Being the 65th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
On We Go
For those just tuning in, this is part four of a casual but comprehensive look back on Donovan Street Press’s journey so far. In part one I wrote about the publication of Other Times and Places, the first book published under the Donovan Street banner. In part two I covered the publication of my first novel, A Time and a Place, when I acquired the rights back after its original publisher folded. In part three I wrote about the publication of my father’s book (he was eighty-seven at the time) The Deer Yard and Other Stories.
Et voila… part four:
Adventures in the Radio Trade
I started writing the book that became Adventures in the Radio Trade back around the same time I started at CBC Radio, which was July 1988. I didn’t know I was writing a book; I was just writing down interesting things that happened to me, cuz I was a writer, and that’s what writers did.
Eventually I started a blog and started posting some of these stories on the blog.
Before long there were a lot of stories. A friend of mine, Karina Bates, suggested I gather them all up into a book. When I looked at all the CBC stories I had, I realized that yes, there were almost enough for a book. I put them all in order, saw what was missing, filled in the blanks, and turned it all into something resembling a book.
It just so happened that I love memoirs, and this was definitely a memoir. I’ve read tons of memoirs (always a prerequisite when writing… read the sorts of things you write). I even listed many of my favourite memoirs in the back of Adventures in the Radio Trade.
I heard somewhere that librarians liked indexes, and I really thought a book like that would benefit from an index, so I spent a couple of months learning how to index in Word and creating an index. That was a lot of work, but it was kinda fun. I included a lot of names. After it was published, one online critic criticized all the names:
“There are a lot of name droppings (sic), names that I mostly recognized as hosts and artists. But the name dropping doesn't stop there: he names every hosts (sic), techs, manager, etc. he ever works with/for. Even the receptionist who took his CV. It was too much.
Of course, I did this deliberately. I knew who I was writing the book for: everybody I’ve ever worked with. It was their story as much as mine, so I included them all in it. I loved that I included the receptionist June Shafi’s name. She is an important part of the story; an important part of the history of CBC Radio. We all knew June Shafi, and so did anyone who ever visited us on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
I asked my friend Arleane Ralph to edit the book, which she graciously did (she had previously edited A Time and a Place for me). Arleane suggested a glossery of terms would help, so I took a few weeks and created a glossery for the book. Now I pretty much had a finished book. What to do with it?
There was not much question about that. I submitted it to maybe two possible publishers, including ECW Press. I noticed hits on my website immediately afterward; it seemed to me that someone at ECW Press was checking me out (no way to be sure, of course), but whether they were or not, they never bothered to respond. That’s fine; they weren’t obligated to, and I’d pretty much made up my mind myself: I was going to self-publish it. No publisher was going to be interested in a memoir from a nobody like me, even if it was about the CBC. There’s no trauma in it. It’s not a tell-all, full of dirt and revelations. It’s just a pleasant story about what it was like to work for CBC Radio from about 1988 to 2007. And I didn’t really want to change anything about it anyway.
Because I had self-published A Time and a Place (after re-acquiring the rights from Five Rivers), and Other Times and Places and The Deer Yard and Other Stories, I knew how to self-publish a book. But Adventures in the Radio Trade was different. It was different in three specific ways:
It had photos
It had an index
It was non-fiction, about a real place and real people
I thought it was important to include the photos, because (in my opinion) they were interesting and cool. There’s pictures of studios. Photos of colleagues. A picture of me with Margaret Atwood. And so on. But I’m not a photographer. I don’t know how to optimize or prepare photos for a book. So I turned to one of my former bosses, who is an expert photographer, John McCarthy. John’s mentioned in the book (who isn’t? see criticism above) and he was only too happy to take on the task. I offered him a flat rate to get the photos ready, but he opted for a percentage of the sales, perhaps thinking it would make much more than it ever did (4 percent royalties, which we’ve since discontinued, at his request).
