The Birth of a Publishing Company 3

Today is the day we've been working towards with excitement and also much preparation. You always need to be ready for a birth, and this morning our new publishing company was born. After much discussion between the eager couple a name had been settled on in readiness for the big day and it's Ward Wood Publishing.

Of course the mother and father of this new publishing company aren't a real couple: we're business partners, so the important step we needed to make involved signing a partnership agreement. I was delighted to sign my name under that of Mike Fortune-Wood, who brings years of publishing experience to the new company.

I have long admired Mike's expertise with graphics and web design as well as the production side of publishing. He's also the business manager and particularly easy to work with. The book covers he designs are admired by many, me included. I'll be in charge of all things editorial and dealing with promotion, and we'll both be involved in book launches and events.

The company is new but Mike has experience with Cinnamon Press and I've spent my whole working life in writing and publishing, so we're far from new to the business. The signing of the partnership agreement should have been followed by a champagne celebration - a champagne breakfast at that time of day - but Mike was driving back to Wales and I didn't want to risk losing him straight away! So instead there was a good deal of chatting, laughing, and discussing ideas without alcohol in the London sunshine.

Those of you reading this to find out how to set up a publishing company will want to know how to arrange a partnership agreement and author contracts. We had author contracts which we could modify as we have both worked for publishing companies before, but you can get a model contract from the Society of Authors and tweak it for your own needs. There are partnership agreements available online but most are too complex and would need a lawyer to sort out any amendments. Mike purchased a more simple partnership agreement suitable to our needs.

Soon our website will go live and the first three authors are looking at their contracts as I write this. I'm pleased with the first books we'll be aiming to bring out this autumn and can only let you all guess how it makes me feel to have made this step today. It's the realisation of a long-held dream now that Ward Wood Publishing is born.

The Birth of a New Publishing Company 2

I promised to keep you all informed about the stages in setting up a new publishing company, and although things may sound quiet we've been extremely busy behind the scenes. By later this week I'll be able to issue a press release to give details about the company, the co-owners, and some information about the first authors.

The reason it all seems quiet is that so much needs to be done privately to set up a publishing company before the public launch. We've put together a partnership agreement and also an author contract (more about how to do this in future posts in case you're thinking of starting a company yourselves). My business partner has been working hard at designing a logo and building the website offline.

All of this takes time and good collaboration, and I'm pleased to find we work really well together. My partner is in charge of the website, graphics, production and the business side of things. I'll be dealing with the editorial side and promotion, and we'll both be involved in book launches.

So what have I been doing all this time? The first thing I needed to do was approach authors as the first submissions have been by invitation only. The authors have been incredibly discreet, waiting for the public launch so they can tell others that their books have found a home.

I was delighted to find three exceptional books by three strong and original voices which will start our list. As you can imagine I've been reading manuscripts and working with the first authors selected to edit their books where necessary.

This means that when we sign our partnership agreement tomorrow we shall be ready to launch the company with authors already selected. I can't wait to give you all more details and it won't be long now.

In future posts I'll be talking about how I selected the authors, which should be helpful to writers seeking a publisher. Apart from pleasing the editor there are production factors to take into consideration, such as why some publishing houses ask for books of specific lengths.

So watch out for The Birth of a Publishing Company 3 (it's starting to sound like a movie)!

Shuttle and Sampson Support Homeless Charity Anthology

I had two bits of welcome news to make up for the election chaos this week. One is that I have poems in the Seeking Refuge anthology and will be reading them at the launch this week. The other is that my old tutor Andrew Motion got married on Saturday, so all good wishes to him and his wife.

Andrew was a fabulous tutor and one of those rare life-changing people who cross our paths. He gave me belief in myself as a writer and helped me identify the strengths and weaknesses of my own style without trying to change how I wrote.

Penelope Shuttle and Fiona Sampson are two of the well-known poets supporting Seeking Refuge, the latest anthology from the Camden and Lumen Poetry project in aid of the homeless. Each year Ruth O’Callaghan organises regular open mics with all proceeds going to the Cold Weather Shelters, and readers can submit the poems they perform for inclusion in this prestigious anthology.

Jan Fortune-Wood selected the best poems from last year’s open mics and edited Seeking Refuge, which has been published by Cinnamon Press this year. The standard of the poems is high, and the collection also makes poetry accessible, so the anthology is a perfect gift as Jan indicates: ‘This is real poetry with a real purpose – accessible, entertaining, varied and able to make a difference. Seeking Refuge is both a great way to get into poetry and a fantastic way to support an essential charity housing London’s homeless.’

Seeking Refuge is already available from Inpress Books, and as all proceeds go to the Cold Weather Shelters it’s worth getting a copy and a few extra to give as gifts. The launch, on May 9th in the Lumen venue, is sure to be a vibrant and sociable event, with the selected poets reading their Seeking Refuge poem, and copies available for purchase.

