How to speak publisher - B is for Black plate

The black plate is not what you eat your dinner from if you are either super-stylish or have been naughty. It's all to do with printing. Yes, you do need to know about printing, even if it does all happen in some mysterious way in India, China or eastern Europe.

If you never write picture books or any others that have any colour in, you don't really need to read this. If your books are novels, printed entirely in black, you're let off - you can go now. Otherwise...

A colour book is printed using four colours of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (key), which gives us the letters CMYK. Each colour is separately printed from a printing plate with the parts of the page image that will be in that colour. Extra colours are made by overprinting the four basic colours in different proportions. When you did art at school you learned that all colours can be made from the primary colours red, yellow and blue, didn't you? Well, cyan is blueish and magenta is reddish, but this is about speaking publisher, it's not about optics so you'll just have to take my word for it that it works.

It's expensive to print a page four times (one for each colour). When a publisher produces a coedition of your book in a foreign language, they obviously need to reprint all the text, but they don't generally change the pictures. This means they only need to reprint the black bits - as long as all the text is black. They can print any number of copies of the book using the cyan, magenta and yellow inks and have a pile of pages with no text but lots of pictures. They can then pick a batch of these pages and print the text in black in English. And they can pick another batch and print the text in black in French, or German, or Spanish or any other language. But they can only do this if ALL the text is on the black plate - the printing plate used to produce the black image. (If you want to know more about plates you'll have to wait until we get to O is for Offset litho - sorry.)

This is why you can't have pictures with coloured text in, or (usually) use colour to make bits of the text stand out. And if your book uses photos, it's why the publisher won't be keen to use photos that include text (like posters) or screenshots. Text in photos won't be translated with the text of the book, and will be intrusive in coeditions. So - to look professional, don't ask for text in colour and don't include text in illustrations which would need to be redrawn for a coedition.
.

How to speak publisher - B is for bind-up

A bind-up, though it sounds like some interesting minor S&M practice, is a bundling of several books into a single binding. If you have published several books in a series or on a similar theme, and some time has passed and sales are starting to flag, the publisher might propose a bind-up. Go for it! All the little books will be gathered together and forced to be friends with each other in a single volume. There will probably be a new cover design, the books will be given a new, updated look, and the aim will be to attract new readers who were possibly not even born at the time the originals were published. Remember - foetuses don't read. The picture shows the bind-up of Kath Langrish's hugely successful Troll trilogy, revised and reissued in a single volume, (March 2011).

A bind-up is a way of making extra money out of a bunch of books that have slipped from view. Bookshops don't often stock many books that have been around for a few years, unless they are classics, steady sellers, or by major figures who always attract a lot of readers. Don't expect to see a bunch of Jacqueline Wilson novels appearing in a bind-up, for instance - they are always in stock and sell anyway - though I think there has been a Tracy Beaker bind-up.... A bind-up is money for old rope. You don't have to do much, and the publisher doesn't have to invest much, and it's a lot less aggro than writing and publishing a new book.


And here's the opposite of a bind-up.... Lucy Coats has extracted 12 slim volumes from her Atticus the Storyteller, each dealing with a separate Greek myth. The slim volumes have bright, colourful covers, they are easier to carry around and hold in small hands than the original and are less daunting to unconfident readers.

So bind-up or bind-down, there is potential for rebadging books and gathering new readers either way.

.

World Book Night - good or bad?

World Book Night is almost upon us. In case it's escaped your notice, 20,000 people have been recruited to give away a million books (48 copies each of 25 titles). It's the idea of Jamie Byng of Canongate books, supported and lauded by the likes of the BBC and various publishing industry bodies. It's been dissed as well as welcomed.

What are the arguments in favour and against?

In favour: it gives publicity to books; it will boost reading and that must be good for everyone in publishing and for libraries; it's a nice night out.

Against: it gives people the idea that books are of no value as they are given away; it cheats bookshops and authors of income; it's just a publicity binge for Byng.

Let's look at the 'against's first:

It gives people the idea that books are of no value as they are given away

'If you’re a punter and there is a charity shop full of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that were given away aren’t you going to wonder why Muriel Spark’s other books are being sold at £8.99 in the bookshop up the road?' Bookseller Vanessa Robertson on State of Independents.

