Category: Meet the Indie Publisher

BookBlast® celebrates independent publishing, publisher interview

Interview | Polly Pattullo, Papillote Press | Indie of the Week

Papillote Press is based in Dominica and publishes fiction and non-fiction, including children’s books, reflecting the island’s rich culture and literary heritage.

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
We had books at home but I wouldn’t consider my parents as having been “great readers”.  I remember a long, low bookcase in the sitting room with the Encyclopedia Britannica gathering dust on the bottom shelf. The books were mainly non-fiction — illustrated tomes about art or classical Greece — and Readers’ Digest. I don’t remember my parents reading novels but I do remember some tut-tutting about the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover — a book that certainly wouldn’t have been their bedtime reading. We lived in a school —  a boy’s preparatory school — which my headmaster father founded in Richmond after the war (then mainly a place of bedsits and residential hotels) and there was an interest in learning but it wasn’t an intellectual environment. Most of my early childhood seemed to be spent sitting at  the top of the school stairs watching life unfold below me, with small boys lining up outside my father’s study to be admonished (unusually for the time my father disapproved of corporal punishment). Being able to play in the classrooms and in a large garden (climbing trees and playing cricket) during the holidays was a bonus. I went to school in London and then on to Edinburgh University where I studied politics and began to think about things such as class and race and feminism, certainly not part of the domestic discourse.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
No — but I did briefly and many years ago work at Heinemann’s in the Rights department where I had to type formulaic letters giving other publishers permission to use extracts from works (Graham Greene novels mostly) for which Heinemann held the rights. A fearsome boss had her office one floor below and an even more intimidating secretary shared my office. I left after one year — and went into journalism where I spent the rest of my working life. I was on the Observer for many years where I was features editor of the Magazine; my last job was on the obituaries desk of the Guardian. I published my first Papillote Press books when I was still at the Guardian.

Continue reading Interview | Polly Pattullo, Papillote Press | Indie of the Week

Interview | Kevin Duffy, Bluemoose Books | Indie of the Week

Kevin Duffy lives in Hebden Bridge with Hetha, co-founder of Bluemoose Books, his two sons and their dog, Eric.

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
My dad wasn’t a big reader, never read fiction, nor non -fiction for that matter. My mum read a lot, Georgette Heyer and Jean Plaidy, but there weren’t that many books in the house. There was a mobile library that came to our village every Monday evening and that’s where we got our books. My parents were both very religious so we had two sets of encyclopedias, Butler’s Lives of the Saints and The Encyclopedia Britannica.
Right, now for the Miss World answers: I’m fifty five, married to Hetha, with two grown up sons and live in Hebden Bridge. I’ve worked in publishing for 30 years, 25 of those in sales and marketing, for various publishers, fiction, non-fiction and academic. I started working life in a bakery, worked in a  jigsaw factory, was in a pantomime with Les Dawson and became a team leader at Burger King in Hounslow for 12 months too.
As a school governor we stopped the local authority from closing the school my lads went to and a few of us curtailed Whitbread’s ambition to demolish a 13th century coaching Inn and turn it into a Karaoke-in-a-basket fun pub.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
No not really. I knew it existed of sorts because I read books, but it wasn’t on the radar as something that I would or could do. I worked for a library wholesaler in Hounslow and met lots of sales reps for publishing companies and then applied for a sales job at Headline books in 1987 when they had just started, got the job and it progressed from there.

Has your vision from when you started Bluemoose Books 11 years ago changed?
No. Our vision from the start was to find great new writers, nurture their talent and publish them, and that’s what we’re still doing.

