[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] Mark Kaplan

Novelist, school teacher and screenwriter, Mark Adam Kaplan was born in Staten Island, NY. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute’s Center for Film and Television Studies.

He has worked as an Associate Editor and then as a public school teacher in New York City before relocating to Hollywood, CA.

His film credits include, A Time to Remember (Tai Seng, 1998) and Echoes of the East: Tibet, 1997.

His writing includes book and music reviews which have appeared in magazines that include Rapport Magazine in Los Angeles; “Date with the Chairman”, a short story which was published in the anthology, Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers (Cleis Press, 2005); and, A Thousand Beauties (BeWrite Books, 2009), his first novel.

In this interview, Mark Kaplan talks about his concerns as a writer:

When did you start writing?

I’ve always written, although I think I made a formal decision to give writing more importance when I was in college. I was directing plays and found myself inspired to speak my mind that way. Several of my own plays were produced in New York and Los Angeles, although nothing took off.

How would you describe your writing?

I do many different kinds of writing at the moment.

I write articles about teaching and education, prose, and screenplays. I find it difficult to stick to one genre (or media for that matter). Some stories are made for the screen, I believe, and some require deeper insight into a character’s thought process. There is room for crossover, of course. But I believe that truly interesting works in one genre do not translate easily into another.

For example, I really do not care what goes on inside of John MacLane’s mind, but I love watching the Die Hard films. On the other hand, I found Snow Falling on Cedars quite moving as a novel and unwatchable as a film. There are exceptions, of course. But I believe the rule generally holds.

I am reminded of an interview I read with Milan Kundera. After having The Unbearable Lightness of Being made into a film he swore that he would never write another novel that could be adapted. After reading his Immortality, I understand what he means.

Who is your target audience?

I do not write with a single target audience in mind. Perhaps that is what impedes my greater success.

Some of my screenplays are written for families, others for young adults. A Thousand Beauties was written without a target audience in mind, but I have found great interest among adults, middle-aged and above. Naturally, the audience is not confined to this age group, but when discussing the book with them, I have seen genuine surprise and interest once I disclose the nature of the story. It is certainly too adult for teenagers.

Who influenced you most?

My mother wrote stories which she read to us as we grew up, and I loved hearing them. She pursued her writing throughout my life and that taught me to keep going regardless of how my work was received.

My father, on the other hand, is not a writer, but always offered his honest opinion, which was sometimes very painful for me to hear. He did, however, keep my feet on the ground and offered me a more pragmatic outlook on life.

I began writing A Thousand Beauties after the death of my paternal grandmother who succumbed to pancreatic cancer. My maternal grandmother died shortly thereafter. I have been fortunate to lose few loved ones during my lifetime. Their passing forced me to stop putting off my novel writing and sit down to work.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

I have many concerns as a writer. I want to touch my readers’ hearts, to entertain them, but I also hope to reveal something they may not have considered.

I am most concerned by what appears to be the approaching disappearance of the casual reader. Computer games and the internet have provided the next generation with such a wealth of hands on, interactive amusement, that I fear the loss of a public that reads books for pleasure.

Young people are reinventing the language with text messages, and their growing need for immediate gratification, (which was a punch line twenty years ago) does not bode well for entertainment that delays satisfaction for two- or three-hundred pages. J. K. Rowlings’ books, and the runaway success of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series are encouraging signs. But I fear the tide is turning away from a novel reading public.

How are you dealing with these concerns?

I have seen some books that have generated interest among our disenfranchised young people. Townsend Press puts out The Bluford Series, a number of books set at the same inner-city high school. I have seen kids who have never finished reading a book devour these one after the other. They deal with what used to be adult themes, but are more and more teen issues. The prose itself is accessible, and writers like Paul Langan and Anne Schraff have proven there is still hope.

I am now working on my own young adult novel that deals with teen issues, Dangerous, in the hopes that it has a similar effect on our young people.

Dangerous will be about Leon Mendoza, a young kid coming of age in East Los Angeles who faces the challenges that come with the territory. He’s been arrested for dealing and accused by his homies of ratting them out. Caught between the courts and the streets, Leon fights to survive and escape from the life that fate seems set for him.

