it’s highly likely to be better than one would expect from one star – especially if there is a troll element. This was probably someone with a personal grudge.
Perhaps a more believable review may have a negative effect on a book. Not always though. One book I really enjoyed was Melvin Burgess’ Doing It. I only read it because I was curious about what had upset Anne Fine so much in her famous Guardian review.
Negative speculation
Sadly, I’ve come across this twice this week. There’d been a call for submissions by a small press company I know. Some writers speculated about how reliable this company would be. They appeared to have done their homework. However, they’d made a ghastly mistake about one of the team in that they’d said that one editor had “no experience of the publishing industry”. This was absolutely not true. The person in question had decided to set up on their own after being disillusioned by the big five.
The other example was about one of my own projects. Again, the folks had done their homework and had misinterpreted some of the facts they’d established. They’d found one name associated with three projects. Yes, we use the same web-master who had secured the sites and domain names for us.
Okay, there are crooks out there. But actually, not many. As I am also a writer I’ve worked with fifteen publishers, all sizes. Only one has really let me down. The one who has sold the most of my work actually started operating out of a small industrial estate near Bristol. They first published me in 2001 and I’m still getting royalty cheques.
A world of book-lovers
Publishing books is not big business. Not even for Bloomsbury post JKR. Yes, they have a huge turnover. But put their business acumen into virtually any other business – maybe not farming – and they’d make even more. Even amongst the big successful publishers with grand offices in London there is, perhaps, before all else, a love of books. Thank goodness.
That is what keeps us all going.
I’ve not yet been proved wrong. Even the publisher who let me down did it more out of incompetence than out of any maliciousness.
I’ve just come back from Hay and this was clearer than ever there again.
What I would say to all writers
Yes, of course, it is important to be sure that your publisher is the general article. I’d encourage you simply to ask. If they don’t reply or don’t give you a satisfactory answer – move on.
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