Please share this information and review the book on your websites to raise as much as possible for the Cold Weather Shelters. This project supports two worthwhile causes – poetry with the open mics, and the homeless in the shelters. It’s also good fun to come along and read and you can submit poems to be considered for next year’s anthology. Every penny raised at events and with the anthology goes to the homeless.

You can find the Seeking Refuge anthology on Inpress Books here http://www.inpressbooks.com/seeking_refuge_jan_fortunewood_i020914.aspx and you can see more about it and also find how to take part in the open mics if you look at the Camden and Lumen website here http://www.camdenlumen.wordpress.com Hope to meet some of your there.

Monique Roffey: A White Woman, A Green Bicycle, and the Orange Prize

It came as no surprise to me to hear Monique Roffey had been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for her novel The White Woman on the Green Bicycle. As soon as I received it for review I knew I was in for a treat and I wasn’t disappointed. Roffey is surely one of the best women novelists around and this tale of Trinidad is as irresistible as her earlier work.

Her first novel, Sun Dog, tempted me to buy it after reading an excerpt. It’s not easy for a debut novelist to have this effect, but there was something about her fragile anti-hero as he discovered his body was changing with the seasons, sprouting buds between fingers and toes in Spring. I just had to read more and find out about this shy young man working in a delicatessen and rebelling against the commune upbringing he’d had with his hippy mother.

The White Woman on a Green Bicycle tempts the reader just as Sun Dog did. The lush landscape of Trinidad makes us feel we’re right there, or want to be there. In fact the green hills of Trinidad come so vividly to life that they actually speak to the characters and seduce them or inspire their envy.

It might be hard to imagine why one of the main characters, Sabine, doesn’t want to live there and craves the London suburban home her husband promised her if she would spend a bit of time in Trinidad while he establishes himself in his job. But, from the first days, Sabine is sensitive to the feeling that Trinidad doesn’t want her, doesn’t want the white people still living like the colonialists of the past. She’s both attracted to Trinidad and its people, and also pushed out due to her compassion and awareness. She agrees with the Trinidadians but she isn’t one of them so can’t rebel alongside them.

Her husband George is different. Like the other men sent there by businesses he can be important in Trinidad, can have a decent job, buy land and build his big house, and move on from the strong love he feels for his wife at the start through a series of affairs as the decades become more permissive. Gradually Sabine realises he will never keep his promise to take her home – this is his home. Her children are Creole and love the island, and she’s the only disappointed one: the one who doesn’t ever feel she fits in.

Roffey’s expertise is in telling this story from the point of view of both characters, Sabine and George, and keeping the reader’s empathy for both of them. In fact, we can tell that their love for each other has somehow survived. At the start of the book they’re both old and resigned to what their life has been, having given up on what they had hoped for, so I’ve given away none of the plot.

Instead of making the reader wait to see what happens we start at the end of their lives and the book lets us see back into various details. The first half of the novel is from George’s perspective, as an old man, wanting somehow to redeem himself in his wife’s eyes. The second half is told by the young Sabine from the time of her arrival on the island through the first decades of their marriage.

I particularly enjoy a book that tells me about the history of a country that I hadn’t known about, and Roffey does this in a masterful way. Not long after Sabine and George arrive the Trinidadians are roused to support the charismatic leader Eric Williams who promises to free them from the remnants of colonialism. Sabine is metaphorically seduced by him, empathising with the people, and is emotionally and physically aroused by the atmosphere he creates. I’ll say no more, and leave you to discover how Roffey weaves politics, landscape, the personal and the public figures so that the bigger picture and the smaller picture somehow work together.

If I have a criticism it’s that at times Roffey’s style can follow the day-to-day in such a realistic way that it’s possible to leave the book down and pick it up again weeks later. This happens in some chapters during the first half where we see George’s view of the marriage and Trinidad. Having said that, even his account is interspersed with vivid scenes including the beating of a black teenager by the local police that had me on the edge of my seat.

Once the story moves to Sabine’s perspective I couldn’t get enough of it. There’s always a risk when a novelist tells a story through two different viewpoints that the reader will prefer one to the other. Roffey has imagined life through the experience of both George and Sabine so well that it still feels like a major achievement, and no doubt many male readers will empathise more with George.

Compassion is a quality I look for in a novelist and Roffey certainly has it. She has written so that we can understand the history of Trinidad and this particular marriage, and she has done it without allocating blame so that we understand the reasons for the failures of individuals and even Eric Williams. The characters come to life in our minds and we remember them as if we knew them, and it’s as if we’ve been to Trinidad or want to go. It’s a novel that will stay in the mind like a memory of a real experience, and I highly recommend it.

