It's Easy Being Green, Review of Shattered Figurine by Local Author Allan Hudson, BCH Fulfillment and Distribution, and More!
The Fault is not in our Stars, but in Our Subtitles
Being the 20th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Where We’re At
Every couple of weeks I compose a bit of a status report on where we’re at with Donovan Street Press, which I send to our business manager Jen DeLagran and our authors currently under contract. This list will grow as the team grows.
I do this because I’m consciously trying to run the company the same way I ran departments as a manager at the CBC, applying best practices learned and developed there. Years ago at the CBC one of our directors asked his team to send what he called “Payday $$$ Reports” on a biweekly basis, which he would then summarize and send to all of us and his boss. I adopted the practice and soon found it was a great way to personally track what was going on, inform my boss and team of the same, and (as a bonus) inform one on one meetings with whomever happened to be my boss at the time, as we would generally use what I’d written as a template for our meetings.
Not all of my direct reports appreciated this, as it meant a bit more work for them every couple of weeks, but I never made it mandatory for them, and hey, to each their own.
I find it provides pretty much the same value for Donovan Street Press, keeping me organized and disciplined, although I have no boss to report to other than myself and my shareholders (um, also just me right now). And I find it provides a psychological veneer of professionalism, which I find helpful as I try to convince myself that starting an enterprise like this is anything resembling a sane venture (not that it has to be).
Anyway, here’s a much abbreviated version of that report for any of you who happen to be interested:
Author Matt Watts is now officially on board Donovan Street Press, having signed his contract. Yay! Welcome aboard Matt! I am already well into editing his book Huey and the Wasteland.
I have finished editing the first pass of Mark Rayner's upcoming book The Gates of Polished Horn. Mark is now working on his revisions.
We continue to negotiate with other potential authors
The cover for Mark’s book The Gates of Polished Horn is in development; we’ll tackle Matt’s book hot on the heels of that
I am still reviewing potential distributors for Donovan Street Press (each one published in our newsletter)
Our podcast Re-Creative is on a brief hiatus after having successfully completed 41 episodes. As soon as we have 10 new episodes in the can we’ll launch season three. (We have 9 recorded so far.) Upcoming guests include: Michael Antman, Catherine Fitzsimmons, Candas Jane Dorsey, Ira Nayman, Ben Fox, Blair Young, Bruce Sterling, Tom Bradley, Jenn Thorsan, Abigail Grimes, Hugh Spencer, and MAYBE John Scalzi (we have yet to nail him down)
We have published 19 weekly editions of Assorted Nonsense: The Official Newsletter of Donovan Street Press. We currently have 61 subscribers (free) and 87 followers. Slow but steady growth.
There’s more to the internal report than that, but that’s the general gist of it.
It’s Easy Being Green…
Sarah Lord is the Green Party candidate for Riverview in the next New Brunswick election. She works as a Health and Wellness coordinator at a local pharmacy, where my wife met her and worked with her for a while. In her capacity as a tour guide for a company she founded called Maritime Detours, she recently took a group of us to see the Midland Ice Caves this past winter, which was surprisingly treacherous but also fun and beautiful. From this experience I saw first hand that Sarah is intrepid, adventurous, and cares deeply about the well-being of people in her charge.
The other day Sarah asked me if I would mind hosting a Q&A session with her and the leader of the New Brunswick Green Party David Coon at her candidacy launch party. I think she’s an excellent candidate and because I enjoy doing that sort of thing I immediately said yes.
Sarah’s team sent me a list of suggested questions, which they allowed me to revise and expand. The Q&A went well, with Sarah taking the first crack at each question, followed by David.
“I’m no Peter Mansbridge,” I cautioned the crowd, after having been introduced as a recently retired CBC-er.
“That’s more me,” David Coon quipped.
Turning to look at him, I realized that David Coon does actually resemble Mansbridge when viewed from a certain angle.
After posing several questions myself I threw to the audience for a handful more. We covered the usual territory: housing, affordability, the climate crisis, and so on. Sarah and David had obviously done their homework. Of course, David’s been at this a while, having been leader of the New Brunswick Greens since 2012. I chatted with him a bit before we began. I expressed my dismay over the Federal Green party’s recent leadership debacle and internal squabbling. To me it was especially unfortunate given the timing. You would think that with climate crisis becoming a priority for voters that the Green Party would be poised for success.
Careful not to criticize his federal counterparts, David assured me that although he is friends with Elizabeth May, the New Brunswick Green Party is distinct from the Federal Green Party, his party is in excellent shape, and that I should have no such concerns on the provincial level. (Later I verified that although provincial Green parties and the Federal Green party share values and supporters, they “operate as independent entities and do not have common membership.”)
In any case, I will be happy to cast my vote for Sarah Lord.
Review: Shattered Figurine by Allan Hudson
Allan Hudson crafts an action packed thriller in Shattered Figurine, which follows the adventures of Detective Jo Naylor and her partner Detective Constable Adam Thorpe as they track down a murderous trio bent on revenge.
Allan has clearly done his research, imbuing the action with just the right level of detail to make the story pop, and making me wonder if maybe he'd actually been a cop at some time (I don’t think so!)