Continue reading Interview | Kevin Duffy, Bluemoose Books | Indie of the Week

Interview | Eric Lane, publisher, Dedalus Books | Indie Publisher of the week

Established in 1983, Dedalus Books is a truly unique publishing house which is recognised for its quality and unorthodox taste in the esoteric, the erotic and the European. The press’s founder and MD, Eric Lane, is unashamedly intellectual. His tenacity and vision have kept Dedalus going through the lean times, and helped it to flourish during the good. Dedalus had two books on the Booker Prize longlist in 1995: Exquisite Corpse by Robert Irwin and Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen. The complete list of Dedalus prizewinners is at dedalus.com

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
No, neither of my parents were great readers. My mother grew up on a farm in southern Italy and my father in an orphanage in Surrey. They met at the end of WW2 when my teenaged mother accompanied a friend who went for a job at the RAF base in Naples. My father was doing the interviewing and offered the friend a job and also one to my mother who refused. As they were leaving my father said to his colleague, I’m going to marry that one – meaning my mother – which he did, in February 1946. My mother was nearly 20 and my father 25. My sister was born in November 1947 and I followed in September 1949. We lived in Finchley which my mother loved. We used to go every few years to Italy. In the end my mother used to speak to everyone in Italy in English with the odd word of Italian whereas my father spoke to everyone in fluent Neapolitan. My parents were very happily married for 25 years until my father died of a heart attack in 1971.Growing up I was a voracious reader but also loved sport, especially football.I was a very spontaneous child and often got in trouble at school for being ‘cheeky’.

Continue reading Interview | Eric Lane, publisher, Dedalus Books | Indie Publisher of the week

Interview | Jane Aitken, publisher, Gallic & Aardvark

Ebury Street in London’s Belgravia: a quiet, residential, affluent area. The perfect place for a bookshop where readers can enjoy peaceful browsing away from the madding crowd, and dip into some of the best French writing available in English translation. However the Belgravia Books Collective is not just a shop, but also the home of independent publishing success story, Gallic Books. It has been very much on my radar and, at last, I am going to talk to one of the founders.

Jane Aitken and Pilar Webb met when they were both working at Random House children’s, and they went on to co-found Gallic Books in 2006. Headliners Muriel Barbery (trs. Alison Anderson), Antoine Laurain (trs. Emily Boyce & Jane Aitken), Michel Déon (trs. Julian Evans) and Yasmina Khadra (trs. Howard Curtis), have an enthusiastic following among discerning British readers who relish a good, well-written read from foreign shores. 

Continue reading Interview | Jane Aitken, publisher, Gallic & Aardvark

Interview | Kelly Davio, Eyewear Books | Indie Publisher of the Week

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
My mother was an avid reader in my childhood, and she taught my siblings and me to read when we were very young. I grew up in California in a house filled with books.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
No, I taught English at the secondary school level for many years before publishing and I found each other.

Has your vision from when Todd Swift started Eyewear Publishing four years ago evolved?
One of the most important developments for our press has been the introduction of Squint Books, our nonfiction division focusing on timely politics and pop culture titles. While poetry remains the beating heart of the press, our nonfiction books, by authors such as Okla Elliott, Sonya Huber, and Chris Jackson, have been an excellent way to reach a wider readership and, we hope, they make a real contribution to the cultural dialogue.

Continue reading Interview | Kelly Davio, Eyewear Books | Indie Publisher of the Week

Interview | Roh-Suan Tung, Balestier Press | Indie Publisher of the Week

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born and grew up in Taiwan. My parents both love books and I remember lots of books surrounding me as a kid.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
Yes and no. I learned how to be an editor early during the school years. I was then involved in the student movements for media freedom during around 30 years ago in Taiwan. My formal career started as a researcher and a professor in physics, in UK, USA and China. During the time, I was acting as editors for international science journals for some years. I always feel there is a need of literature and humanity publication, translating from all the languages in Asia, and I started to devote myself to Balestier Press.

Has your vision from when you started Balestier Press in 2014 changed?
The vision that there should be more books in translation from Asia remains. Since we started Balestier Press, we have received numerous encouragements and support from the writers and translators around the world.