The other thing about the photos was that I needed permission to include them in the book. So I reached out to everyone pictured in every photo I wanted to include. Everyone was great about it. At least, those I could get ahold of. I received permission from the office of Margaret Atwood (O. W. Toad Ltd.), from Floyd Favel, Tara Beagan and Tom King of the Dead Dog Cafe. I could not get ahold of Edna Rain, who played Gracie Heavy Hand, or Victor Levy-Beaulieu, featured in the photo with Margaret Atwood.
The index was a challenge because the software that I had purchased to format my father’s book, Vellum, couldn’t handle an index. This meant that I had to find a book designer comfortable with indexes. This would add to the cost of the project but there was no way around it, unless I wanted to learn In Design or Affinity, which… maybe one day, but not for this project.
By this point I had worked with two book designers. One I would have no trouble working with again, Éric Desmarais. He had done A Time and a Place and Other Times and Places and I liked both him and his work (truth be told I feel a little guilty for not having approached Éric). The other one was no longer available. So I asked around and Rob Sawyer recommended Avery Olive of Bibliofic Designs.
Avery was (and continues to be) fantastic. She had no trouble with the index or the photos. Avery was also available to do the cover. I made some lame suggestions. Avery gave them a shot, but also included a mockup that I believe must have been divinely inspired, the finished version of which you see here:
The photo was my idea. It was based on the original cover of the memoir that launched Anthony Bourdain’s career, Kitchen Confidential. Standing in CBC Radio’s Master Control on Jarvis Street, me and my two pals, Joram Kalfa and Peter Chin, aren’t carrying knives like Anthony Bourdain and his pals, but I think we still look pretty cool. Well, Peter and Joram do, anyway.
When I decided to use that photo, I had no idea who took it. Attempts to find out came up empty. Then one day I had lunch with my old CBC friends Chris Knapp, Gary Swinden, and John Lewis here in Moncton. John was visiting. Each of them kindly purchased a copy of the book. John accepted his copy, glanced at the cover, and said, “I took that photo!”
I was embarrassed. I should have known. John Lewis (not to be confused with John McCarthy) was a photographer and had taken plenty of pictures of staff and facilities over the years. He agreed to let me use the photo as long as I credited him in future editions, which I have.
The other challenge with Adventures in the Radio Trade was that it was mostly about CBC Radio and the people that worked there. And as I was finishing it up, I still worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. So I asked the CBC for permission to publish it while I worked there. Initially they said okay. My boss at the time had no problem with it. But just as I was about to move forward with it, they decided that they weren’t comfortable with it. I had a meeting with one of the main spokespeople, Chuck Thompson, with whom I had crossed paths a few times over the years. We had a pleasant conversation during which I told him that if the CBC didn’t give me permission to publish it, I would publish it after I retired. And that I would probably retire earlier than intended if that was the case.
Chuck (and everyone else at the CBC, I think) understood that Adventures in the Radio Trade is a pro-CBC book. Although I certainly take a few potshots at the corporation for the 2005 lockout, and I’ve never quite forgiven them for not green-lighting my science fiction show Faster Than Light, and for shutting down the CBC Radio Drama department…
Okay, it’s not entirely pro-CBC. But it’s MOSTLY pro-CBC! I fully support the mission, just not entirely how they go about it from time to time.
Anyway, they declined to give me permission to publish it while I worked there. They did allow me to use some photos of the studios. And when an opportunity arose to retire shortly after my conversation with Chuck, I took it. Not entirely so that I could publish the book, but that was certainly one of the (many) perks of retiring.
It amused me to publish Adventures in the Radio Trade the day after I retired, on August 1st, 2023.
Because it was about a real place with real people, I decided that I needed to protect myself. Probably this wasn’t strictly speaking necessary, but I needed to be able to sleep comfortably at night. So I incorporated Donovan Street Press. This meant that Donovan Street Press the company was publishing the book, not me personally. If anybody took issue with the book, they’d be suing Donovan Street Press, not me. Now, I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know how much protection this actually affords me, but I think it does provide some. I could also have purchased liability insurance, but that was pricy. As it was, incorporating the company wasn’t free. And it’s necessary to file corporate income tax every year, which is at least $1000 CAD if you use a professional (which I did the first year; we do it ourselves now).
