Valley Press Friday Digest, #9 ('Here's Looking at You' edition)

Last week I took to Twitter to share this quote:

"Poems are, for me, a way of riding the carousel horse clean off the carousel." – Helen Burke
— Valley Press (@valleypress) June 17, 2014

So where's it from? Well, I'm pleased to report it's from the introduction to Helen's second collection of poetry, Here's Looking at You Kid, which Valley Press will be publishing in 2014 - you heard it here first!

You can't buy, or even pre-order Helen's new volume yet - we're still putting the finishing touches to the text - but I'm telling you about it today (just like I discussed a November title in digest #7) because I've realised the following:

1. I spend at least 75% of my working week on titles that won't be released for many months in the future.
2. I have been avoiding talking about these titles because I felt it was wiser to talk about books that are out, and you can actually buy now.
3. As a result of points 1 and 2, I will struggle to fill these blog posts on an average week (as we saw in digests #4 and #5) - because I can't tell you about 75% of the stuff I'm doing!

I could (and perhaps will) remedy this by putting the webpages for books online earlier in the production process - in fact that's quite a good idea, why didn't I think of that before! Someone make a note! But it's getting fairly late in the day, so for now I'll just concentrate on telling you more about what should be our seventh book of the year.

The official release date for Here's Looking at You Kid is the 17th October, though I plan to print copies well before that; part of the new Valley Press publishing strategy is to print and promote titles early, when it can still make a big difference (I'll let you know how that goes). I want to say right away how excited I am about this book - people have been falling over themselves to praise Helen's first volume, The Ruby Slippers, over the last few years, and I think this new offering is even better.

Part of the reason for that is how this collection was brought together: it is filled with 'Poems by Request', a fact which (as you can see below) gets a mention on the front cover. Helen is a poet constantly on tour, and she makes time at each stop to take 'requests' from the audience, for favourite poems from her oeuvre. The new collection brings these together (minus any already in Ruby Slippers); poems selected by the public and tested on audiences all over the world. Each one is someone's favourite - but which will be yours? (That's not a bad line actually... must add that to the blurb.)

So here's what looks likely to be the final cover:

I got this on my sixth attempt, which is pretty much 'par for the course' for VP book cover designs. For those who are interested, here is a rogues' gallery of all six:

The main problem I had was that the cover illustration (which is by the author - the book is fully illustrated, by the way) is the same aspect ratio as a Valley Press book; meaning if I reproduced it full-size, it would fill the whole front cover exactly, leaving no room for any text. So then, how to crop or shrink it for best effect? The other problem was how to combine the undeniably fun, hippie-esque ethic of the book, with the fact that actually it happens to be poetry, thank you very much, and poetry book covers must be serious. (Serious-ish.) I hope you like what we ended up with.

Helen was my very first 'signing' as a full-time publisher, so working with her again is like stepping back in time, in a sense. I started Valley Press over the new year, 2010/2011, and when I properly sat down to work, one of the first things I did was to write to Helen and ask if she'd be interested in doing a full-length collection (I'd read some of her self-produced pamphlets, and seen her read a couple of times - I considered myself a 'fan'). I spent my £200 'will it work' grant from the Prince's Trust on the first print run of The Ruby Slippers, and after the launch event at the Poetry Cafe, duly reported back that it had worked, and I did have a business idea worth pursuing, after all. Here are a couple of pictures from that launch, more-or-less exactly three years ago:

Oh, and for extra kicks, the launch poster:

It was all so exciting back then ... everything was a 'first', in this case the first VP event held outside Yorkshire. I sold copies of the book on the train, both there and back, to the people I was sitting across from - magical days! And you know what, I feel exactly as excited about the new book, having written all this. So I should put that to use and work on it! (See you next week.)

Valley Press Friday Digest, #1

The management of this blog have been talking, and we've decided to attempt a bi-weekly schedule of posts for the foreseeable future. The thinking is that the posts will be 'updates on our projects, reviews of poetry books, little interviews with authors and other publishers, write-ups of events, and reflections on publishing.' So if any of that sounds good, you'll want to come here more often!

