A sad day for the book industry
I received this email last week from a writer contact who is doing her bit to help Salt Publishing which is going under. It’s a desperate plea for help to keep the enterprise afloat.
I’m not sure what my views or feelings are about this “Save the Whale”- style campaign. The idea seems to be that you can do your bit by buying just one book from them - any book. It doesn’t matter if you want it or will read it, just do it out of charity or pity. Is this a good business model for the future of the publishing house? What happens after the charity donations are all used up - will they go round with cap in hand again? Why not forget publishing books altogether and just hand round the tin cup?
At the same time, I can understand their desperation. The publishing industry is at a cross roads at the moment, with the big J K Rowling type blockbusters make heaps of money and the lesser known gems just shrivelling away into nothing. Small publishers and small bookshops have their role in the community and in getting literary gems out to the public. I can also connect with the sentiment that “if you love literature, help keep it alive” - but if you’re just buying a book out of pity, does that really help literature?
I think we’re facing a huge shift in mindset and culture - people are no longer reading books but they are engaging in ideas and thoughts in other ways eg via multimedia and online. This is clearly evidenced in what’s happening to Salt Publishing. Is the way forward for publishers to rethink how they engage with their customers eg via e-books or re-inventing themselves as content publishers rather than purely paper book publishers? Or is it even more radical than that - that passive content is no longer enough but that people are looking for interactivity/ collaboration and all those other social media style ways of engaging?
I don’t know the answer. As a writer, I’m watching these developments closely as I have a vested interest in publishers surviving and thriving. But as a consumer, I myself prefer movies, TV series, downloadable content, blogs and other online multimedia. The only books I buy these days are non-fiction history, biography, business, running and tech or communications related books because they give me real value that I can’t find elsewhere. Sad to say, I don’t read novels anymore because they are made up - I want to know about the real world and real people and real events….
What do you think? Can you - will you - help Salt Publishing in the way they have asked? Or can you think of another way to help them - or any other small publishing house?
Here’s the email in full:
——
Saving Salt Publishing: Just One Book
Friday, May 22, 2009
As many of you will know, Jen and I have been struggling to keep Salt moving since June last year when the economic downturn began to affect our press. Our three year funding ends this year: we’ve £4,000 due from Arts Council England in a final payment, but cannot apply through Grants for the Arts for further funding for Salt’s operations. Spring sales were down nearly 80% on the previous year, and despite April’s much improved trading, the past twelve months has left us with a budget deficit of over £55,000. It’s proving to be a very big hole and we’re having to take some drastic measures to save our business.
JUST ONE BOOK
1. Please buy just one book, right now. We don’t mind from where, you can buy it from us or from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline. If you buy just one book now, you’ll help to save Salt. Timing is absolutely everything here. We need cash now to stay afloat. If you love literature, help keep it alive. All it takes is just one book sale. Go to our online store and help us keep going.
UK and International
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/index.php
USA
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop-us/index.php
2. Share this note on your Facebook or MySpace profile. Tell your friends. If we can spread the word about our cash crisis, we can hopefully find more sales and save our literary publishing. Remember it’s just one book, that’s all it takes to save us. Please do it now.
If you want to follow the news story you can read more on The Bookseller site here: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/86331-salt-campaigns-for-survival.html
Or to our Facebook note here:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=100619421203
Or to our spoof YouTube campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcTqXaOD2s
Chris and Jen,
Salt
- Posted on
Fri, May 29th, 2009 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 7 responses
- Leave a comment
May 29th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Hi Yang-May. This is an interesting post with too many complex points for me to engage with! Perhaps someone else can help…
I am now a Salt poet (since March 2009 when my collection was published). I doubt Salt see the current campaign as a business model. The business was going well until the recession hit. They need to sell books at the moment to give themselves a degree of stability. I know they feel that, within a year, they will be in a much more stable position if they can ride out the next few months.
Speaking personally, I wouldn’t buy a book purely out of charity or pity unless I thought I might really enjoy it. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to either but, if readers are interested in short stories or poetry, I’m pretty sure they’d find something to their taste at the Salt site. It covers a very wide range and offers .pdf samples on all the author pages.
I was happy to buy a couple of books from Salt last week because I was interested in the books anyway. I’ve bought quite a few books from them over the last few years. It’s all to the good that I think they’re worth supporting for artistic, literary reasons. Obviously, I have selfish reasons for wanting them to stick around too, but I would have bought books irrespective of that.
Salt has been looking at e-books and audio books over the last whilet. I know they intend to develop that side of the business in a big way.