Well, no. If I go into Oxfam and there is a jumper from M&S for £5, I am not going to be surprised that other jumpers that are actually in M&S are £20 - I'm not that stupid. We are talking about people who can read, remember.

People are used to paying for things sometimes and getting them free at other times. Books are free in libraries and, hey, we approve of libraries. Films are free on TV, or you can pay for a DVD (or video on demand) so that you can choose the film you want at the time you want to watch it. As a member of the public, you can't choose which book you get on WBN, just as you can't ask ITV to broadcast the latest James Bond movie tomorrow because you fancy watching it. Public firework displays are often free, and others cost - people go to both. And they buy fireworks. Condoms are often given away, yet there's huge money in selling condoms. This is not a complicated model for the evolved human to grasp. We can deal with it. Don't be so patronising. (Actually, publishers are very big on giving away all kinds of crud - go to the London Book Fair and see how many unnecessary tote bags you can collect, how many glasses of wine you can drink, how many sweets and pens and stupid little fluffy blobs you can pick up.)

If you go into an expensive food shop, you can get free samples of things you're not sure about trying. Walk into Hotel Chocolat. Ten to one there's a bint with a tray of free chocolates. Why? To encourage you to try it. In fact, it is ONLY things of some value that are worth giving away.

It cheats bookshops and authors of income

'The authors whose books have been chosen are superstars, but most authors have under £7,000 average annual earnings and some major retailers are treating their books like loss leaders.'

Bookseller Andrew Bentley-Steed, The Guardian

I am a writer and depend on my income from writing. I am not a superstar (though I earn a good deal more than £7,000), but I'm not fussed about any possible loss of income. If a person was going to spend £9 on a book, they still have £9 if they get a free book, and so they can buy another book. It's possible to read more than one book in a lifetime. Or even a week. I know, I know... the publicity budget is being wasted on this when it could go on promoting the books of mid-list authors (like me). But it wouldn't, would it? It would go on fluffy blobs and launch parties for high-profile authors, just like it does now.

I have books that are discounted - we all do. But sour grapes about other people who earn more just makes you look mean, it doesn't sell your books. In fact, those who stand to lose most from this are probably the distributors. I haven't heard any complaints from them. If all the books were from a single writer who got a 5% royalty on cover price, they would get £50,000. In fact, it won't be anywhere near that much. It's not much spread amongst all the writers in the country. They can have my £1 or £2 on this experiment. Is the real grumble from writers that someone is introduced to a book by (say) Sarah Waters and may then buy more books by her rather than perhaps buy books by A.N.Other writer? Free publicity for Sarah Waters. Let's all be resentful. Well, no, actually I don't want to be resentful. Good for her. We don't resent writers whose works are set GCSE texts, do we? Or maybe I just haven't caught up with all the things I'm supposed to resent...

It's a publicity binge for Byng

It probably is. But it was his idea. People have an idea, they get publicity. That's how the world works. So what? We're smart enough to see through it, and the public has never heard of Byng and doesn't give a damn who he is.

And now the arguments for:

It gives publicity to books
There has been a lot of publicity. But that is strictly speaking publicity for the event rather than for books and reading - I haven't seen any encouragement to continue reading after finishing your free book. Why are the books not being printed with an extra page of 'If you like this, you may also like...' recommendations? Why are all bookshops not stocking up on other books by the featured authors and making big displays of them? Why are libraries not doing the same? Is it because they are too busy whingeing? This is a publicity opportunity wasted, not an example of great publicity for books. (I suppose they might still do that before Saturday...)

It will boost reading and that must be good for everyone in publishing and for libraries

'Giving away a million free books sounds like a lot, but in the context of the 250m we sell across the trade each year, it's absolutely nothing. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and it works out at just three or four books for each independent bookshop. I don't think there's any independent that wouldn't give away that number if it encourages book-lovers.'

Bookseller Nic Bottomley, The Guardian

Well, it might if there were appropriate publicity (see above). The big problem is whether the books will go to people who might not otherwise read or whether they will just go to middle-class readers who are already buying books (most likely). How patronising is it to seek out someone you think unlikely to be reading and give them a book? How likely are you to be punched? Of course, giving books to people with the money to buy more books is much more effective as a marketing strategy than giving them to people with no disposable income. So Byng and the booksellers will probably be happier if we give our copies away outside Waitrose than in the homeless shelter.