To this end, I'm going to post a short(ish) blog every Friday letting the world know what's been happening at Valley Press over the last five days; a helpful digest for people who don't follow every single tweet I post (so, for people). This will take a certain amount of discipline, not something I've previously been known for, but I like a challenge - lets see how far I can get. Emma has warned me that nobody reads anything on the internet on Friday, but that's probably for the best while I figure out the finer points of this new undertaking.

This has been quite an eventful week, so without further ado, here is the first Friday Digest:

• Our latest book has arrived, and is pictured below. The arrival of a finished book is almost enough of a high that I can live on that alone, especially when it coincides with the author writing to me saying I'd made her childhood dream come true (I'm sure Sarah won't mind me sharing that!) In some ways, it feels even more of an achievement when the book in question is a novel; novels are such big blocky things, and take so many hours of effort to produce (easily twice as much as a poetry book), that when the job gets done I feel I've really accomplished something epic. Please hum the opening music from 2001: A Space Odyssey as you gaze on this monument to human achievement:

• In celebration of the paperback book arriving, I also produced a Kindle edition. I put in just a little more effort than usual to include drop-caps and similar niceties, yet for some reason they only appear on your Kindle device, or on the PC software, not on the 'look inside' web preview. If any techy types are passing by - why is that?

• Talking of web previews, the publication of Love and Eskimo Snow inspired me to use 'issuu', for the first time, to show website visitors exactly what reading the book would be like (click through and scroll down to see what I'm talking about). As of yet I've had no feedback on this feature, good or bad - do we like it? Should I do more in future? 

• Because you'll never see them otherwise, here are the first and second cover designs I produced for the book, dating from November and March. I think good taste triumphed in the end, don't you?

 

 

• Besides the arrival of the new book, the big news was that - as of 11am yesterday - Valley Press is once again open to unsolicited submissions. The only catch is that you have to buy a book through the VP website before you can send anything in. I'm looking forward to seeing how the world responds to this! I've been trying to solve the problem of submissions ever since I started; I feel they are an important part of a publisher's job, but with a ratio so far of (approximately) 1000 enquiries to (exactly) 7 books found through this avenue, I was spending an awfully high number of my working hours on a part of the business that doesn't make money. Now, that won't be the case.

• I have to dutifully credit Emma for coming up with this idea, though she has gone about it in an altogether more generous, classy and professional way - 'The Emma Press Club', which you can read about here. My wording on the VP contact page is pretty much 'buy something, then we'll talk'; but at least there should be no confusion, right...?

• Before I could re-open submissions, I felt it was my solemn duty to catch up with all the unread ones that have amassed over the last few years (I found one dating back to November 2012 - sorry to that person!) Having worked through both my folder on the computer, and my 'bag for life' full of paper, I believe myself to be completely up to date in this regard; but if you know differently, and think I've missed you, please get in touch.

• I spent the whole of Tuesday at an intense 'Social Media Masterclass' put on by Superfast North Yorkshire; I felt totally drained at the end, but I did take about ten pages of notes, which I will dig out in a week or two when I've fully recovered. I was sat next to a very smart freelance marketer named Jane Harper, who suggested this Facebook thread which ended up being extremely popular and interesting.

• Miscellany: I also found time this week to work on my new website design, which may or may not arrive in July. Aesthetically, there won't be a big difference to the current one, but it should be easier to buy the books (which is important), and it'll be really easy to use if you're browsing on a mobile phone or small tablet. Finally, I entered the eligible 2013 books into the 2015 Read Regional scheme, and bought 400 jiffy bags (which costs £50, if you're wondering). I think that's everything.

• Web links of the week: This week we were all excited by the detailed review of Pocket Horizon in The Lancet, and I also really enjoyed this interview between Jonny Aldridge (who I've previously declared to by my favourite reviewer) and Mike Di Placido. 'Don't give up until you're five years dead,' Mike declares.

