From Publishing Perspectives:
A few weeks ago, a press release was issued to announce the startup of Mensch Publishing, resulting in this coverage at Publishing Perspectives and elsewhere.
I received an extraordinarily large and gratifyingly positive mailbag, although appended with the occasional comments from experienced publishers and good friends along the lines of “You must be mad.” I suspect quite a few others were too polite to say that, including my wife.
Why would anyone want to start a publishing company? Least of all an un-literary 69-year-old just retired from executive positions in publishing after 46 years?
Why indeed? As usual, there was no single trigger. After 46 years of working for others, I fancied working for myself. I feared being bored. I didn’t want to lose touch with the industry (although there was little danger of that, given my many other roles). I wanted to put into practice some of my theories about how publishing could be better.
What I hadn’t anticipated was just how difficult it is to start a publishing business and how much I had to learn about an industry I thought I understood.
. . . .
The name Mensch was first discussed some 20 years ago with a novelist friend and we agreed on Mensch as the umbrella name with sub-imprints such Menschkin for kids, Ubermensch for fitness fanatics, Menschmunch for cookbooks, and Menschdench for drama. You get the idea. I have nothing so ambitious now.
. . . .
I was told I needed ISBNs before anything else.
How do you get an ISBN? Nielsen of course.
Did I want one ISBN, 10, 100 1,000? I went for 100. More money.
But we needed a first book and for once luck was on my side. I was aware that novelist Guy Kennaway was writing the nonfiction story of his mother and her husband (his stepfather) trying to recruit him to help with their joint suicide before they became too infirm.
. . . .
I found an excellent copy editor who has done a superb and timely job.
I found a publicity firm—probably the most important part of marketing the book—which is developing a publicity plan for Time to Go and for Mensch Publishing (although I really want the effort to go on the book not the company).
. . . .
But perhaps the most difficult bit is simply ensuring that sales and distribution systems are fully working; and that metadata will be correct and that typesetting will enhance the book, not add errors; and that printing will be on time such that copies can reach Australia, the USA, Ireland, Waterstones, Amazon, etc. on time and correctly billed.
. . . .
We publish our first book in February 2019. I shall have invested some £20,000 (US$28,184), and my fingers are firmly crossed that we have at least a good seller if not a bestseller and that the author (and his mother) are happy; that all my helpers, including Bloomsbury, which is my sales and distribution partner, do well out of the book; and that Mensch can build on a successful launch.
Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives
The cover makes it look like a self-help book, circa 1977.
Yup, it’ll go far …
This is going to sound naive, but how do you work in the publishing business for 46 years but yet you’re unliterary?
“…an un-literary 69-year-old just retired from executive positions in publishing after 46 years”
also I agree 28k is way more than you need to spend to launch a book. It’s so much the old trad pub style of doing things. 🙁
Working the operations/logistics side?
Or maybe HR or accounting?
The “literary” guys are middle management at best, anyway.
Few if any of the CEOs in big media come from the creative side. Their stock in trade is really financing.
Yeah, not a ‘big picture’ type so he jumped in without a clue.
It’s like some random Joe that worked for a battery company thinking they could make batteries for Musk’s little cars without understanding the loads and conditions those batteries are going to have to handle.
The next headline will read: ‘The third person to by the book unwittingly and unknowingly bought the company!’ 😉
The article seemed interesting so I went and read the rest in hopes of finding out what he shouldn’t have done… the title is kind of misleading as the article just stops in the middle. Also, all the things he talks about doing and spending 28k on (which is insane) is all stuff I do every time I launch a book (about 6 times a year). I sure as heckfire don’t spend 28k launching a book. And publishers wonder why they are going out of business.
It will all end in tears.
And lawsuits.
Don’t forget the lawsuits.
There are always lawsuits at the end of failed ventures.
Is that $28K just for their first book? If so, then it will indeed need to perform. That is an expensive investment in editing and marketing. I hope it is profitable for both publisher and author.
No matter what,remember the wisdom of a German board game I played as a kid, and “Mensch ärgere Dich nicht”
“Is that $28K just for their first book?”
Invested in a ‘dream’ – it just looks like a book in this case.
Would be nice to know what he’d paid the editor (one-time cost), the artist for the cover (one-time cost), and what the writer will get out of it (sounds like no agent so there’s 15% saved!)
Advertising will take however much money he’s willing to throw their way, results may be a bit ify …
Hope the writer’s contract gives him back his rights if the company goes bust.
Why not go all out with: Übermenschlichkeit? Has a certain ring, don’t you think?
Why not go all out with: Übermenschlichkeit? Has a certain ring, don’t you think?
The reading world is a fickle place – and not a place to be betting all your cash on one ‘best seller’ – ask the big boys how that’s been working for them of late …
At least they plan on shipping some books to Amazon, but no mention of ebooks – which in this day and age is going to hurt them.
Good luck to them, but I hope they don’t mind that I won’t be buying any stock in their little business …