Archive for October, 2009

Heidegger Soup

Friday, October 30th, 2009

 

Some families go to classical concerts or visit an art gallery. Something truly cultured for the parents and educational for the children. We had webite-home-042smalla family outing, too, last night – a birthday treat for our ten-year-old – and we watched a rather striking performance of the American rock band Bowling For Soup at the Roundhouse in Camden. How many times can I scream the F-word and C-word into the mike – that, I think, was the name of their game, and whatever their aim might have been, I seriously believe they overshot  their target by far. Raving applause. Best ever gig – as far as the youth of today was concerned.

 

Back home I on the other hand needed to be consoled and threw myself into the arms of my newly found love of the moment – Heidegger, yes, Martin his first name. It’s taken me a while to succumb. He’s been standing in my bookshelf for some time now, stalking me, now finally I am starting to get his drift. But – blimey – what an abstract soul, completely locked inside language, while he claims to be sorting out the meaning of Being–in-this-World. I wonder if it would have helped him to attend just a single Bowling for Soup concert. How would he have reacted to the heaving mass of bodies and to the sexual innuendo left right and centre? Perhaps it might have helped him to come down to earth a bit. Maybe he then could have skipped his infatuation with the extreme right-wing politics? As I think about it, I’m nearly ready to defend Bowling For Soup - although not until they clean up their language a fair bit! 

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Posted in Life Philosophy | No Comments »

High Heels brought down to Earth

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

 

High hopes. That’s what I had for the Frankfurt book fair last week. Yep, those ones over there. But, my God, how low did I sink, stripped of all webite-home-031smallmy dignity at the end.

 

Day One I managed well, twelve half-hour meetings and two parties at night. The next day I was fading. Another twelve meetings, one reception and one party later, I stood at the side of a road, ready to burst into tears because my feet were so painful and there was no taxi in sight. The following day I woke up with a desperate urge for some down-to-earth pragmatism. With five minutes to spare I rushed into the next best shoe shop and grabbed the plainest boots with the lowest heel I could find in my size. They did the trick – I admit. As I walked pain-free to my next meeting, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head: I told you, didn’t I, you’d break your neck with these mickey mouse shoes. Ha, she was wrong – I didn’t break my neck, did I, merely had a little cry because of swollen feet. That’s all.

 

So obviously I was terribly busy with shoe issues. Did I achieve anything else? Well, I sold all the Peirene books to Canada, made headway with American and Australian publishing houses who might buy one or the other title, I pitched for three new Peirene books. But the best was the networking. I just love the Frankfurt book fair. The amount of people one can meet there is just phenomenal– old faces, new faces, unexpected faces and afterwards all the contact via email and phone becomes so much easier. Face-to-face communication is still the top runner.

 

I also had some deep philosophical thoughts about numbers and that we humans are so impressed by numbers and want to impress with numbers. The first day, when asked how many books I intend to publish a year, I’d say six. A straight forward lie. I intend to publish four. Because with four I know I can give them their due – after all I am a one-woman-show and publishing books is just one part of what I do, in fact the easy part. It’s the marketing and publicity that takes the time. And I truly want to give each of my little babies their fair share. Somehow that sounds far less impressive than throwing around big figures.  I got better at sticking proudly to the truth the lower my heels went. But I vehemently would like to reject the idea that there might be a link between numbers and heels. In fact my mission until the next Frankfurt book fair is to find the ultimate heel  - high but marathon proof. I am open for suggestions.

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Posted in Literary Fairs | No Comments »

Voodoo Words

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

 

Ever heard of Sabon and Bembo? Really? Then you are – in my eyes at least – an interesting person, a valuable contact and skilled in typesetting.webite-home-026 I now also have something to do with typesetting – I am a publisher, aren’t I? – but until a couple of days ago I had never heard of Sabon and Bembo. I truly believed that a beautiful, readable text just appears on the page. Abracadabra – and that’s it!