NaPoWriMo is Here - Time to Write a Poem a Day

April is National Poetry Writing Month - or NaPoWriMo. I'll be attempting to write a poem a day, and not doing any editing or rewriting once I move on to the next day. Impossible to write a good poem like this? Well, it's how Robert Browning wrote Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. During a period of writers' block he decided to write a poem a day and this fabulous poem came in the first few days.

I've registered the Written Word Ning as an official NaPoWriMo group site so people can post their daily poems on the Forum there. Some are already posting and it's a helpful way to share and encourage each other through NaPoWriMo. You can also register yourself individually with the website where you'll be posting poems, or you can do it more privately.

It's helping me to get some poems out there which have been brewing in my head a little too long. So many other vital tasks take all the hours in the day and those poems linger inside. I'm glad April will be a month to prioritise poetry, and if you'd like to join in on the Written Word to share your daily poems you'll find it on http://www.writtenword.ning.com Click Forum on the toolbar and you'll see the NaPoWriMo poems.

I'm off for a break by the sea for a while and will post all my daily poems when I get back.

The Start of a New Publishing Company

In these days of social networks we’re in the habit of saying what we’re doing each day, so it feels especially hard to keep a big secret. Every day my news is that I’m working on a new publishing company due to be launched, reading the submissions, making decisions on which will be the first books to be launched and really enjoying reading the fiction, poetry, short stories and nonfiction sent to me.

But of course I can’t say who the first authors are until we sign the contracts. I shouldn’t even say the company name or who my business partner is until we’ve signed that partnership agreement. It’s all imminent and I’m on all my social networks waiting for the moment when I can reveal all. That moment shouldn’t be too long.

It may seem like an unusual time to start a publishing company, with the recession affecting the business so seriously. There are reasons why I’m doing this now with my partner (I always feel I have to add ‘professional’ to that these days as the word has been given such a different meaning). It has long been my plan to start a publishing company, so when I was approached by a partner with many years of experience and skills I particularly admire I knew it was time to move ahead and do it.

There are other reasons why I would have thought of starting a publishing company now, even if it hadn’t been a plan I’ve been formulating for years. With the recession authors are being left without outlets for poetry and short stories as well as fiction, nonfiction and other forms. Even established authors have lost their publishing companies. This can’t go on.

Authors need to find a publisher and then concentrate on working on their next book knowing that it has a home. They can’t be struggling to find a new publisher when their efforts should be going into writing. The publishers are doing a fantastic job, but we need more outlets as the companies all seem to have long waiting lists of two or even five years.

Of course this means that, as publishers, we need to be able to keep going so that we can offer a secure place. My partner is keeping me to a strict business plan and I know we can go forward and offer this outlet to authors. He also has excellent experience on the production side and his graphics are wonderful. This leaves me free to do what I do best, which includes editing and finding talented authors.

This week I’ve been reading the novel and the poetry collection which should be our first two books, both by authors who have been previously published and whose work I have long admired. I couldn’t put their books down, which is a great sign, and can’t wait to see them launched so that others can enjoy them.

This is the realisation of an important dream for me and fills me with excitement. That thrill is tempered by the need to work on this professionally, to progress with my partner at the type of work we have both done for years. This way authors will have a place for their poetry, short stories, fiction, nonfiction and plays, and readers will be able to get their hands on some excellent books. We aim to publish 10 books in the first year and submissions are mainly by invitation at the moment while we cope with the task of setting it all up.

I’ll be adding blogs about the steps we’re taking as it will be of interest to many of you to hear about the birth of a publishing company in detail.

Camden and Lumen Poetry on Facebook

There’s now a Facebook group for Camden and Lumen Poetry. This has been set up in response to feedback about the website, because people said they liked to be able to keep in touch online between events. This is particularly important for participants who enjoy the project but live all over the UK and beyond, and might not be able to get to London regularly.

The Facebook group will also let other people find out about Camden and Lumen Poetry and all members will be able to invite people from their contacts list. It’s such a worthwhile project to champion poetry and to help the homeless, and this should help spread the word. Of course, you're also welcome to join in with discussions on the Facebook group even if you can't get to Camden and Lumen events so long as it's all poetry or fiction-related.

It’s also possible to leave comments on the Facebook group page, and there’s a discussion forum if you’d like to raise some topics for debate. It doesn’t all have to be serious. Just introducing yourself and putting a link to your website is a great idea. Although many people at the events know each other well, a website link helps newcomers and let’s us all pass an enjoyable time reading each other’s work.

To get to the Facebook group go to the Camden and Lumen website on http://www.camdenlumen.wordpress.com and click on the link on the left of all pages. Alternatively you can search for Camden and Lumen when you’re on Facebook. Let the conversations begin!