There are many claims that it's not going to work. Vanessa again:

'A [projected] surge [in book-buying] which is unproven, unresearched and [ungrammatical bit follows, to the effect that it's based on Byng's gut instinct]... I’m not a fan of market research ... but surely before the booktrade gives away £9 million of stock there should have been some sort of research? I’m finding it hard to see how the instincts of Jamie’s intestines should be grounds for this sort of giveaway.'

Hello? It's an experiment - sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. Other things aren't working to pull publishing out of the doldrums, so why not try something innovative?

It's a nice night out

Depending on how you plan to give/receive your books, it could well be. Some people are using it to promote themselves and their own causes, making a splash and an event of it. It will be interesting to see how many of the books actually do get given away, though. Some people might just find it all too much aggro in the end. How many will even be picked up from their delivery points? Will we ever know?

So - good or bad? Personally, I think it's a flawed plan but worth a try. It's a nice thing, to get a free book. It's a way of saying 'Books are great, look! Read this book I like!' We are mired in recession, it's still winter, we're miserable and it's a cheerful thing to do. It might not do any good, but I don't honestly think it's going to do any great harm. Grudging and grumbling are not nice ways to spend your time. Loosen up and make someone smile. There are some words for all this: generosity, philanthropy, hope, optimism, goodwill, enthusiasm for books. Whatever Byng's motives in setting it up, those are mine in giving away books on Saturday. I won't be able to do what I had originally planned (personal, family reasons) but I will still give the books away, and I hope everyone who gets one will read it, and enjoy it, and read one of the other books I will recommend on my personal sheet of 'if you liked this, you might also like...' recommendations that I will slip in.

Happy giving, happy reading or happy grouching, everyone.

.

A small tale of twitter

Yesterday, for complex domestic reasons, I found myself on a train to London with no book to read. Luckily I had a notebook, so didn't have to resort to running amok in the carriage for amusement, but I didn't want to face the journey home bookless. There wouldn't be much time as I was getting to King's Cross at 17:06 and had to be at the Coliseum at 17:30, but reckoned I could just about rush into Foyles at St Pancras and buy a book as long as I knew exactly what I was looking for and where to find it. I'd seen the trailer for Small Blue Thing linked from Nosy Crow's website and thought I'd read that, but couldn't remember who wrote it (sorry, Sue!). So I tweeted Kate at NosyCrow. I had these replies:

From @NosyCrow:
@annerooney Small Blue Thing written by S C Ransom (@scransom). Hope you find it.

From Foyles:
@annerooney S. C. Ransom - We've got stock in all our shops apart from One New Change.

From @scransom:
@annerooney Hi Anne, I hope @nosycrow got back to you in time! Small Blue Thing is my novel. I hope you managed to find it OK.

This is my original tweet:
@Nosycrow Who wrote small blue thing? want to buy in foyles but will have to dash in and out so need to know where to look

So twitter and websites/trailers sell books :-)

.

Ten techy, publishing-y things I didn't do a decade ago

I've not been here - apologies. It's not you, it's me. My small bint is unwell and life is chaos. I'm not even sending out invoices, so life will be poverty-hobbled as well as chaotic soon.

Here is some light relief because I'm not thinking about speaking publisher or any of that.

Ten techy, publishing-y things I have done in the last five years that I couldn't or wouldn't have done a decade ago:

1. Write a picture book text on my phone
2. Write part of a book on my phone and submit it to an editor as text messages from Eurostar
3. Check what time it is by typing 'what time is it' into Google [OK, that's more lazy than anything to do with publishing - that's an extra!]
4. Pitch to a publisher on twitter
5. Pitch to a publisher on Facebook
6. Argue about ebook and app rights
7. Write a proposal for a picture book app
8. Work on a book trailer for YouTube
9. Refuse to submit hard copy of a manuscript
10. Send a PDF along with the Word document of a manuscript to show which special characters and symbols are used where
11. [because 3 was a cheat] Read a book on my phone/iPad.

Which things do you do now that you didn't do a decade ago? Please tell me!

.