• Further reading: I must admit the only publishing blog I really read, religiously, is Charles Boyle's, and I enjoyed this post this month (for obvious reasons). I especially like the bit where he thinks perhaps CB Editions has been successful because it received zero funding, which is a beautifully empowering thought. (By the way, I think I might have got the 'bullet point' format subconsciously from him.) I'm sure there are other great publishing blogs I could be reading - if you know of one, why not let me know? Emma also pointed me in the way of this post by Fiona Moore, which is a great insight into a typical pamphlet publishing process from a poet's perspective (Emma recommended this post through a haze of jealousy over how well it was written - which is usually a good indicator of quality).

• Oh, and in case you were wondering after bullet point five, the VP books that have been found through an unsolicited submission: Encore, Form, Winston & Me, A Family Behind Glass, Zachariah: The Boer Diamond, An Anniversary of Flight, Love and Eskimo Snow.

Catch-up with Valley Press: Jamie McGarry interviewed by Greg Freeman

This interview originally appeared here, on the poetry hub 'Write Out Loud', and was conducted on the 9th March 2014.  Questions were asked by Greg Freeman, answers given by Valley Press editor Jamie McGarry.

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You’ve recently completed a “national tour”, to celebrate, among other things, your five-year anniversary. How did the tour go, and how did Valley Press start?

The tour went well - I'd always envisioned a tour before Christmas on the five-year anniversary, and it was tremendously invigorating to see it come to fruition, and to be living out of a suitcase, travelling round the country celebrating the books I'd published.  I usually lead a rather quiet, uneventful life, so this for me was literally the most excitement I'd had in years... I think the authors and attendees had fun too.  In terms of enjoyment it was a success, and I also made a bit of money out of it, so no complaints.

Jamie looking suitably prosperous, 'on tour' November 2013.

I had also planned to release a celebratory anthology at the five-year anniversary, featuring an extract from each VP book and details of the origins and development of the press.  In the end, it wasn't possible, but I still hope to do it later this year - I may re-write history and say Valley Press began with the first publication of someone other than myself, in October 2009, thus keeping the whole 'five years, fifty books' thing going (which was the title of the tour).

The story from 2008 was that, after failing a Primary Teaching course, I decided to throw myself into literature as a possible alternative career.  I'd been pursuing teaching simply because it seemed like a sensible route to take, but with that door now closed, I was suddenly free to experiment... and with a novel and enough poems for a book sitting on my hard drive, I decided to leap straight into self-publication, without even trying other routes.  It wasn't about the fame and fortune at that point, it was more about the process: I published the first two VP books just to see if I could bring a book into existence.  I think there were only 40 copies of each produced, most of which I gave away, but it was enough to get a taste for what publishing would be like.

By 2010 I had published ten books, and got myself a degree in English Lit, so the future would have been back on course - except, eight months after graduation I was unable to find any employment, so I had almost no choice but to try running Valley Press full-time from January 2011.  And things have worked out surprisingly well!  I suppose the moral of all this is, every failure is an opportunity - just keep plodding forwards, and keep bumping into walls until you find a door.

You also publish fiction and non-fiction. How big a part does poetry play in your output?  How do you regard the prospects for poetry publishing and sales of poetry?

Valley Press is mostly about the poetry, truth be told.  The ratio of poetry to non-poetry reflects my own interests as a reader, therefore around three-quarters of the output has been, and will always be, poetry.

Your visitors will be pleased to hear I think the prospects are extremely good for poetry publishing.  Maybe it's just the way my operation is skewed, but VP poetry titles have always performed as well as - if not better than - the fiction and non-fiction titles.  When marketing, and direct selling at events, I've found readers are readers and are interested in the topic, content and appearance of a book primarily, not worrying too much if it's in verse or not.  I may be wearing large blinkers, but I can only see engagement with poetry growing in the future.  Each identifiable niche of the media seems to have an increasingly audible voice, and with people's attention spans allegedly shrinking, poetry could go truly 'mainstream' (the way erotic fiction has) at any moment.  I'm waiting...