 

The new-born publisher is very excited, her first text will be type-set today. She takes her beautifully designed cover, the preliminary pages, the layout and the text to the typesetter. The typesetter throws a quick glance at the stuff brought to him. “Bembo is a particularly tricky font, we might have to deal with a lot of gappy lines.” The new-born publisher, who has just arrived on planet print, never heard of gappy lines. And Bembo? All she can see are normal letters and that’s what’s matters. They look pretty similar to Times New Roman in her word documents. She shrugs her shoulders and thinks: Bembo? Some typesetter jargon, surely nothing she needs to worry about. She goes home, with a smile on her face, soon she will have a beautiful text ready to go to the printers.

Little does she know that her peaceful nights are counted.

The next morning she finds on her screen the type-set text, it looks odd. Some lines have more gaps then words. She e-mails back: We need to adjust those lines. The typesetter obliges. The gaps disappear but now the lines look cramped. Words run into each other. She spends a sleepless night. Surely it must be possible to just put a text normally on the page. She rings the typesetter the next morning. “I told you,” he replies, “that’s what you get.” Despair descends upon her. Again, she hears him mumble this Voodoo word, Bembo. She has absolutely no clue what he is talking about. “I’ll send you the text in Sabon,” he then adds with rising frustration. SABON?  There are just too many bizarre words around for this new-born publisher and she is overcome by an immense desire to crawl under the duvet covers. In the meantime the Sabon text arrives. She opens the file – the last act she will  perform before ending her life  – and Abracadabra the text problems have disappeared.

 

So, did she that night sleep safe and sound, with sweet dreams about Sabon on her mind? No! She woke up at 2am and laid wide awake until 4 am, worrying now about the book’s size. It’s a small book – because her texts are short. But is the book perhaps too small? Will people like the fact that in the bookshelves the spine will be shorter? And will the die cut on the book sleeve work. It’s a stunning idea but will it tear too easily? At 5 am she decides to get up. The least she can do is write her blog, a blissful simple task in comparison to her Voodoo publishing world.

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Born to be a Publisher

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

 

I’ve said it on the website, I’ve said it on e-mail, and now I say it again: We, that is Peirene, her German author Delius und I were quoted in the webite-home-024-smallBookseller! Yep The Bookseller. Malcom Burgess from Oxygen wrote a two page article on German literature in translation – and we are in it!

 

But that’s not all! Oh no! We are indeed en route to stardom.

 

Yesterday I received an email from a big on-line lit magazine in the US. They are planning an article on Peirene Press as part of their Frankfurt series and would I mind answering some question. Simple, straight forward questions, such as What made you set up Peirene? How are you plans coming along? What editorial guidelines do you use? I was of course delighted and immediately set down to answer in great detail. In fact I told a whole little story about how last year we had enough money to buy a car or convert the attic or install a fitted kitchen. Instead we decided to set up a publishing house. I was about to push the send button. Then I hesitated, something was not quite right with my answers. I just didn’t know what. So I rang up my business advisor ( formerly “husband” but I am no longer allowed to mention The Husband, see below)  and read questions and answers out to him. He stopped me after my little story.

“That sounds awful.”

“Why?”Always good to go straight into the defense. “It’s quite funny and well written.”

“True. But it sounds as if you only set up the publishing house because you had some money. What you need to get across, however, is that you would have set up Peirene regardless, even if you had to take out a loan. Because you have things to offer, that’s why you set it up. You really need to sharpen your act up, woman. You need to tell the world that you were born to be a publisher and don’t mention husbands and kitchens!”

“Oh really? Born to be a publisher? Such rubbish. No one ever was born to be anything. And let me tell you something, mate, if you were truly walking around telling your clients that you were merely born to be with them– you’d be out of a job tomorrow. Because no one wants such spineless creature. So you really are advising me here on something you yourself don’t practice. Thanks so bloody much!

 

End of conversation. I slammed down the phone, got up, made myself a cup of coffee, sat down again, stared at my little story. Of course I knew this business advisor was right. That’s why I called him in the first place. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I also knew why I couldn’t put my finger on it because I literally tend to forget that I have things to offer and that I honestly believe that these things are worth while and – after all I am intending to run a business - could make some money with it.

I rewrote the answer. Much more to the point. I did however stop short of  writing I-was-born-to-be-a-publisher. I leave that to the business advisor. And we’ll see who will bring the bread on the table in old age.

 

PS  As soon as the article appears I will point it out. You won’t miss it, I promise!

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Posted in one-woman-show | 1 Comment »