By Phil Taylor - New Zealand Herald
Saturday Aug 3, 2013
Jill Marshall started her publishing company, Pear Jam Books, with the best of intentions but failed to deliver many of her promises. Photo / Getty Images
It started so promisingly and ended so horribly. Twenty months ago Jill Marshall was a local hero, albeit an adopted one. In 2011, Next magazine chose her as its Woman of the Year (arts and culture), an honour still listed on her profile on internet site LinkedIn.
Two authors have won Disputes Tribunal claims, another has hired a copyright lawyer to stop what he claims are "unauthorised" sales of his book by England-based companies, and a complaint has been made to British police about what became of the proceeds of a charity book.
All of which is a far cry from how Marshall's venture into publishing began.
Full story in NZ Herald
Leading children's bookseller John McIntyre (right) has responded to the story in the Herald and his comments follow:
An
important warning for writers on the perils and pitfalls of "assisted
publishing". Bear with us here -we think this is a really serious matter.
The article below is from the "Herald" this morning- August 3rd.
It gives us no pleasure to post this story, nor to say that we saw it coming. It is a sorry tale with no winners, and it is about raised hopes, dashed dreams, broken promises and any number of other cliches. It involves really good established authors who believed a friend and colleague, and new and hopeful writers who thought they'd found a mentor.
We had serious doubts about the viability of the "Pear Jam" concept from the first time we heard about it, which was not until after the first books had been published.
1) This is not to be immodest, but as a major specialist children's bookseller we would have thought someone launching a children's book publishing company would have spoken to us as part of their market research.
Many people do ask: Julia Marshall from Gecko, Johanna Knox and Walter Moala from Hinterlands Press and Mark Sommerset from Dreamboat Books all consulted us and many others extensively: and we are always willing to give our views.
We would have advised a cautious approach, starting with maybe two books, watching their sales trajectory, covering your costs, and then maybe commissioning another two or three. Gecko, Hinterlands and Dreamboat all built themselves around this strategy.
We had minimal contact with Jill Marshall- and when we did was to arrange a flyer of her titles to include in one of our school mail-outs.
The expense in publishing is all at the beginning, the returns much later, and cash flow is always an issue.
2) The domestic market for NZ children's fiction is small and is not growing. It is also not lucrative, and there is virtually no international market.
3) Whilst a few of the early books were written by known authors we admire, too many of the subsequent releases were by first time authors with no established reputation, and sadly, they were stories that needed work.
4) The production quality was poor. As the "Herald" says - poorly designed covers, editing faults- they may have been great stories, but we can't sell shoddy books.
There are really reputable companies out there who do "partnership publishing" - Steele Roberts, Egan Reid - but the crucial thing to remember is that they provide you with a professionally produced books for YOU to sell.
The lessons from this- if established publishers are rejecting your manuscripts, it is probably because it isn't good enough. Ask as many people you know and trust for their opinion - no matter how unpalatable the answer may be- BEFORE you publish your book. Beware of anyone claiming to be a "writing coach" -it is a term we have never heard before. Beware too of anyone claiming to put the "authors first". Successful publishers are successful because they put themselves first.
Don't pay up front unless you can afford to lose your money. If you do partner publish or self publish - make sure that you are very good at marketing, distribution, debt collection and the myriad of post-production skills required. When you decide on a print run, count up the number of friends you have, and divide it by three - print that many, and if you sell out reprint the same number.
We have written this with a heavy heart but with the best of intentions. We are genuinely sorry for everyone caught up in this horrible mess. - John
John
McIntyre
The Children's Bookshop
Shop 26 Kilbirnie Plaza
Kilbirnie
Wellington
The Children's Bookshop
Shop 26 Kilbirnie Plaza
Kilbirnie
Wellington
t
04 3873905
f 04 3873288
e books@thechildrensbookshop.co.nz
f 04 3873288
e books@thechildrensbookshop.co.nz
6 comments:
John writes "if established publishers are rejecting your manuscript, it is probably because it isn't good enough."
