Do Book RRPs need to rise?

PLUS 'The Writer as a Sculpter': Is there an element of our writing which comes from beyond our conscious control?

Good morning Scribblers,

I’ve been commissioned by The Bookseller to write an article around why book RRPS need to better represent the years of labour put in by writers and publishers, (indeed Europe and the USA, for example, already charge a lot more per standard paperback than we are used to in the UK), so that independent publishers in particular can THRIVE.

My focus is on independent publishers and my findings are shocking: at current RRPs, not ONE publisher I have interviewed is able to sustain salaries or grow (by hiring) via book sales alone. Every single one uses freelance work or funding to pay the bills. More on this article soon.

Today I did some maths, and calculated that if every single person on this Substack newsletter bought a year subscription, I’d be able to pay five salaries at senior management level. That is INSANE for a publisher who is just about to dip into personal savings to hire at 10 hrs a week.

If everyone on this newsletter bought a book priced at £10, I’d be able to pay myself a full time salary for a year, no need to work freelance.

Now that’s a game-changer. That IS a sustainable business. And I’ve always been very determined to run Fly on the Wall Press with savvy, long-term thinking.

So this is my offer… if we reach 100 subscribers by October, or close to it, every active subscriber will receive the choice of either a free tote bag or a free book! Big thanks for valuing what we do, Scribblers.

Books in the news this week!

Ecopoetry collection ‘The Soul We Share’ by Ricky Ray is out next month, and everyone who buys direct from FOTW will receive a double-sided beautiful print of much-loved service dog, Addie!

Sample poem…

SO LONG AS THERE IS LIGHT, THERE IS SONG

Safora, Addie and I sit in a field, at the edge of tree-shade,

where Addie chews an ice-lolly made of frozen sweet potato,

cool to the tongue, cool to the grass as it falls from the sides

of her mouth, refreshes the blades, refreshes her throat,

as seeing her refreshed refreshes us. We take a moment

to thank the tree and the sweet potatoes and the soil

for their succor, and we take several moments to admire

the ants while they march in and out of little tan hills.

Blessed by the mess, we admire the grass that keeps

throwing itself like green-bodied supplicants at the sun.

There’s another one here. The one who lives us.

In whose breath we are held. In whose voice we are sung.

Sometimes gently. Sometimes throat-swole

with the rasp of the storm. You could call it continuity.

You could call it the field itself. I like to call it what calls.

And I like to live in her song. For when the birds dry up

and the trees choke and the grass drowns,

when the soil washes away and the oceans burn off

and the bare rock stares back at the bare light,

the Earth will still be here, singing her duet with the sun.

The Yorkshire Times falls in love with underground Victorian Glasgow in ‘The Unpicking’…

‘The Unpicking’ by Donna Moore is a historical crime novel which spans three generations of ‘hysterical women’ who take on systemic corruption and injustice, despite all odds.

Today I hand over to playwright and short story writer, Pete Hartley, who will feature in our upcoming curated anthology ‘Modern Gothic’ this October!

Pete believes that stories often emerge from subconscious ideas and memories that the author's imagination combines in unexpected ways, beyond the author's conscious control.

Hartley sees himself more as a vessel channelling these subconscious inspirations rather than the creator, likening it to an Inuit sculptor revealing a shape already present in the bone. What a great image!

‘Livid’ by Pete Hartley - his ‘Modern Gothic’ story in brief!

An unnamed narrator hears a woman repeating phrases to him that were said to him in a dream and awakens frightened, struggling to understand the significance of these phrases. Seven months later, at a theatre performance, a spotlight shines on a woman looking just like his dream. She also repeats the key phrases from his dream. Deeply disturbed, he travels to the only person he knows who could help explain the mystery - a Mrs. Moritz, formerly the glamorous magic show assistant Lazuli.

Hartley’s story will attract readers who enjoyed Laura Purcell’s Victorian gothic thriller The Whispering Muse, which also uses the setting of theatre and the stage as a backdrop for her tale. Another is Robert Louis Stephenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, which also explores psychological elements and features an unreliable narrator.

The Livid and the Dead

by Pete Hartley

It always starts with a haunting. A new work of fiction gestates in the labyrinths of the mind, like something ghoulish.  My story "Livid," written for the forthcoming Modern Gothic anthology, was no exception. But this story had an unmistakably solid beginning - a disturbing real-life event that opened the tale.