Continue reading Interview | Roh-Suan Tung, Balestier Press | Indie Publisher of the Week

Interview | Ghassan Fergiani, Darf Publishers | Indie Publisher of the Week

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
My father was a teacher, a bookseller and a publisher. He was a reader. I grew up around books in our family house. My mother was not a reader of books, more of magazines, but I remember growing up listening to all the stories she told us at night time.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
Growing up in Tripoli, I spent most of my time after school at my father’s bookshops, sometimes at the Arabic bookshop and sometimes at the English Language bookshops. I wasn’t the only one, my siblings and cousins were there too, so it was a bit of fun and a bit of work. When I was young I did think I would be in the book life.
 Continue reading Interview | Ghassan Fergiani, Darf Publishers | Indie Publisher of the Week

Interview | François von Hurter, Bitter Lemon Press | Indie Publisher of the Week

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
With a Greek mother and a Swiss/Austrian father, the bookshelves at home were the reflection of a mad continent. Goethe, Mann, Holderlin rubbing shoulders with Leigh Fermor, Kavafy and Seferis. And many biographies of T.E. Lawrence.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
Loved reading ‘from the start’ but publishing is a second career, begun at age 57.

Has your vision from when you started Bitter Lemon Press 13 years ago changed?
We entered the water gingerly, with a narrow focus on translated crime fiction. We have since diversified into novels written in English, both literary crime and general literary fiction, and also added a non-fiction imprint called Wilmington Square Books. WSB publishes thoughtful and engaging books about culture and society. Continue reading Interview | François von Hurter, Bitter Lemon Press | Indie Publisher of the Week

Interview | Ana Pérez Galván, Hispabooks | Indie Publisher of the Week

Are (were) your parents great readers? Tell us a bit about yourself.
No, my father is a voracious newspaper reader, but not a book reader. My mother does enjoy reading now and then a good novel, but not as a habit, very much the same as my two sisters. I am a forty-one-year-old woman from Madrid. I have two kids (a boy of six, Máximo, and a girl of eight, Ada). I love reading, I love music (my taste is very eclectic), I love sculling (I row in a local rowing club) and I love my partner, with whom I’ve been nearly fifteen years now, unmarried. I don’t believe in God – I’m an apostate. I believe in solidarity, equality, tolerance and love.

Did you want to work in the publishing industry from the start?
Yes, I’ve always had a passion for books and since an early age was clear about my wish to work in publishing, surrounded by books.
 Continue reading Interview | Ana Pérez Galván, Hispabooks | Indie Publisher of the Week

Interview | Anne Dolamore, co-publisher, Grub Street | Indie Publisher of the Week

Anne Dolamore started her career in publishing in the mid 1970s in the sales and marketing department at Faber & Faber, after reading English at Lancaster University. She moved to André Deutsch as one of the first women reps in London and in 1982 set up her own special sales consultancy, advising publishers such as Pan Macmillan, Harper Collins, Chatto, Bodley Head and Cape. At the end of the 1980s she wrote her first book, The Essential Olive Oil Companion, which was packaged by Grub Street and published by Macmillan. Her next book A Buyer’s Guide to Olive Oil, was published in 1994. In 1988 she joined forces with John Davies (the publisher of military aviation history books) to run Grub Street, which was voted International Cookbook Publisher of the Year at the World Cookbook Awards in 2000.

Anne was Chair of the Guild of Food Writers for two years; Chair of Sustain – the alliance for better food and farming; and Chair of the London Food Links working group for 10 years and served on the board of London Food, set up by the Mayor of London to deliver a London Food Strategy. She is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and Les Dames des Escoffier. She has written for numerous publications, has made a number of radio and TV appearances, and recorded her lifetime food memories as a contribution to the National Sound Archive. She has just completed recording for the Women in Publishing Oral History Project.

Were your parents great readers?
My parents did both read; my mother mostly fiction but my father did love poetry and when I was a child he read to me most nights from A Book of 1000 Poems. At his funeral in 2008 my daughter, Amy, read one of his favourite poems, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Brook. They did instill in me a love of reading from the earliest age, and of course I am of that generation (now 63 yrs old) where weekly visits to the local library was a rite of passage. Libraries nurtured my insatiable reading habit and made me love books. Continue reading Interview | Anne Dolamore, co-publisher, Grub Street | Indie Publisher of the Week