In 2013 came the intriguing news that Valley Press and another small press publisher, The Emma Press – known in particular for its Mildly Erotic anthology – had become “engaged” with a view to marriage. Can you explain this a bit more?

I heard about the Emma Press when Emma published her first book... there was just something about that book, and the press, and its owner, that captured and held my attention like nothing I'd ever seen before.  As me and Emma began communicating, in a series of lengthy emails, I realised our values were pretty much exactly aligned.  Not only did I believe the Emma Press was destined for great things, I wanted to do all I could to help it get there; so we began sharing information and resources in an admirably selfless manner, as well as selling each other's books at markets and events.

The 'engagement' was our idea for formalising this arrangement, in the amusing, romantic and wholesome style preferred by Emma and myself.  Our first act post-engagement was to start a joint blog - see here for the first post, announcing our intentions.  This connection is probably the best thing that ever happened to Valley Press, and I'm keen to keep it going (and growing) in the years to come... though we haven't set a date yet for the 'wedding', which would perhaps come with a shared anthology.  To add a pleasant extra note of complication, I myself am engaged and planning a wedding at the moment, so the key question is: will l beat Valley Press to the altar...?

What has been your most satisfying moment in poetry publishing so far?

The moments I remember the most are the book launches; where it's a book by a person I really admire and respect, we've spent months editing/designing it and got it exactly right, and where dozens and dozens of people horde in and buy big handfuls of copies each.  There was the palace visit as well (see below), but nothing can compare to nights that fit the description above - and I have been lucky enough to have quite a few of those.

Your website mentions the weighty number of submissions you receive each year.  How should a poet who wishes to be published approach you?  Are there any dos and don’ts?

I am constantly grappling with submissions, and it is not an understatement to say I change my policy on them every month - which can be quite frustrating for submitters, I imagine.  A look at the statistics should deter people even further: since I started seeking subs in 2011, I have received more than a thousand unsolicited submissions and published just six of them (with the other titles coming into existence more organically).  All of those six broke through on quality alone; in a couple of cases, they were the best examples of a genre I was keen to try, but it was still quality that got them through.  So the only 'do' for submitters is, write an amazing book - one that happens to sync up exactly with my own tastes.  On you go!

One thing I plan to do (and Emma has already started, I think) is to only accept submissions from people who have purchased a book through the Valley Press website in the past few months - this may be a slightly controversial approach, but it's started to make a lot of sense.  Before I can re-open submissions with that new rule though, I need to work through a big bag of unread manuscripts that has been ignored since September... watch this space!

Your website says you’ve designed nearly all the Valley Press book covers. Again, are there any rules you think should be followed, in creating the look of a book?

The most important rule of cover design is to not give up until it's perfect, or at least at a truly professional standard.  When creating a cover, you should look at it and think: 'would (major publishing house) publish a book with this cover..?'  You have to be brutally honest with yourself, and if the answer is 'no', keep working.

I'm ashamed to say I haven't always followed that bit of advice, for a variety of reasons, but I have done okay (for someone with no design training) and plan to continually improve this aspect of the business in future.  My approach now is to realise my limitations as a designer, and concentrate on getting the most interesting, eye-catching, high-quality photographs for the covers - then adding simple text that doesn't detract or draw attention from the photo.  I can see this becoming a sort of 'house style' in future, though I would never go with the conformist, 'series' covers that a lot of poetry publishers employ (not that there's anything wrong with those).  The great thing about the 'photo/simple text' approach is it doesn't require a great deal of technical skill; just a bit of positioning and good taste.

Readers can see all the VP covers on this page, if they are curious.  I should also mention, in the interests of having a holiday this year, I do hire out my cover design skills for extraordinarily reasonable rates - contact me through the website if you need one doing.

