[Interview: Part 2 of 2] Neil Marr

Publisher and author, Neil Marr worked as a journalist for over 35 years before he and his son, Alex, set up BeWrite (a non-commercial writers’ website which offered free professional editorial services and optional online showcasing).

After three years, they transformed the website into BeWrite Books publishing house and have gone on to release over 120 paperback titles.

In this interview, Neil Marr talks the formation of BeWrite Books, the use they are making of print-on-demand technology and their plans for the future.

What made you decide to transform BeWrite into BeWrite Books publishing house?

Quite simply, the talent out there that wasn’t getting a look in. The big houses are swamped (that is not a criticism) and their slushpiles are never cleared.

We read every proposal. OK, 98% might be knocked back at first fence with no request for full MS, but everything gets a fair crack of the whip -- not by interns, but by one of four experienced pro editors. Often a rejection is accompanied by a line edit and masses of editorial notes to guide the author in revision.

What challenges did this transformation present?

Hard work. Twenty-four-hour days. Simple as that... sheer hard graft and ever-producing mindplay.

I’ve worked 62-hour shifts for this wee house regularly. Partner (and son) Sandy took a full year off from his high-paying IT day job to help put things together.

How has BeWrite Books been received?

We’re still battling against the stigma of producing mostly with PoD, which -- unfairly -- lumps us in with the vanity cowboys, to the uninitiated.

We’re getting over that.

Folks are beginning to see that PoD ain’t necessarily a four-letter word. You will never Google up a negative review of BeWrite Books. We’re listed in all the publishing ‘bibles’ and our reputation for editorial excellence and general square dealing is always emphasised.

Who are these 'vanity cowboys' you talk about?

Sadly, the revolutionary new print-on-demand production system was soon hijacked by vanity press operators who simply convert a raw manuscript into a print-ready PDF at the touch of a button, and the innocent initials PoD came to often mean Publish on Demand.

The internet is bursting at the seams with companies offering to ‘publish’ anything that comes their way... at a price. There is no selection process, no editorial input and no quality control. The only books these companies are interested in are authors’ check books.

There are companies releasing up to three titles an hour... and still claiming editorial input. Nonsense. I sometimes have a novel in edit for over a year. Even with a pro editorial team of four, we’re hard pressed to release a dozen titles a year.

Some Publish on Demand operators boast of being ‘traditional’ (whatever that means) and don’t charge an author up front or even offer a single dollar advance. Instead they ask the author for a list of family and friends and press them into buying. Few sales are made to the general reading public. But production cost with no editorial input is so low that they’re soon making huge profits by playing the numbers game. Such companies have become known as ‘author mills’.

Why is it a fallacy to associate all PoD with vanity publishing?

Vanity press self-publishing was always risky for the author. There was the cost of a short run of a few hundred books and the difficulty of distributing and selling the books. Hardly ever would a self-published author recover his expenses, and he’d be left with a stack of unsold books gathering dust in the garage. Print on Demand technology has reduced the risk for genuine small press but it also presents an opportunity for Publish on Demand outfits to cash in on the enthusiasm of unpublished writers.

I think there’s little chance of vanity press and self-publishing ever going away. In fact, it’s in its hay day. Word processing computers make it simple (too simple?) for someone to knock out 60,000 words, call it a novel and tout it around electronically at zero cost and effort. We’ll always see thousands of sub-standard books released this way every year. And even more as time goes by.

Why?

Simply look at rejection rates with a genuinely selective publishing house. Even a small company like ours accepts less than four percent of what we’re offered (often, even then, after full author revision before it goes into full edit). Bigger houses and agencies reject an even greater percentage of submissions (because they receive more, not because they’re more choosey).

Some authors will learn from rejection and improve their work. And that’s exciting to see. Many others think they know better and self-publish or go the publish on demand route to by-pass the critical selection process.

Having said all this, I must add that some self-published work is quite fine -- usually when its author has employed a professional editor. But that’s a tiny, tiny minority, and it’s swamped by second, third and fourth rate self-published or author mill releases.

What does PoD allow you, as publishers, to do that you couldn't have done had the technology not been available?

In our case, PoD is a print term describing a process by which books are instantly printed on order -- one single copy or a few dozen at a time depending on the day’s demand. We use the excellent Lightning Source print company and set our titles both at their US and their UK bases. Books are printed and despatched by the press closest to the ordering party. Distribution and exposure is usually via online sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.

This process allowed smaller companies like BeWrite Books to launch. Before then, publishing was a hugely expensive venture to set up with thousands necessary up front to pay for a mass print run. Then, of course, the books had to be stored and physically peddled around high street stores. And about 60 percent remain unsold and are returned or destroyed for a full rebate to the retailer by the publisher.