An extra treat for me is the locale, which I'm pretty sure is Moncton, New Brunswick, which I happen to live next to these days, though no one in the book comes right out and says so.
Apparently this is one of a series of books, and although it works as a stand alone, and winds up nicely, it left me with a thirst for more, as I'm pretty sure there's more to the proceedings than we're led to believe. I will simply have to read more of the series to find out.
Five stars for a tale well told.
Yet Another Book Distributor…
Regular readers will know that I’ve been exploring book distributors the last few newsletters, the better to understand how that side of the business works. And Donovan Street Press Inc. is actively seeking distribution. Before I start approaching distributors, though, I want to be able to compare them all. There aren’t that many, certainly not many that service small outfits like ours, so I’ve been tackling them one by one.
Today we look at this company:
BCH Fulfillment and Distribution
According to their website, BCH’s catalog features “a wide variety of unusual, unique and hard-to-find books, videos, CD's, and audios.”
Audios? Is that a typo? Okay, yes, I understand that it refers to audio products but it’s an odd way to phrase it and not very specific. It’s a reasonably professional webpage aside from that.
Amusingly, their “About” page begins with “BCH has been in business over 15 years providing order fulfillment for Small Presses. We've needed to be quick, efficient and relatively error-free.” I appreciate the use of that hedge word “relatively.”
(Okay, now I feel like I’m picking on them. Not my intent. I’m sure if you read our webpage or this newsletter you’ll find a typo or two.)
They represent over 800 small presses and 4000 titles. Donovan Street Press will probably not be one of them if I keep being mean and picky. So I’ll stop that. :-) Buyers can order books via their toll free number or on their webpage. They do not publish a catalog per se… their “website is their catalog.”
Here are some important considerations: BCH is a part of Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon and BN.com. They focus on Small Presses, particularly with 10 or fewer titles. Right now, Donovan Street Press would certainly qualify. Quoting them here, “There will be a one-time administrative fee of $300 to add a title to the Ingram and Baker & Taylor data base. $50.00 for each additional title. Amazon $100.00 per title & BN.com $25.00 each per title.”
For Ingram and Baker & Taylor, publishers receive 30% of net sales, “list price less returns.” Publishers only get paid after they’ve made a minumum of $200.
Hmm. (There’s a lot making me go “Hmm” here.)
They also state the following:
You are responsible for creating the sale of your title(s) through your marketing efforts. We can help, but you have to create the demand.
Okay… makes sense, I guess. But how do they help, exactly?
They go on to clarify:
BCH will represent your book to Ingram and others. You--the publisher--will be responsible for driving traffic to the stores via your promotional efforts. BCH's Web site can provide additional promotional assistance.
But wait. What do they do exactly? What specific value do they provide?
“BCH will handle the relationships with wholesalers and bookstores. Specifically, we will warehouse your books, take orders from wholesalers and bookstores, fulfill those orders, bill and collect monies, and process returns. More importantly, BCH can get you into Ingram if you qualify.”
Still not entirely clear how this is different than simply placing books up on IngramSpark (or Amazon for that matter) and waiting for bookstores to order your books. And this costs more, and sounds like more trouble.
Anyway, interested publishers must fill out a Distribution Services Form, which must then be printed and mailed to them. Each book “must have its own ISBN and Bookland EAN bar code. The price must be printed or stickered on the back cover and the title imprinted on the spine of the book. We also need to know what your marketing plans are for each title.”
So, potentially a candidate for distribution but… I’m just not sure.
Donovan Street Press Books (So Far!)
Adventures in the Radio Trade
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." ~ Kirkus Reviews
A Time and a Place
Here’s a nice 5 star of A Time and a Place, from Dan Herrick on Goodreads:
"The question is not whether the book is written. The question is who is writing the book.”
That sums up much of the time travel / paradox aspects of this story quite neatly. "Time travel" as a tag is appropriate for this novel but (without giving away anything) it should be more appropriately "Spacetime travel" and that's... well, that's in the title. The narrative doesn't focus strictly on the typical SciFi time travel / paradox as the central theme, though that's certainly prevalent, and that's a good thing.
The story itself, although not unique, is compelling and provides a tapestry around which Mahoney artistically embellishes. I appreciate how the author's humor shows up in the book.
Few of the characters, except Jacques and Iugurtha, are robust and empathetic, most especially the protagonist. Bumbling his way through the narrative, self-absorbed and shallow, Wildebear is not exactly likeable, competent, or even outstanding in any sort of way. However, he does manage a bit of personal growth in the end.
Overall, I enjoyed the book tremendously, and appreciated how the background story unfolded in stages.
Other Times and Places
“ …a lovely little collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories, fun and well written.” ~ Charles P. Kelly
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read …well-written, gentle stories, well worth reading.” ~ Ottawa Review of Books
Coming Soon
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
Re-Creative: the Podcast
Our podcast Re-Creative (hosted by the author of this newsletter, Joe Mahoney, and author Mark A. Rayner) is currently on a brief hiatus, but will resume shortly.
Appearances
Taking a bit of time off over the summer, but I’ve already booked three craft fairs for the Fall
This has been the twentieth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Thanks for sharing your astute report with your “proxy” shareholders. 😎