You have your own book of poems, The Dead Snail Diaries. Does publishing get in the way of your creative output at all?

It definitely does, and the truth is I haven't been able to write a single poem since I started full-time publishing back in January 2011.  It was literally off like a switch - until then I used to write at least one a week, after that, not a thing.  If any psychologists are reading this... what happened there?  Answers on a postcard!

Fortunately, by that point I had written enough poems about snails to create a themed collection, and though the VP edition is now out of print, I'm pleased to report the Emma Press will be re-releasing The Dead Snail Diaries (with new illustrations by Emma) later this year.  It will be extremely bizarre to be on the other end of the publishing process for a change, and to be promoting myself and my writing again after a three-year break, but I'm looking forward to it.

Finally, how did you enjoy the recent poetry reception at Buckingham Palace? What was it like to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh?

It was a wonderful experience, a real once-in-a-lifetime thing, to walk through the halls and see the not-too-rebellious cream of British poetry there in their best suits and frocks (and queuing to get their coats back at the end... very strange to see the likes of Armitage and McGough in that context).  It was a night where I'd pass someone, look at their namebadge, and double-take on realising who this was, remembering all the incredible poems I'd read by them over the years.  And it was such a compliment to be invited; it's really the only recognition or reward I've had for my publishing so far, the first hint that what I'm doing might be somehow important - and you can't imagine how chuffed my old mum was when I showed her the invite.

As for the Queen and the Duke, the meeting could best be described as surreal - as they ushered us through the corridors, at one point I looked around and said: 'this is intense!', at which a footman appeared and said, 'this way sir'.  My name was then called out, I stepped round a corner and the Queen was literally there, suddenly, in front of my eyes... I have no memory of what followed, but the official photographs include one of me shaking hands with her and one of me bowing awkwardly, so I know I didn't go too far wrong.  A night to remember, in any case.

My opinions on The Future of Poetry Publishing, which I was too excited and unrequired to divulge at the Northern Lights Writers' Conference

Jamie and I on our way to the Waterside Centre

I've been thinking a lot lately about the improvisational nature of the Emma Press, so I was delighted to be asked to be on the panel at the 'D.I.Y. Publishing' talk in Manchester a few weeks ago, and even more delighted when it transpired that Jamie would also be there, along with Wes Brown of Dead Ink.

The talk was part of the Northern Light Writers' Conference, organised by the lovely Richard Evans, and it took the form of a Q&A led by Leeds writer SJ Bradley. Jamie, Wes and I each explained our route into the small publishing world before tackling questions about the importance of energetic authors, how to get reviews and press coverage, and how to find an audience. Here's a nice excerpt from Desmond Bullen's review of the Northern Lights Writers' Conference:

'The opening panel’s reservations about self-publishing (quite apart from E.L. James’ literary infelicities, her success is the rarest of exceptions to the general rule) might have blanketed the D.I.Y. Press panel with the damp of caution. That it did not owed much to the tripartite enthusiasm and youthful momentum of Wes Brown of Dead Ink Books, Jamie McGarry of Valley Press and Emma Wright of The Emma Press.'

It was very enjoyable, and I was so excited to be on a panel at last that I completely forgot to steamroller the event with my list of the strengths of small poetry publishers. I think they're still worth an airing, particularly given the concerns raised at a recent Byte the Book event on the future of poetry publishing, so here they are:

The Future of Poetry Publishing: the secret weapons of the small poetry publishing world

