Who doesn’t want to be a best seller? Perhaps in the title of this forthcoming event there’s a recognition that we can’t all be best-sellers and it might be as satisfying to find the right publisher for your book and sell it to the right audience. Or perhaps, since it’s being staged by a very small indie publisher, it’s an invitation to wonder if our work will ever suit the limited (and limiting?) requirements of the Big Six, and suggest there are other places to take it?
And of course there’s nothing that says you won’t be a best-seller by going with a small publisher. I’ve just been reading Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project, Man Booker shortlisted, from Scottish indie publisher Saraband Books. Sandstone Press has also had lots of mainstream success.
Linen Press, possibly the smallest of the small, came up on my radar years ago, I think because of the Scottish connection (director Lynn Michell was based in Edinburgh at the time) and their small but inviting website. Prompted by an online article elsewhere, I ordered one of their titles and thoroughly enjoyed it. Since then I’ve read and reviewed others and although not all have been to my taste, they have all had the stamp of quality fiction: well-written, thoroughly edited and with unique voices. Avril Joy’s Sometimes A River Song was one of my stand-out reads of last year and a worthy contender for the People’s Book Choice prize. (Read! Vote!) I can also recommend Susie Nott Bowers’ The Making of Her, a compelling novel about the media and the beauty industry.
Like many indie publishers, Linen Press accepts unsolicited submissions – always tempting for the un-agented author – but of course they take on very few of those who apply. So what does a small press look for? How does it work?
I think Beyond the Bestseller will be an intriguing event, lifting the lid on what it takes and how it would be to work with this or other indie outfits. £30 for a day (with lunch!) strikes me as very reasonable. I’m consulting my calendar to see if I can make it.
Ali Bacon / Books and Other Things 