I now realise that’s a bit harsh: Australia has a proud history of publishing amazing literature, and my comment was, perhaps, inadvertently disparaging of Australia’s avid-reader population. It was a holier-than-thou thing to say, the implication being that general readers are less discerning than me, which may or may not be true, but a book editor crapping on about his discerning palate is kind of like a mechanic being righteous about the fact he knows how to tune a car better than his customers – this fact is self-evident, otherwise people would tune their own damn cars.

Anyway.

All I was trying to say is that I am excited about having the ability to get amazing manuscripts to publishers on behalf of authors. This is what I want to be doing for my day job. To prolapse the metaphor further: I want to paddle around in a leaky boat, scooping up princess ducks and bringing them to shore, handing them over to publishers and saying, ‘Feed them well, they will nourish many.’

This felt like a pipe dream until I read Nic’s manuscript. It felt like a pipe dream because I knew that I was missing an important element of the equation that equals successful agenting: quality manuscripts.

Quality manuscripts + diligent, active authors + publishing contacts + editorial savvy + youthful naivety + insanity + the empirically unfounded conviction that communication through literature will make the world a better place = Paine Management, my latent literary agency.

I have all of these now, so it’s only a matter of time, patience and dedication – the three core things that got me as far as working as a book editor by 22, something that I had never imagined possible when I was smoking bongs in the back shed and dropping out of uni and scribbling all over those beautiful Peter Carey paperback reprints that UQP released.

So, yeah, the name of my imaginary literary agency is Paine Management. Get it? I will take the pain out of getting your manuscript published, and the pain out of finding a manuscript to publish. I’m allowed to make bad jokes about my name. You are too. (In fact, Sam Twyford-Moore already did it, in a letter to Voiceworks while I was there.)

I want to bundle together a portfolio of the best unpublished manuscripts of young, emerging Australian writers, fold it under my arm and take it, in my leaky boat, to New York City.

I’m thinking of further honing the subject and theme of this blog to cover this journey as an emerging agent – to cover things like trying to develop an author-agent contract when I know almost nothing about contracts. (I’ve taken on contracts administration at work, but I still feel as though I’m learning a second language.)

So if you’re into that sort of thing, come along. Meanwhile, I have a question for you. It’s pretty broad, but here goes: what are your experiences of trying to find a literary agent in Australia?

If you don’t have any experience with this, but know someone who does, please forward a link to this post. I’d like to start a dialogue about it, so I can start thinking about how to achieve this ridiculously ambitious dream of facilitating the best emerging Australian writing onto the world stage.

I hadn’t quite got to wondering about how booksellers might feel threatened by publishers’ online sales, perhaps because I never really buy from physical bookstores, and because I currently work in production, which often leaves me feeling quite removed from the whole extra set of steps that are involved in getting books to readers.

I’m becoming increasingly interested in sales though, and Sam’s article tapped me on the noggin and said, ‘Dear naive and idealistic editor, booksellers are very important to you and your job, and your interest in disseminating ideas with literature.’ So I started riffing on how this shifting relationship might weather the rapid market changes that are being pushed along by this here internet thing.

Perhaps an organised partnership between booksellers and publishers could be established to develop a website that aggregates all of their separate marketing and direct-sales efforts. For these purposes (compared to blogging, say) one big website is surely better than many small ones. Australia Council should fund something like this – just as they’ve recently funded the establishment of Literary Magazines Australia.

Another idea that sprouted was whether booksellers could borrow from the idea of subscription publishing. McSweeney’s do this at their online store. You can sign up to their Book Release Club and receive every book they publish over a twelve month period. Maybe booksellers could offer something similar: I’d like to sign up for a package of ’seller picks’, a bunch of random books from various publishers, delivered to my letter box once a month.¹

The other thing that struck me in Sam’s article was the comment from Don Grover, CEO of Dymocks and aspiring booktrade despot slash self-described benevolent despot: suggesting that ‘a healthy industry occurs when everyone focuses on their own area, their niche in the market’ seems like a typically neo-con thing to say, but my understanding of economic ideology is pretty patchy. Am I right or wrong?

My idea of a healthy industry is one that is not dominated by small groups of large, domineering companies controlling those niches, but one where individuals determine what is produced and how they get it. From this perspective, the suppliers are the ones who need to adapt, rather than trying to restrict trade to a traditional structure of publisher through bookseller to consumer. I guess that’s an irresolvable ideological difference, though.

Or not.

Because then Sam speculated that ‘the coin can also be flipped, the spotlight shifted. Will booksellers be forced to become publishers?’ This must be happening, somewhere.² Curiously (considering my aversion to Grover’s suggestion), this got my hackles up, with its suggestion that booksellers could just whip up the infrastructure required to produce quality books, as if it’s just a matter of pressing the go button on the the Espresso Book Machine.