1. Commissioning apparently uncommercial titles. The received wisdom that there's no money in poetry is oddly liberating, because there's no sense of there being an obviously lucrative strategem from which we diverge at our own peril. We could try and copy Faber, but why not instead do what Faber can't, and take a chance on strange little books and booklets which we love and believe in? Why not publish an illustrated pamphlet of poems about Angela Lansbury, which is so bloody gorgeous that even people who never saw Murder She Wrote love it at first sight?
2. Unconventional book design. You'll never see so many self-consciously classy-looking books as in the poetry section of a bookshop. The idea is, I guess, that poetry is a serious artform and everyone wants to look like Faber, with their iconic typographical covers. But Faber sells books because they are Faber, not because of their cover design! Unless you have a poet with a name like 'Harry Styles', a text-only cover is not going to help sales, and nor will an image of mist and some fences. Instead, how about giving ...
3. individual attention to each title, from the cover to the marketing. It doesn't make sense to apply the same methods to every title, especially when you're a tiny publisher. The cover and interior design should express the character of the book, and I firmly believe that when the publisher manages this then the whole book stands out for being the thoughtfully-crafted object it is. You won't fool anyone into thinking you are Faber, but you can convince them that you're a more fascinating proposition altogether. I was told by a bookseller that The Flower and the Plough was too bright, handmade-looking and small for mainstream bookshops, but people at fairs and markets still reach for and buy it. See also: how Sidekick Books launched their Angela Lansbury book.
4. Developing authors. Once again, because there is no money in it, allegedly, why bother cutting corners? Shoving a poet through a sausage machine is pointless when there's only pence to be made anyway, and there are so few household-name poets that it's better to develop some potential superstars rather than attempt to poach Simon Armitage from Faber. Jamie writes on the Valley Press site that he spends the majority of his time editing, and so do I, along with the powerhouse that is Rachel Piercey, who thank god is on my team. If all publishers waited around for perfectly-formed poems and poets to fall through their letterbox, readers would miss out on a plethora of delights. 
5. The personal approach. Bigger publishers rejoice in business-y names, or the surnames of men no-one remembers anymore, but smaller publishers are labours of love and still intimately connected with their founders' personalities and idiosyncrasies, so why pretend otherwise?

So there you go, my thoughts on poetry publishing, as untold to the audience at the Waterside Centre in Sale. Despite the repeated received wisdom, I do happen to think there is money in poetry publishing, but that's the subject of a future blog.

Making No Marks: Behind the Scenes in the Valley Press Pamphlet Department

In August 2013, Valley Press entered Phobia, Form, Sea Swim, Destroyed Dresses and Couples into the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets, which also gives an award to recognise an outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form. This week, the shortlist for both awards was announced: to Valley Press, the judges awarded the special prize of no mention whatsoever.

Fortunately I'm an excellent loser, and in that spirit, I am posting the thousand or so words I wrote in my entry form for the award (composed over many long, candlelit evenings - but not as many as it took to produce the pamphlets!) To find out about more successful pamphlet publishing operations, see here, otherwise read on...


Please give a brief description of your pamphlet publishing programme from Jan 2012 to June 2013, with a statement of your publishing philosophy, aims, strategy and future plans with regard to poetry pamphlets.

Pamphlet publishing programme - Between January 2012 and June 2013 I published five pamphlets, all poetry, varying in length between 26 and 38 pages. I had an open submission policy during this period, though only one of the five was a true unsolicited submission: two were commissions where I contacted the authors directly, and two were established writers who contacted me with a specific project in mind.

Publishing philosophy - I run Valley Press full-time, as a (theoretically) profit-making business, without funding, with each new print run funded by sales of the last one. With this in mind, and so much at stake, you may ask: why did I choose to publish five of the ‘slim volumes’ this competition is celebrating?

I am passionate about pamphlets. When I started publishing, I found some resistance to this form; buyers at the chains didn’t think a poetry pamphlet could be successfully stocked, and as a result, my sales agency didn’t include pamphlets in their catalogue or represent them to the trade – though I’m pleased to say I later changed their minds on this issue, based on the success of my pamphlet programme from Jan 2012 to June 2013.

The three main reasons I pursue pamphlet publishing are as follows: a) they are ideal for young poets who have a growing reputation and an existing fanbase, but – crucially – not enough poems to merit a full collection; b) they are ideal for short-form projects by established authors, ideas that would lose appeal if stretched over a full-length book; c) if priced and displayed correctly, they can be ideal impulse-buy items for readers who wouldn’t buy poetry ordinarily, or haven’t a lot of cash to spend on new books. Also, there is the great economic plus of pamphlets: they inevitably require fewer resources (less investment in cash and time) than a longer publication, which is great for me. All of the pamphlets entered have made a significant profit; enough to justify my time working on them, at least.