I guess some people will want more interactive material. But other people will prefer books, whether e-books or paper. I still prefer paper, but I know the technology of the e-readers is improving all the time. I will no doubt convert at some point.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Hi Rob - I think you’re right. If all this brings Salt books and authors to the eye of readers who like those works and prompt them to buy the books that they would enjoy, then that would hopefully help the publishing house and its authors like yourself. I hope Salt stays afloat long enough to develop audiobooks of high quality work as I really enjoy audiobooks - which are perfect especially when I have little time to sit down for hours to read a book but can be entertained and educated by audio while I take care of daily mundane tasks!
May 30th, 2009 at 1:45 am
Hello Yang-Mei,
I’m fully in agreement with Rob and commend him for the lovely tone of his reply. It’s so easy to get hot-headed about a subject of importance to you, so easy to hit “send.” As a librarian who worked for over 30 years in public libraries and now works for a poetry non-profit, I have observed Salt with great interest since joining facebook. They have taken an active part in making a lively, literate corner on fb and have drawn me to their web site where I’ve hungrily admired the great variety of their publications.
When the notice came out that Salt was foundering, I chose to send a donation rather than to buy books. I really believe in small presses and the important work they do and preferred to immediately give such boost as I could rather than agonize over which book to choose. I have full confidence that I will be buying their books in the future and not out of pity or charity.
Without small presses, what will be lost to many of us is inestimable. Yes, the web can and will absorb some of what is published by small press. But there is no substitute for a fine press that makes intelligent decisions–a press you come to trust. A publisher like Salt helps to lead people to poetry and fiction they would not otherwise find on their own.
There is one statement in your posting that I wish you’d rethink. You said: “Sad to say, I don’t read novels anymore because they are made up - I want to know about the real world and real people and real events….”
It may be that you are making a distinction between “facts” and “truth” and that you prefer to read non-fiction because you feel that it is connecting you to “the real world and real people and real events,” i.e., facts. But poetry and literary fiction can connect you to deep truths about the world, people, life, your own self and heart. That is as important or more important, (at least to me), than what often passes for fact but is, in fact, (or truth), just one person’s version of what is “real.”
By all means, connect with literature in whatever way is comfortable for you. But don’t give up on fiction and poetry and certainly not on the printed, (on paper), word. And please support small presses. Some of them publish non-fiction! Important non-fiction that is too risky for large presses.
This advice comes from someone who has been reading for nearly 60 years, enjoys everything from books, to the text on a cereal box, to the postings on facebook, to the subtitles on a film in a language other than English. In other words, language, everywhere.
With best regards!!
May 30th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Thanks, Martha, for your considered and well argued response. If my post on this topic highlights the plight of small presses through this quality of debate, this is a great result!
I do mean “fact” rather than “truth”, you’re right. And of course a compilation of facts do not necessarily mean the truth. I think right now, I am looking for interpretations and discussions of what is in the world so non-fiction is where I find that. I’ve just read a fascinatint collection of essays in a book called “Running and Philosophy” - which I suspect is printed by a small press as it’s not exactly blockbuster material!
For fiction, it’s films and TV dramas that feed me there at the moment. But I wont fotget your reminder not to give up on written fiction and poetry!
Thanks again for joining the discussion!
May 30th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Hey Yang-May,
I don’t have time to write a thoughtful and detailed comment, but I did this:
http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/myblog/help-save-salt-buy-one-book-today.html
I also posted same on Ode exchange here: http://www.odemagazine.com/exchange/
However, as it’s Saturday, it will take a few days for that post to appear.
Also, here are some random thoughts:
I’ve always thought it ironic that one of the Internet’s most “successful” sites began as on online bookstore
It appears to me that paper magazines have proliferated almost as quickly as online magazines over the past 5 years (well, maybe not quite, but you get the idea…LOL)
There’s nothing like reading a REAL book, especially a HARD COVER, it’s like drinking a fine wine…
The movie is almost never as good as the book
Some things should be supported just because it’s the right thing to do
Finally, on the subject of truth, do let me know when you discover the definitive version, the more I live, the more elusive I find “truth” to be.
Have a great weekend :)
June 1st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
This is not so much a charitable plea as a supposition that many book lovers have missed their publications and might, after buying one book, continue to be customers.
I am a Salt author also and would have to say that the owners have been the nicest publishers to deal with. It would be a sad day indeed if they had to lose their business. They have published a great list in the past and were doing okay until the current crisis.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Thanks, Susan and Fiona, for adding to the discussion. Fiona - good to hear that Salt have been the nicest publishers to deal with. I notice that a lot of book/ lit bloggers have blogged about their plight so let’s hope it all helps them!