John is also right to warn against the risks of partner or self publishing (ie make sure that YOU are very good at marketing, distribution, debt collection and the myriad of post-production skills required.)
But with traditional publishers rushing to exit NZ & quit publishing NZ titles, the options available for NZ authors are growing thin indeed, so that the first premise may no longer be the only reason that would force an author to consider the second.
Regardless of this sorry tale, a lose-lose all round for NZ literature.
PressGang (a co-operative comprising Brian O'Flaherty, Nick Turzynski, Julie McDermid and Renee Lang - all with heaps of experience) is also well set up to cater for self-publishing needs.
I would just like to point out that the poorly designed covers that the Herald is talking about, is covers that Jill had 'designed' herself, not the designers original covers.
As they say in Texas - All hat and no cattle
Thanks for the sympathy, but that's not what we were after when we contributed to the article. Our group felt it important that other writers were warned, at the risk of our own reputations, to steer clear of Jill's publishing services. She can, in fact, pick a good manuscript. What she lacked was the business brain and capital to make her publishing model work in this instance. To imply that the second round of books were poorly written (..."sadly, they were stories that needed work) is not helpful. How many of them have you read? Most of them remain unpublished.
I would also like to comment as one of the second group of authors in Jill's publishing programme, and to support the previous comment made and clarify a few things.
The publishing programme books were put up on Amazon for 1 week only. Some of the front covers were altered from those done by the professional designer to fit Amazon's Createspace requirements. The spines, back cover and interiors appear to have been created by a non-designer. To the best of my knowledge very few, if any, of these books were sold. None of the authors promoted their Amazon-distributed books, given the appearance of those books, and by the time they were put up the authors had already been ‘sacked’ by Jill, who promised to take the books down after a week (which she did).
Because these books were never distributed in NZ and very few sold via Amazon, I cannot understand the comment that 'they were stories that needed work.' While I am happy for my work to be judged, and to receive feedback, I would prefer for it to have been read first.
I would also like to say that many of the authors affected never had their manuscripts rejected by other publishers. In my case, I had contact with Jill in a mentoring capacity (and I believe ‘Writing Coach’ is just another term for ‘Mentor’ - so I don’t think this is necessarily a term to be wary of - it is the person, not the title, that makes the difference) so I knew, liked and trusted her - the basis on which many business decisions are made. While I can understand the assumption that has arisen that the second group of authors joined Jill’s publishing programme in a desperate, last-ditch effort to get themselves published, this simply isn’t the case - my book (and others on the programme) have never been seen by another publisher. Jill is a charismatic and persuasive person, who provided many reasons why we, as new authors, would fare better in her stable than with a more ‘traditional’ publisher. All of us felt we had a connection with Jill that went beyond business, and it explains in a large part why we entrusted our manuscripts, hard-earned cash, and writing careers to her.
I would also like to mention that as naïve as the authors involved may seem, many of us did do our homework before signing. I personally sighted Pear Jam Books, professionally designed and printed, stocked in the Children's Bookshop before signing. This was the level of quality I believed our books would be produced to.
The experiences of the past year have been distressing, and for someone with little experience of the publishing industry, rather bewildering. I am happy to report however that I have received many kind offers of help, and messages of support from other authors. This has gone a long way towards repairing the cynical view I have developed of the literary world.
For a variety of reasons including space, there is much that wasn’t included in the NZ Herald article, so only a few of us really know all the facts - everything else is speculation. What I would like to discourage with this comment is prejudging and unsupported assumptions. To that end, if anyone does have questions arising from the article, then they could be posted here (subject to Beatties acceptance of this idea), and I will endeavour to answer them.
Finally, my experience is that any business can fail. I don't accept that this necessarily means that the entire model is flawed. There are many factors that come into play in the success, or otherwise, of any business in any sector, including but not limited to: the economy, the state of the industry, the accepted practices of that industry, technology, and the business skills and the integrity of the owner.
The critical issue in this whole saga is the behaviour that accompanied the failure of the Pear Jam Books. To remove oneself from all contact with clients and creditors when things haven’t worked out is what is at issue here and what should be commented on.
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