As for the content of the pamphlets, I am looking for poetry that can appeal to both a complete novice – perhaps someone who has never bought a poetry book in their life – but also people who are passionate about poetry, and have been regularly spending money on poetry books for decades. This may sound like an ambitious goal, and it is, but hopefully as you read the pamphlets you will agree I have achieved this (though perhaps with varying degrees of success).

Aims/Strategy - My primary aim, once I had found my five pamphlets, was simply to sell as many as I could – you can read how I went about fulfilling this aim in my answers to the next two questions.

Future plans - I plan to continue publishing pamphlets in the future; I am currently pursuing several poets for 2014, and I don’t plan to change my approach as described above and below.


Please provide a brief statement of the design and print criteria you employed in publishing poetry pamphlets in 2012 and 2013.  This will be looked at in conjunction with your submitted pamphlets.

The most distinctive feature of my design and print criteria for pamphlets is that it does not vary at all from my approach to a full-length collection. I use the same printer, the same format (all my pamphlets have spines, important for bookshop display), and spend the same amount of time designing the covers for my pamphlets as I do any other book.

This means, instead of forming a ‘series’ of covers, each of my books has a unique cover and design, which illustrates either the mood, the topic or the themes of the book (ideally, all three). Initially I concentrate on finding a high-quality photo or illustration, then I choose a font and arrangement of that font to complement it. For the back covers, I use review extracts where possible, otherwise samples of the poems (or both). My most successful pamphlet cover is probably Destroyed Dresses, where I used an old dress-pattern packet, front and back, erasing some (but not all) of the original text and replacing it with text relating to the book.

With regards to internal design, I simply attempt to display the text as clearly, and with as much ‘class’, as possible. If I didn’t make this clear earlier, I do all the design work on these pamphlets myself – this is how I am able to make a profit.

My 2013 pamphlet Couples had a special design feature – the author had written the poems in complementary pairs (or ‘couples’), so I set the book with the poems in their pairs facing each other, usually justified towards an equal margin in the spine. I also split up the acknowledgements and contents pages to keep this theme consistent. The cover photo for Couples was staged specially for that cover; I actually appear on it, as an ‘extra’ in the background.


Please provide a brief statement of your sales and promotional strategy and activities for poetry pamphlets in 2012 and 2013, giving examples of achievements.

Email newsletter: Many of my general promotional efforts are aimed at increasing the subscribers of the Valley Press email newsletter, with a particular focus on getting regular buyers of new poetry titles to subscribe, and value the newsletters as entertainment in their own right. In this way, I have a direct route to these buyers, and can explain to them in an unhurried way why they should purchase the pamphlets. I have doubled my newsletter subscribers every six months since I launched the business (today, more than 600), and I feel most of my website sales (and thus, most sales of the pamphlets) are a result of this.

Social media: Valley Press has a presence on all the main social networks, and fortunately, with the pamphlet authors being on the younger end of the age spectrum, so do they. As such, I make sure everyone on my networks and the authors’ is aware of each publication; not by posting a link over and over again, but by sharing samples, news, or original creative content related to the title.

Web advertising: All five of my pamphlets had a particular marketing ‘angle’, which I could exploit on services such as Facebook adverts and Google adwords. For example: I aimed Destroyed Dresses at young women interested in literature and/or vintage items (the book has a vintage feel), and I aimed Couples at people with an interest in – or suspicion of – all things romantic (it was released on Valentine’s Day).