Thinking about infrastructure, resources and expertise made me realise a more convincing reason publishers should be wary of ‘wading into booksellers’ waters’ (Don Grover’s defensive phrase), and it’s not because they’re not ‘customer-centric’ (also Don’s words). This suggestion denigrates the motives of publishers: does he think we make these books because they look pretty on our shelves? That’s only a secondary reason.

Okay, back to trying to be objective: I’d say a more convincing reason book publishers should be (and, sometimes, are) wary of prolapsing their resources on marketing and direct sales is that they operate in an ailing sector of the economy (especially small-press, literary publishers), within which they have barely enough resources to get their books to print, let alone invest in a serious marketing, sales and publicity strategy.

It’s also possibly true that such print aficionados feel drastically uncomfortable in the online world, and speaking into what seems like an echo chamber a lot of the time. If anything needs to change, I would suggest that booksellers, who will go down the eBookstore path or perish, are in a much better position to drive the development of a collaborative business model that focuses their own, and book publishers’ marketing, sales and publicity efforts. Booksellers and publishers need to share their resources, infrastructure and expertise, so that each is free to work on what they are proficient at, either bookmaking or bookselling.

It’s not as cut and dry as Dan Grover implies, but then, neither is parallel importation, and that didn’t stop him from pushing that wheelbarrow around in the dark.

The rest of the comments in Sam’s article, from all sorts of industry figures, are spectacularly reasonable, and well presented by Sam. A great spectrum of ideas, and all strung together with such clarity and concision. Check it out!

Meanwhile, do you know of examples of this type of bookseller/publisher collaboration? It would be great to keep this dialogue underway about how this changing relationship might morph into something weird, like an Imprints blimp parachuting books to customers in response to sign language made visible by wearing those massive foam-rubber hands.

1. NB: By googling ‘Book a Month Club’, which I thought was the name of McSweeney’s book-subscription service, I found this, The Book of the Month Club, and then I realised that this idea, which I thought was quite novel, is not novel at all, and then I remembered how much I used to bug Mum to join these, but she was savvy to their swindling ways, with which I now sympathise. And anyway, it’s still a better than Don Grover’s idea, which I’m getting to.
2. *googles ‘booksellers turn to publishing’, finds this, is not surprised*

But many young people have come of age to start their publishing endeavours during a time when major world events have occurred (or circumstances have developed) that have changed the way many of us consider our engagement with the world. Not least of these are the issues arising from Western countries’ dubious approach to international economics.

This means that when young publishers learn they can get their books printed bulk-cheap in China, they might wonder about the ethics of exporting work to developing, over-populated economies. One reason the books are so cheap is that labour is inexpensive.

For example, I did some freelance work for aduki independent press while I was in Melbourne, and (then-Publisher) Emily was adamant that her readership wouldn’t buy books that were produced in China – that printing an aduki book in China would go against aduki’s core principles. Granted, aduki have documented their publishing philosophy (which Vignette Press and Ilura Press have signed up to), so they’re kind of an extreme example, but others are conscientious to varying degrees.

Similar questions come up in the location-independence movement. (I’ll call it a movement, cos it’s easier and it fits here.) Location-independent professionals , who move about the world to live and work, must and do consider the ramifications of living cheaply in developing economies while working on projects that channel income elsewhere.

I wonder how much this extends to young people’s consumption of literature. I still boycott Dymocks and the chains that backed the Cheaper Books campaign, and I felt guilty when I thought about buying What is the What direct from McSweeney’s instead of waiting for a paperback Penguin in Australia.

George Dunford, the guy behind Hackpacker (among many other things), coughs up for whatever’s being launched, as a demonstration of solidarity. (So put him on your mailing lists.) And Chris Flynn, the Torpedo guy, told me he considered it his duty to help bailout McSweeney’s when their distro went bankrupt. This was equally opportunistic and charitable, but this sort of thinking happens.

What are some of the ethical considerations that inform your production and consumption of literature?

____________
UPDATE ‘Ethics of Publishing’ was cross-posted at Spike, the Meanjin blog.

I’ve been digging in at work and making the most of the cold summer I was welcomed with, and I’m ready to start soliciting book proposals or manuscripts, maybe, depending on the proposal. In particular I’m interested in challenging non-fiction by young, emerging writers, so if you have an idea for a book, please read on.

Soon I will post some more specific ideas about my ideal book proposal, but for now I want to put it out there that a book proposal is more than just a few sample chapters and a synopsis: it is a document that conveys a comprehensive concept of what sort of book the manuscript could become, and how the book might be brought to the attention of its potential readership. And I’d like to get a bit of discussion happening about a trend I’ve noticed.