A PoD title costs relatively little to set up digitally for press, packaging and distribution is handled by the print shop, and there’s zero wastage. We covered all expenses -- not inconsiderable -- out of our own pockets for the first three years or so before starting to break even.

Our most valuable input, though, is not in money so much as professional editorial, technical and administration know-how. The editorial team of four, for instance, shares nearly 150 years of pro experience. I work long hours at least six days a week. But we’re not at the stage even now where we can afford to take salaries, which is why I occasionally have to moonlight for other publishers and -- like yesterday for Murdoch’s News International -- run a story for a big newspaper or magazine to go toward the household bills.

We do have working capital now, though, and we’re planning our first venture into short-run and stacking the shelves at physical (rather than online) bookshops with a thriller by David Hough called Prestwick (BeWrite Books, 2009) later this year.

What would you say sets BeWrite Books apart from other similar ventures (if that is the right word) that are out there?

In a word, editorial. There’s not a giant house to match our editorial expertise (almost two centuries combined experience), our eventual proofing. And we’re as selective as hell. The reader of a BB book will never be disappointed. We’re too darned smart for that.

What are your plans for the future?

Immediate future? A chilled beer and a tuna and cucumber sandwich.

Later this year, out first venture into short-run with David Hough’s Prestwick which we are short-run printing and plan to launch at all major UK airports over the next four months. One heck of a book!

Earlier, you mentioned that you started publishing with one or two co-authored collections from the BeWrite Community. What are the titles and characteristics of these collections, who were they by and are they still in circulation?

Actually, our first venture into publishing was an experiment to showcase the short story work of three particularly talented and prolific contributors to the website -- our first two members back in 2000, Peter Lee and Terri Pine (now Terri Nixon) and another regular poster, Andrew Muller. I added a piece to make up page count. We had no cover artists at the time, so the book, Chill (BeWrite Books, 2002) was covered by my son, Alex -- a fine photographer -- who used sugar to simulate ice with a ghostly image of a screaming skull showing through. Pretty effective.

A second collection by BeWriters was The Creature in the Rose (BeWrite Books, 2004), love stories with a macabre twist and co-authored by a whole bunch of gifted scribes.

We were becoming very, very busy on the publishing front by this time, though, and we had no choice but to close down the community and its forums. The lads and lassies all agreed that it was for the best. The BeWrite Community had done its job and it was time to move on to the natural second stage, helping authors into print. With a technologist pal in Canada, however, I opened a new writers’ group to pick up where BeWrite Community left off. Many old BeWriters meet up there and exchange work for critique. You’ll find it at www.bibliophilia.org.

These days, we no longer run collections and concentrate on full novels. Several genres (no horror or fantasy, chick lit, etc), but our main interest is in what’s become known as ‘literary fiction’: all about wordcraft.

Related resources:

• BeWrite Books, website
• BeWrite Books, blog

Possibly related books:

,,

Related interview:

[Interview: Part 1 0f 2] Neil Marr, Conversations with Writers, November 5, 2009

[Interview: Part 1 of 2] Neil Marr

Publisher, author and former journalist, Neil Marr is the author of Bullycide: Death at Playtime (Success Unlimited, 2001), a groundbreaking book which exposed the epidemic of bully-related child suicides in the UK.

Bullycide received rave reviews around the world and sparked countless campaigns and Bullycide-dedicated websites, official studies, several follow up books and government and education authority action to combat school bullying in several countries.

In this interview, Neil Marr talks about his writing and the challenges he and his partners faced when they set up BeWrite.net, a publishing house that started off as a non-commercial writers’ website offering free professional editorial services and optional online showcasing.

How did the idea for Bullycide: Death at Playtime come about?

In the sixties, when I was a cub reporter of about seventeen or eighteen, I covered a huge police search for a missing child who lived just down the road from me. It was just after the horrific 1960s’ Moors Murders in England.

The search for Stephen Shepherd was the biggest UK police operation in UK history. When a child went missing, folks paled and talked of paedophile killings similar to those committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Turned out that the wee boy -- twelve year old Steve -- hadn’t been murdered at all: He’d taken his own life because he could no longer face school bullies.

The media then lost interest and dropped the story ... no juicy murder.

I never did lose interest. It haunted me for over thirty years. This was Bullycide (a catchy word I had to invent to snatch attention and to conveniently fit newspaper headlines – it’s now entered specialist vocabulary).

I was driven to do wee Steve justice; tell his tale and that of others in his predicament. More than thirty years later I kept the promise I’d secretly made at his funeral to tell the whole truth.

