The Fringe Club StudioI went to a literary event at the Fringe Club with Sasha from work. A group of publishers, designers, authors, and a publisher's agent sat in a circle to talk about books, publishing, distribution, design and Mainland China. The first half was about how to get books published and distributed books in the Mainland - basically you can't unless you find a trustworthy publisher already based in the Mainland to print the book and get and ISBN for you. Or you can publish them in Hong Kong and re-edit them for sale in the Mainland removing sensitive material. This one publisher said he brought in English books in a box to the Mainland and he was taken to a room to be questioned. They asked him to open the box. He opened the box and pulled out a copy of 'Great walks in China and Tibet'. They let him go. They couldn't read the English. Incidentally, if the title had been translated into Chinese, the book would have been confiscated because Tibet should have been mentioned separately from China. It should have just read 'Great Walks in China'.
The second half was about the books themselves. Basically if you want to publish a book, you need to know someone in the publishing business. The publishers said that 9 times out of 10, they don't publish a book by someone who has sent them a manuscript. They publish ones that have been referred by people they know or by people whom they have met at a function or event. Also, you should have a one liner about the blurb of your book ready to tell the publisher should you ever meet one. Then there was some discussion about layout, size and getting the right cover. An author was there who had actually taken part in the whole design process everything from selecting the paper the book was printed on to the design of the cover that was a folded transparent poster. Her book was about Chinese typography. She selected expensive paper, matte on one side and smooth on the other so when you're flipping the pages you can feel the texture change. I'll like to see the Kindle replicate that! I don't know? Do the general public really care about that kind of thing? I know I do. I particularly like books with pages where it looks like the edge has been torn and is not clean.
In the opinion of one publisher, with the advent of e-books, buying the printed books would likely increase and may eventually turn back into an art form. My advice to anyone who has a good book collection - don't know throw them away. They are going to be antiquities sooner than you think.
I met a girl in at the Fringe Club shop who was manning the sale of books. She actually makes her own scrap books by binding them herself and selling them. I asked her where she bought her paper from and she said for the cover of her books she has a friend who works in an interior design company. The boss throws out scraps of wallpaper and they go to her to make scrap books with. This means it has opened up a whole new arts and crafty window of opportunity for me except I'll probably make one scrap book to put my photos in and that will be that. The coptic binding course is next Saturday. I'm going paper shopping next week for potential cover paper. I ♥ paper.
The second half was about the books themselves. Basically if you want to publish a book, you need to know someone in the publishing business. The publishers said that 9 times out of 10, they don't publish a book by someone who has sent them a manuscript. They publish ones that have been referred by people they know or by people whom they have met at a function or event. Also, you should have a one liner about the blurb of your book ready to tell the publisher should you ever meet one. Then there was some discussion about layout, size and getting the right cover. An author was there who had actually taken part in the whole design process everything from selecting the paper the book was printed on to the design of the cover that was a folded transparent poster. Her book was about Chinese typography. She selected expensive paper, matte on one side and smooth on the other so when you're flipping the pages you can feel the texture change. I'll like to see the Kindle replicate that! I don't know? Do the general public really care about that kind of thing? I know I do. I particularly like books with pages where it looks like the edge has been torn and is not clean.
In the opinion of one publisher, with the advent of e-books, buying the printed books would likely increase and may eventually turn back into an art form. My advice to anyone who has a good book collection - don't know throw them away. They are going to be antiquities sooner than you think.
I met a girl in at the Fringe Club shop who was manning the sale of books. She actually makes her own scrap books by binding them herself and selling them. I asked her where she bought her paper from and she said for the cover of her books she has a friend who works in an interior design company. The boss throws out scraps of wallpaper and they go to her to make scrap books with. This means it has opened up a whole new arts and crafty window of opportunity for me except I'll probably make one scrap book to put my photos in and that will be that. The coptic binding course is next Saturday. I'm going paper shopping next week for potential cover paper. I ♥ paper.
1 comment:
every time i go into booksactually, especially when i pick up their own handstitched notebooks, it will remind me of u:
http://www.timeoutsingapore.com/books/venues/the-specialists/booksactually
one evening i even took a pic of the shop in hope to post it on fb for u 2 see. alas, my photography skill sux!
maybe one day you will come down personally and have a look!
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