I don’t know if it’s like this in the big houses, but we usually like it when an author shows the sort of initiative that might help to sell the book. Authors have to sell their books too, and this may as well start early.

While it’s difficult to predict the sales of any given book, and I don’t expect a sales-projection spreadsheet, a little demonstrated awareness of the life of your manuscript in book form will go a long way. That’s because in the independent sector there seems to be a dearth of marketing, sales and publicity personnel – probably because there’s not a lot of cash flowing around to pay for the sort of people whose natural inclination is to sell things – and the result is that authors need to get on board in the sales department.

What do you think of this?

Actually moving units seems to have become a subset of tasks in the process of producing and publishing literature. Marketing is almost a dirty word in some literary circles. And this troubles me immensely because I don’t see the point in slaving over a book (as either an author or an editor) if you can’t be bothered getting it to readers who aren’t already tuned in to the value of reading literature.

I want to find an amazing work of literature, see it through the production process, and then sell the fuck out of it. For shame?

Back to the other point of the post.

Wakefield Press Books

To save you some of the trouble of researching our list: Wakefield publishes primarily non-fiction, and of that, primarily history, memoir, gastronomy (including the unfortunately labelled ‘gastro memoir‘) and DIY books. We also publish literary fiction, something that began to be called life writing (extraordinary stories of ordinary people), and poetry. Oh, and art books – such as those published as part of SALA Festival.

My Interests

To give you an idea of the sort of book I’m looking for, those of my interests that align with Wakefield’s publishing program include: progressive thinking about popular culture, politics, economics, religion, philosophy, tangential history and real-life curiosities; vegetarian cookbooks, especially those that function as part treatise, part guidebook for adopting the lifestyle; youth literature, by which I mean literature by young writers, as defined by this blog; adventurous fiction – so, no landscape fiction or novels about art hoaxes; biographies of outstanding ordinary people; satire and parody.

I worked on most of those linked books above – except for Amore and Amaretti, the DIY books and most of the SALA books – and I enjoyed them all immensely, if that provides another indication of the sort of books I’d like to consider.

Submitting your Proposal

Check out this link, where you’ll find our submission guidelines (which are pretty basic, and mostly common sense) and a postal address. Do not email your proposal. Wakefield is not currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts, but if you’ve read this then, well, yours is not exactly unsolicited. Feel free to contact me at Wakefield with any queries you have. I prefer to answer phones than emails.

This may come as a surprise to many of my friends and colleagues in Melbourne, but it’s been on my mind and in the works for a couple of months. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and working with the wonderful people at Wakefield. I’m looking forward to having an occupation again.

For seven months after Voiceworks I drove aimlessly around Queensland in my campervan, Delilah. For the last five months in Melbourne I have found it difficult to shake my holiday habits – in particular my tendency to start the day by sitting down with a computer and/or a book and chasing miscellaneous ideas down rabbit holes, which is fun, but not conducive to gainful employment or paying the bills or saving the world.

A lot of these ideas have related to agency and social entrepreneurship, as I have dallied with the idea of starting up a literary agency. The loftiness of this ambition has dawned on me only recently – along with the fact I am wildly under qualified. So I’ve deferred these aspirations for the short term. I will spend the next couple of years gaining experience of other areas in the industry – rights and contract management, hopefully. I will knuckle down and get to New York, where I hope to gain a placement with an agency – as a reading assistant or general work-experience lacky.

Wakefield, blessedly, are aware of my long-term ambitions. They always have been, even as I fumble about figuring out exactly what they are. When they originally employed me as a typesetter, they knew about and supported my aspirations to work as an editor. I took manuscripts home to work on in my spare time, and gradually worked up to the point where I was typesetting half the time, and editing the rest of the time, or thereabouts. I will do the same again.

Because this work aligns so perfectly with my own work, I don’t baulk at working overtime to advance my skills and experience. So I’ll continue to work with the writers I have been building relationships with, to the extent that I can in my spare time or within my new in-house capacity. I hope to bring my new networks and experience into this equation.

This decision also has ramifications for this blog: the new focus in my life will inevitably be reflected here. It’s early yet, but I have plans to move this away from a blog where I ‘empty my thoughts … on literary culture, philosophy and interesting things that happen’, and develop a focus on my exploits going into bat for young writers, as a book editor, aspiring agent and location-independent social entrepreneur.

Wakefield Press are incredibly supportive employers – such that Michael and Stephanie, as well as various members of the long-term staff have continued to be inspirational mentors and friends during my years at Voiceworks. I look forward to upholding their motto: ‘We love good stories and make beautiful books.’

I’ll be having short-notice farewell drinks at Prudence this Friday, from 5pm if you want to come.