What are the main challenges that you face?

For years I tried to write for financial success, with no success. When I started writing, I was all about the creative energy and artistic inspiration that drives most artists. Then suddenly I was 30 years old, and my future livelihood was in question. I turned to screenwriting, hoping to crack into the Business and achieve the financial success that had eluded me. To that end, I came up with “commercial” stories. I honed my craft until the writing was top-notch. But what had suffered were my ideas. I spent nearly a decade working on ideas that were not truly inspired due to my misconceptions about what I thought Hollywood wanted.

I still love much of the work that I did at the time. But none of it was original enough to separate me from the pack. I worked with countless partners on countless projects, none of which have taken off.

A Thousand Beauties was written for nobody’s sake but my own. It is, by far, the best work I have done.

What sets it apart from other things you have written?

A Thousand Beauties is different from anything else I have written not only because of its form, but because of the intimacy with the characters the form allows.

Most of my writing for the past decade has been in screenplay format, where the focus is on meaningful actions. A Thousand Beauties allowed me access to the character’s thoughts and feelings as well as their actions.

This is also the one project that I have spent the longest time developing. The growth from its inception until its present form has taken seven years, far longer than any other project in my repertoire.

It is similar to other things that I have written because I tend to embrace the darker passions, and this work is full of them.

Do you write everyday?

Unfortunately I do not have the time to write everyday. As the father and primary caretaker of two young daughters, a public school teacher and a husband, the demands on my time are extreme.

Whenever I find myself with some free time (which is rarely) I sit at the computer and try to move through whatever I am currently working on (right now, Dangerous has this questionable honor). I usually finish writing sometime after 1:00am, and have to leave for work by 6:00am.

How many books have you written so far?

A Thousand Beauties (Bewrite Books, 2009) is my first full-length book, although I have had short stories published, am an internationally produced screenwriter and of course, have essays on the Internet.

What would you say the novel is about?

A Thousand Beauties is about Rupert Ruskin, a successful but unpopular man who has isolated himself from the world to chase his family’s elusive vision of enlightenment. He believes if he can see a thousand beautiful things in one day he was achieve the perspective of angels and spend the rest of his days in bliss. But his vision-quest is interrupted when his ex-wife, Elaine, bursts back into his life with the news of her cancer. Ruskin figures that if he can help Elaine find a thousand beauties, then perhaps her last days won’t be completely miserable.

I wrote the first draft of A Thousand Beauties in about eight months back in 2002. It sat on the shelf for a while, and I wrote several page one rewrites, cutting out over 150 pages from the original length.

How did you find a publisher for the book?

I sent out submission packets, but they met with little success until I sent it to BeWrite Books, where the editor, Neil Marr responded to one. He requested the full ms, and, after reading it, rejected it. Luckily for me, his rejection came with copious notes on the text. I reviewed his notes and found them clear professional.

I wrote back to ask if he would look at the text again after I worked on it more. Fortunately, he was happy to do, since he loved the premise so much. This rewrite took about five months.

True to his word, Neil reread the ms. This time he accepted it, and we began the process of beating the text down to its shiny core. We worked for several months on the book. Without his insight, honesty, and openness, A Thousand Beauties would not be as good as it is. I was very lucky to find an Editor who actually works as a editor. It was a terrific collaboration and I am grateful for the experience. This was the biggest advantage this publisher offered.

Did the arrangement present any disadvantages?

The disadvantages are that BeWrite is a small European publisher, and I’m in the United States. Also, the company relies on Print-on-Demand technology, which means they do not print a large run and blast sales in the first few weeks. (This is not Publish-on-Demand, or self-publishing. It is an entirely different animal.) Also, they offered no advance against royalties, and due to the nature of their publishing process, the paperbacks are a bit pricey. However, they also offer an e-Book, which positions them well for the future, and is good news to all Kindle users.

The challenges posed by this kind of publishing primarily involve accepting and evaluating their criticism of the work, being open to others’ ideas regarding design of the book and cover, and working collaboratively on a project conceived and executed (until this point) on my own.