How long did it take you to write the book?

Writing a non fiction book is not a problem. It’s like a news story -- off the top. Second nature as a journo. The heavy work is in the research, making sure that your claims are fireproof and that your publisher will catch no flak. Like the investigative journalism I spent so many years with for major -- and attractively sueable (that a word?) newspapers and magazines -- it’s a matter of being able to back up every single line with signed shorthand notes and tapes.

Every single line of what you read in my book was self-edited by the bereaved families involved to be sure there wasn’t the slightest error or misunderstanding on my part. No shocks or heartache. They became part of the effort. They became friends.

The process took three years -- and I don’t begrudge a day of it. It’s a sensitive issue and had to be handled gently and with profound understanding.

How did you go about it? What was involved?

Gosh. That’s a big question. Like a reporter, I guess. Someone who listens, probes and seldom intrudes. I’d been an award-winning investigative journalist, on the street for thirty years. You might as well ask Al Pacino to teach you how to act King Lear over the phone. My work rested on decades of experience. I just did the job I was built for.

Where and when was Bullycide published?

2000. Small press in Oxford.

How did you choose a publisher for the book?

I didn’t. The publisher chose me. A big mainstream publisher bought the book and paid me an advance of a few thousand pounds on the idea alone. That financed some of my travel and research (I’m in France, the story was in Britain). He later disagreed with my figures and methodology, so I went elsewhere to a small press in Oxford and pulled in a ‘qualified’ co-author to back up my findings; the late Tim Field.

Of course, it later turned out that I had my ducks in a row and -- if anything -- my startling numbers were conservative.

How was the book received?

Amazingly (am attaching early reviews). More than I could have dreamed of.

But there’s more...

On the back of the book have been several other book publications, countless internet campaigns, moves by education authorities and central government in several countries, plays, movies ... the book’s done its job. I’m chuffed with that. That was the whole idea.

Have you written other books since?

Oh yes, but I’m keeping those to myself because they’re mainly ghosted (fiction and non-fiction for other people to keep body and soul together) but I have edited/co-written 120 novels over the past ten years. Some authors acknowledge my input, others don’t bother. Fair enough because I’m a back-room boy by nature and don’t ask for up-front credit.

What made you decide to leave journalism?

Newspapers and magazines that pay worth a darn no longer compete with TV; they compete with the TV Guide. I was bored to tears and also embarrassed to be prostituted. Also, heart and vascular problems kicked in and I could no longer flit around the world as I used to. Can’t even catch a bus. Funnily enough, though, the Sun in the UK (rotten paper but great payer and I still have old pals there) called me today for 500 words on an Italian football yarn that will pay me more in an hour or so than I’ve collected from BB this year!

How easy or difficult was the transition from being a foreign correspondent to being an entrepreneur, editor and publisher?

Hey, I’m no ‘entrepreneur’. I’m just at old hack who knows his job and loves his writers and their words. The transition hasn’t been too traumatic because I apply the same principles I always did... are these pages worth reading? Health hassles slowed me down, too, so I’ve learned to live with those. These days, I hardly miss my suitcase.

What were some of the challenges that you faced when you first set up BeWrite?

Money. We were broke. And we were dedicated to keeping things in the black and absolutely independent. We’ve never been short of the cash to pay our dues, admin costs, print fees and royalties, but have resisted all outside financial help. We’re always a couple of books ahead of the shoe-shine and two steps away from the county line. I doubt that any one of our stable of writers realises that we’ve all worked for the past eight years without a salary, mostly covering our own expenses. That everything’s for free. Why should they when they’re coming up with the most valuable commodity of all -- the raw material? We’ve only just started to break even so that one book helps finance the next release (if it sells OK). Before now. every penny of expenses has come from the shallow pockets of the partners, me and Sandy.

There are other wee hitches, of course, but we can live with those because our authors and the other folks we deal with -- printers, distributors, publicists and reviewers -- very soon become good, trusting friends. We play from a square bat and it seems to count.

What reception did BeWrite receive?

Bewrite.net (the non-commercial website) had 3,000 members. There was free professional editing and enormous feedback (I handled over four million words myself). Everyone was happy. But we had to move to stage two -- publishing -- because so many people deserved that.

We started with one or two co-authored collections by BeWrite Community writers as an experiment while we got to understand the technology, then we moved on. When it comes to selection, BB is as tough as old boots, you know, but we do read every line submitted.

We would take non-agented work from writers who knew they were only almost there and work with it to make it spot on there ... at no cost whatsoever and with some tremendous results. BB produces beautiful books.

Related resources:

• BeWrite Books, website
• BeWrite Books, blog

Possibly related books:

,,