Events: Readings, or chat-show style events, are another essential angle for promoting pamphlets. With some help from me, the authors have done a dozen readings each since the publication of their pamphlets.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie McGarry

Editor, Valley Press

Under the Covers, Pre-Wakefield

This weekend sees Valley Press host an afternoon at Wakefield Literature Festival, and in honour of this, writer-in-residence Steve Dearden interviewed me (Jamie McGarry, if we haven't been introduced) for a feature he calls 'Under the Covers'; asking what book I'm currently reading, and three books which have influenced me as a publisher. Here's what I said:

I am currently reading Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany by Stephen Sondheim - a long title I know, but it seems a shame to trim it down, especially as that's how it's expressed on Amazon.

This is a perfect book to very slowly make your way through over a period of months. Like my usual reading material of poetry (or short non-fiction), the lyrics make brief, impressive reading, matched by the 'attendant' content, which is nothing short of brilliant. Sondheim has been working at the very top of the art world for what must be sixty years, and you don't go through that without picking up some essential wisdom. Everything he says is to be picked apart, savoured and considered, and is relevant to people working in all areas of art, not just musical theatre. I may never finish this book - and I mean that as a compliment. I'll probably just start again at the beginning.

Three books that have influenced me, as a publisher:

Tony Harrison, Collected Poems - this eggshell-blue hardback arrived in 2007, when I was just getting seriously into poetry, realising its power and that it was a medium worth spending your life on. My student finances couldn't stretch to buying the book, so instead I would walk innocently into Waterstones each time I passed, and read a new poem or two from their copy (which I eventually did manage to buy).

Leaving the content aside (for today), the production of this book was a big influence on me. It felt important, monolithic even, like the book could appear in the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is due to the paper, the cover, the font, the typesetting - everything. It really is a work of typesetting genius - no poem is stretched or distorted, and they are able to jump from obscure German calligraphy to small caps in the middle of a poem without causing any distress.

In the last few months, I have acquired the font used in this book (Adobe Minion)... and the strange thing is, it appeared on my computer one day without explanation or announcement. I have, however, chosen not to investigate this, and to test it out on John Wedgwood Clarke's new collection, launched the day before our Wakefield Lit Fest event.

Philip Larkin, Collected Poems - the green-covered version with yellow and light-blue text, where the running order of the original collections are preserved, and all those second rate works from the first CP are removed. Small, neat, tidy and beautiful, this is perhaps the most effective Faber poetry cover design from their 'just the name and title' Pentagram series, and was another great influence on me in terms of typesetting and design. Perfectly proportioned in every way, this book's design again manages to make its content seem even more important than it already is (if that's possible).

My Tony Harrison book is signed by the author; unfortunately me and Phil didn't have a crossover period, but I did managed to get this signed by Jean Hartley, whose Marvell Press insignia is all over it - her story is a constant reminder that small-press poetry publishing can make a lasting difference, and (occasionally) does count/matter in the grand scheme of things.

John Glenday, Grain (or, all recent Picador poetry titles) - when Picador were working on, say, the first edition of The World's Wife, they were doing fantastic, flawless work. Then they got better. Grain is an example of a book I bought just because I was overwhelmed by the quality of the design - so perfect is this particular book, with its double-sided colour cover and thick, wonderful paper, it actually never leaves my desk. It's always there, so I can pick it up any time and remind myself what I'm working towards at VP.

P.S. An honorary mention must go to The Flower and the Plough by Rachel Piercey, illustrated by Emma Wright - buying this book led me into a conversation that led to a marriage, and the sheer attention to detail (and beautiful illustrations) within this slim volume are very much responsible for that.

According to anecdotal evidence, I've been studying book design (and copying it on old exercise books) since I was six years old - so you can see how far gone I am down the road to publishing obsession, with no sign of turning back. Luckily for you, the readers, I suppose!


The VP event at Wakefield will take place at The Orangery, 4-6pm on Sunday 29th September, and feature readings from Kate Fox, Adam Strickson, Paul Sutherland, Sue Wilsea, Tony Howson, James Nash, Miles Salter, Helen Burke, Norah Hanson and Mike Di Placido. See you there!