Also, without the clout carried by a big house, it is more difficult to obtain reviews by recognizable figures or papers. This is a primary focus of my attention right now.

I am also involved with the promotion of the book far more than I would be should the book have been put out by one of the big publishing houses. Fortunately, the people at BeWrite have a wealth of knowledge about ways to get the word out. It’s a great learning experience for me and a lot of fun.

What did you enjoy most about the whole process?

The most enjoyable part of the process so far has been working with the Editor. I had been looking for feedback such as he provided for years, and had even paid for it at one point. For all of that, no one gave me the specific kind of notes that he did, which I found both useful and refreshing.

Part of the reason why it was so pleasurable is the manner in which the notes came. All were handled with meticulous attention to tone and came in the form of suggestions – which I was free to either accept or reject. This courtesy and professionalism is something I have rarely encountered.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

A Thousand Beauties is definitely my most significant achievement as a writer. Although I am proud of my film work, the quality of this novel, and the difficulty of the work in getting it here have made its release the proudest moment of my professional career.

How did you get there?

It all comes down to hard work, being open to criticism (but not a slave to it), and the luck of finding an editor who shared my vision, and was willing to nurture a novice writer to make it a reality.

Possibly related books:

,,

Reading, Writing and Self-publishing

Since September 2006, the Leicester Review of Books has been conducting a survey to find out what readers and writers think of self-publishing and self-published books.

Among other things, we are asking writers to tell us their experiences of self-publishing. What benefits have they received? What are some of the disadvantages or challenges that they have experienced?

We are also asking writers to talk about the reasons that motivated them to by-pass the literary agent and the mainstream publisher and publish their books themselves.

And, which is equally important, we are asking for readers’ experiences of reading self-published books.

How do the books compare with those that have been published by mainstream publishers? Are they just as good or are they inferior? If they are inferior, why is this?

Wikipedia defines self-publishing as “the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers.”

The encyclopedia goes on to explain that although self-publishing represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of publishing .

“… many works now considered classic were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.”

Hugh Griffin, who works for the Los Angeles engraving and printing company, Stuart F. Cooper, adds that in the United States “self-publishing” refers to the practice of buying one’s own International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to protect publishing rights and having the printing done by one‘s self.

“Many authors produce books for low prices and sell them successfully…but almost without exception, they use genuine ‘self-publishing,’” Griffin says.

The question of self-publishing is even more important today because advances in technology have made it easier than ever before for writers to publish their own books and make what they are writing available to a wider audience. As Wikipedia contributors point out, the tools which facilitate self-publishing and which are at writers’ disposal have been made possible by advances in technology associated with xerography, desktop publishing, print on demand technology, the internet and blogging.

From the discussion that is emerging, there are strong concerns that a lot of what is being self-published is of a poor quality.

Anna Creech, a librarian and blogger, is strongly opposed to self-published books.

“I’ve read only a handful of self-published books, so admittedly my experience with them is limited,” she says. “However, all of those books needed the heavy hand and red pen of an editor before they could be palatable. As a result, I refuse to read any more self-published books.”

She advises writers to get an editor who is not related to them before they decide to publish anything.

Wikipedia contributors suggest that the problem of sub-standard self-published books is in part due to the fact that it is often very difficult to differentiate self-publishing from vanity publishing.

“The latter term is a pejorative one, usually referring to situations in which a publisher contracts with authors regardless of the quality and marketability of their work,” the encyclopedia explains. “They [vanity publishers] appeal to the creators' vanity and desire to become a ‘published author’, and make the majority of their money from fees charged to the creators for publishing services, rather than from sales of the published material to retailers or consumers.”

Linda L. Rucker, like a lot of other writers who venture into self-publishing has had her own brush with a vanity publisher.

She has published two novels, What the Heart Wants and Dark Ridge as well as a collection of short stories, Words out of Time. Her short stories have also been featured in the anthologies, Forget Me Knots, Romancing the Soul, the 2005 Riverdale Short Story Annual and in April Rollins’ Coffee Camp Review Magazine.

She says she was horrified when What the Heart Wants came out.

