If you think there's money in them there books

Making a living from publishing books is hard work. The trick is (both if you are a publisher and a writer) producing quite a number of books that backlist. For those of you not familiar with the word backlist, it means that they continue selling well after their publication date. Good examples of backlisting books are: The Bible, Annabel Karmel's book for feeding babies and toddlers (there's always a constantly rolling market of new mothers), Collins Gem SAS Survival Guide. If these were books in your publishing company, these would be cash cows, reliable producers of dosh. Every three year or four years you could bring out a new edition with a different cover that would draw in new readers.

Frontlist titles (which means that they have just been published and have an exposure life of 6 months if you are very lucky), will hopefully include a bestseller. Bestsellers cannot be predicted, they just happen. If you are a good publisher, your gut feeling might lead you to believe that you have hit the publishing jackpot. If you are a bad publisher, you will be aping the publishing jackpot but it will be too late. That is bandwagon or copycat publishing.

The jackpot frontlist title brings in lots of dosh which can be a bad thing for a publisher. They then hire more people, publish more books along the lines of 'Let's throw it at the wall and see what sticks.' Never a good idea.

At least that is my take on mainstream publishing. For small fry like me and Linen Press, it is unlikely we will make vast sums of money (if any at all). Unless we work hard to haul in readers from the web. There are just not enough terrestrial bookshops for all our wares to be displayed.

So if you are thinking of setting up as a publisher, think long and hard about what you will charge. Here is an interesting article from the Guardian written by the director of Linen Press who bemoans selling through Amazon. However, for most small publishers, Amazon is a godsend.

The tipping point or the tide

There was much news coverage yesterday on how ebooks sales had overtaken printed book sales in the States. Presumably this is inevitable as we live a more elife than ever.

A few blogs ago I was talking about how covers are so important with physical books but maybe not so with ebooks.

Then I went back to my mother's house where there were shelves of the books I grew up with (inherited from grandparents). All the usual suspects: Dickens, Austen, Trollope, Bronte, Hugo, even Zola.

I remember reading Zola's Germinal in my teens and being spellbound by it.

And then I noted, none of these books have illustrated covers.

People read what is there. Once the words draw you in, it doesn't really matter how they are presented.

I think I will go for tide. Tides come in and go out. I am sure that is how it will be with formats.

Just an observation

For many years (and I mean this), I watched a beautiful stainless steel saucepan become more and more grimy around the base. I could post a picture of it but I would be too ashamed. I couldn't ever work out why I seemed to be the only one with such an unspeakable saucepan. Nor did I ever think to ask anyone about it.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I noticed my mother had a stainless steel scouring pad by the sink. I also noticed that she had awfully clean saucepans. She also has a very efficient cleaning lady.

So when I got back to Glasgow I decided to try it out. Imagine my surprise when, with much elbow grease, it made inroads to my 20-odd years layer of grime (yes, that long).

My point is that unless one is told about such basic stuff, you live blithely in squalor, with the occasional self questioning about why other people seem to live in such sparkling kitchens.

It's not that they have some particular magic, they obviously know or have been told about such things. And as more and more people live separate lives, who is going to fill us in on all this important stuff?

An interesting day

Today I feel is a very interesting day. At least that is what I understand from my copy of The Herald.

1452 Leonardo da Vinci was born.

1755 Dr Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published, containing 40,000 words.

1793 £5 notes were first issued by the Bank of England.

1912 The Titanic sank.

1942 The Island of Malta was awarded the George Cross.

1955 The first McDonald's franchise was opened in Illinois.

1989 The Hillsborough football disaster

I remember with horrible clarity the events of the Hillsborough disaster. I remember with even more distaste the shocking coverage by The Sun the following day. I, like most of Liverpool (even now), vowed never to read that newspaper again.

It is also Emma Thompson's birthday. It turns out we were both born in the same year.

The Nod off approach

It is funny how people ask what definite proof I can give them that the Nod off approach works. I can't really offer them anything hugely substantial for my own part (though much research has been done), but when I ask them 'Did you learn French from all those years at school?', they don't have much of a jambe to stand on.

Now and again I hear snippets that bolster the theory that sleep time is a fertile period to learn things in. I was chatting to a doctor who told me that they were advised as students not to chat during surgery. The patient may be under general anaesthetic but they can still hear what is being said around them. If the doctors believe it, then that's good enough for me.

Am just reading Eat, Pray and Love. I very much enjoyed the Eat part in Rome. Elizabeth Gilbert is pretty sharp at defining what it is to be Italian.

Meeting an order

Last night I met an order. Or I should say customer. This month we are selling Nod off in French at £5. With exam season looming, it is the kind of revision tool that is ideal for students.

This week I had sent off a copy to someone in Glasgow. Imagine my surprise when she made herself known at the yoga class I was teaching. Not a native speaker of English, but someone who had been learning French for a while, she told me that already she had learnt a couple of new things.

That is the type of feedback we like to get.

The Nod offs don't just list rules, they try to show you why there is a rule.

Continuing on a yogic theme

Yesterday I had a phone call from my Uncle Jack and Aunt Liz in Australia. Jack is 91 and had a hip replacement just before Christmas. Despite it being a success, he is disappointed that it won't render him fit enough to return to one of his great loves, bush walking.

He is also a great cricket fan and we talked about the match India had won the day before when they beat Pakistan. Which then took him on a meander about Sikhs he had met and Punjab.

"You know what 'Punjab' means?" he asked. I had to confess not.

"Well it comes from "pan" the word for 5 and "jab" the word for "water" and refers to the 5 rivers in the Punjab region. People usually pronounce it wrongly when they say poonjab, it should be panjab." Blimey, I hope I get to his age and meander so interestingly.

Which today somehow made me think of Rudyard Kipling and the poem If. It turns out he was also named after water, Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire where his parents had canoodled. I had always wondered if he wasn't a secret yogi, given how the poem encapsulates all that I have learnt from yoga and it was no surprise to see this reference in the Wikipedia entry for Rudyard Kipling.

Well-known Indian historian and writer Khushwant Singh wrote in 2001 that he considers Kipling's If— "the essence of the message of The Gita in English".^[60] The text Singh refers to is the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Indian scripture.

Just in case you are not familiar with this poetic slice of Wisdom, here it is. (you can find out lots more stuff at the Kipling Society.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!