Our Marketing Assistant, Jess, shares her thoughts on why it’s worth supporting our independent publishers.
Today it’s Indie Book Day!
In a world where the big names in publishing are producing bestsellers and you can sit back and wait for an online store to deliver them to your house, why should we support our independent businesses?
The first thing we must remember about publishing is that it’s a business like any other. Businesses succeed when they make money, and they make money by producing products that sell. When something is successful in the publishing world, it appears in everything; would vampires have been everywhere were it not for the commercial success of Twilight? No. Would dystopia have made a comeback were it not for the popularity of The Hunger Games? Definitely not.
This isn’t bad by any means. Publishers will only produce what is selling, and if a particular genre or sub-genre is selling then we can assume that it’s also being read and enjoyed because, ultimately, publishers wouldn’t exist without their readers. However, for the readers out there who aren’t interested in the hype – the readers who don’t like vampires and have enough problems with their own government to worry about anyone else’s – it’s easy to get a little lost when it comes to finding what you want to read next. How are you supposed to find those hidden gems when they’re rarely being talked about?
For the independent publisher, however, the hidden gem is their specialty. The independent publisher can watch the hype, even support it, and then publish books that they believe are worth reading, regardless of whether or not they fit into what’s currently most popular. When you support your independent publisher, what you’re also supporting is individuality. You’re supporting books that might not otherwise get the attention they deserve because they don’t include male leads who sparkle.
I won’t go so far as to say independent publishers are ‘better’, because frankly I think that’s petty, but they are businesses that produce content for the readers out there who want something just a little different. It’s for that reason that I’m proud to work for an independent publisher, and I hope you’re proud to support them.
Happy Indie Book Day!
As Lilia Sugar scrapes the ice from the inside of the windows and the rust from the locks in Sugar Hall, she knows there are pasts she cannot erase. On the very edge of the English/Welsh border, the red gardens of Sugar Hall hold a secret, and as Britain prepares for its last hanging, Lilia and her children must confront a history that has been buried but not forgotten.
A light-hearted novella exploring the strange case of a Swansea woman who is apparently possessed by the spirit of Dylan Thomas. Naturally all is not as it seems. The woman, who works in the Dylan Thomas Centre, meets a rather different Dylan from the one she knows by repute, one who doesn’t really fit in with the ghosts of other poets in heaven and is desperate to train himself to join the fitter shades of the long distance runners instead. Her own life, which has been lonely and sad, is completely transformed by the encounter.
Lucy Swann is trying on a new life. She’s cut and dyed her hair and bought new clothes, but she’s only got as far as a small town in northern France when her flight is violently cut short. When Inspector Vivier and his handsome assistant Sabine Pelat begin their investigation the chance encounters of her last days take on a new significance.