“Like a great many of the un-initiated, I too went with PublishAmerica for my first book. At first, I was elated that a so-called traditional, royalty paying publisher wanted to publish my book, but when I held the finished product in my hand, I was horrified.

“No editing, was the worst of what I saw. As a new writer, I had no idea about editing. I figured that if the spelling was correct, then the manuscript was good to go.”

For her second novel, Linda L. Rucker shopped around and managed to secure an agent.

“She was a good agent, but patience has never been one of my virtues, so waiting for her to find a publisher just didn’t work for me. But, more [than] that was the notion that when she did find one, it could be anywhere from eighteen months to three years before my book hit the stores. As I said, patience is not a virtue for me. So, I chose to release my agent from her contract and go with self-publishing. Most folks think that term is a death knell, but is it really?”

Shawn Street, a PublishAmerica public relations officer disputes Linda L. Rucker’s claims and asserts that the company does edit books for grammar and spelling.

“We do not change the content of the book. When the Text Production Department edited her book, Ms. Rucker had two opportunities to review the work and approve any changes that were made.”

Street argues that PublishAmerica markets the books it publishes and makes them available to online bookstores and to bookstores across North America through the wholesalers Ingram, Brodart, and Baker & Taylor.

“PublishAmerica sends out press releases announcing a book’s release, as well as announcement letters to the author’s family and friends. We also send review copies to legitimate reviewers daily. Further marketing is a joint operation between the publisher and the author,” Shawn Street says.

Lilian Masitera, one of the most versatile Zimbabwean writers, has published a collection of poems, Militant Shadow; a novel, The Trail; and a collection of short stories; Now I Can Play.

Her writings tackle contemporary issues in Zimbabwean culture and she does it in a manner that is clear, straight forward, no-holds-barred and forceful.

Her books are examples of high quality self-published works.

She argues that because a book has been self-published does not mean it is sub-standard or of a poor quality.

Another author, Irving Karchmar says he decided to self-publish Master of the Jinn: A Sufi Novel because mainstream publishers did not want to be associated with it.

“I can’t do anything about the relentless commercialism of modern publishing, especially since it is a Sufi novel, about Muslims, published after 9/11, that no one wanted to touch. So after a couple of years of sending it out to agents and publishers, I decided to publish it myself.”

The novel since been has translated into Russian; Bahasa, Indonesia’s national language; Turkish, and into Malayalam, the language of the Indian state of Kerala.

Karchmar identifies a number of factors behind his novel’s success.

“I think I did it mostly in a smart way. I had a friend design the interior and cover, ($500.00) [I] did my own editing, along with friends, and paid only $99.00 for the initial fee for putting it in their system, which included an ISBN. I also decided to pay an extra $75.00 to get a Library of Congress I.D. number, and a bit more to get into Baker and Taylor wholesalers, so anyone going into a bookstore could order my book. They have deals with other online sources and are now owned by Amazon.com so my book is on Amazon, and Abebooks, Alibiris, Borders, Target.com and many small websites that affiliate with Amazon.”

He advises writers who want to self publish to invest in a good website, to market themselves and join discussion groups as well as invite bloggers to review the books.

“Booksurge pays 25% of the cover price as royalty, so it is not too bad a deal, and by many hours of working at it, I have managed to sell well over 500 copies online and to a few bookstores. I also got a few bloggers to review the book and some magazines,” Irving Karchmar says.

Wikipedia contributors support Karchmar’s views when they observe that self-published works that find large audiences tend to be rare exceptions, and are usually the result of self-promotion.

They give The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield; The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer; What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles; In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters; Photoshop Efx: What Side You're On? by Dhanang Rah Wibowo and Eragon by Christopher Paolini as modern-day examples of self-published books that have been successful.

Another example is Graham P. Taylor who earned a publishing deal worth 3.5 million pounds after he had self-published his first novel, Shadowmancer. Taylor’s books have since been translated into over twenty different languages and are also going to be turned into movies.

Irving Karchmar says, “It can be done! It just takes work, like anything else in life.”

Writers who are contemplating self-publishing need to investigate the industry thoroughly and make sure that their work has been sufficiently edited and critiqued before they take it to the printers. They should also be prepared to market and promote their books aggressively.