I’m always telling authors not to waste their money on marketing. But I must confess I succumbed to the temptation to get a Kirkus Review. You can submit your books to various professional venues to get unbiased reviews, but most of them won’t actually review your book. There are a handful of respectable places you can pay to get your book reviewed. One of these is Kirkus Reviews. An indie review from Kirkus costs $450 USD ($631.82 CAD at the time).
Why did I do this when I tell authors that the path to profitability as a writer is not to spend their own money and just collect royalties?
Because I am as weak and as vain as the rest of you.
I had hoped for a starred review, which could lead to greater placement in libraries, but I didn’t get one.
Kirkus did give me a reasonably good review, with a pretty good tag line:
“An amusing and highly informative, albeit occasionally challenging, read, best for radio buffs.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
Under Awards and Accolades, they gave it the verdict: “Get It.”
Of course, we placed the Kirkus blurb on the cover, and everywhere it’s available online.
I have no idea whether the Kirkus blurb sold even one copy of the book. There’s just no way to tell.
I approached two other people for blurbs.
Before conceiving of the book, I had been posting portions of it online. A former columnist for the Toronto Sun, Gary Dunford of Page Six fame, noticed it, and posted the following on his blog:
"No other book makes me love the CBC more." ~ Gary Dunford
He allowed me to use that quote on the cover. Which is kind of weird: The Toronto Sun is (I believe) a tad right wing. But Gary hasn’t written for the Sun for years. I don’t know what his political sympathies are. But I used to enjoy his Page Six column when I first landed in Toronto as a young man, before I even knew what “left” versus “right” meant, or where the Toronto Sun existed in that spectrum. So I got a kick out of Gary liking my stuff.
I also approached my old friend Robert J. Sawyer, the acclaimed science fiction writer, who’s featured prominently in the book (we once tried to make a radio show together, and managed to get one kick ass hour on the air). It’s not really cool to approach big name authors yourself for blurbs; you’re supposed to go through their agents. But I had to let Rob know about the book anyway, and give him a chance to read the portions pertaining to him (I actually did this with everyone mentioned at length in the book, out of respect for them). So when I let Rob know about the book, I obnoxiously asked him for a blurb as well. And he graciously complied:
"What a wonderful book! If you love CBC Radio, you'll love Adventures in the Radio Trade. Joe Mahoney's honest, wise, and funny stories from his three decades in broadcasting make for absolutely delightful reading!” ~ Robert J. Sawyer, author of The Oppenheimer Alternative'
Naturally, this made its way onto the cover too.
Again, I have no idea whether these blurbs helped sell the book. But I do believe they lend it some credibility, and *maybe,* when potential readers are holding it in their hands, help influence them to purchase it.
What else?
Well, normally when a publisher publishes a book they apply for what’s called a Cataloguing in Publishing (CIP) block. This goes at the beginning of the book and “provides a bibliographic description for a book before its publication to help libraries and booksellers process it more efficiently.” Donovan Street Press has such a block for most of its other books.
But I asked the CIP folks if Adventures in the Radio Trade qualified, and they said, technically, no, because technically it’s self-published. I debated applying anyway, but I didn’t want to ruin either my or Donovan Street Press’s credibility with Libraries & Archives Canada. So Adventures in the Radio Trade doesn’t have a CIP block. Although I have no way of knowing for sure, I believe this has hurt the book’s chances of getting it into libraries. It is in some libraries, but not as many as it ought to be. And if any of my books belong in a library, it’s this one.
Oh well.
Another mistake I made with the publication of this book: Personally, I’m not crazy about my books having white pages. Somehow I checked the wrong box setting the book up on Amazon. You can have “Black & white interior with cream paper” or “Black & white interior with white paper.” Once you publish the book, you can’t change this setting. So I’m stuck with white pages in Adventures in the Radio Trade instead of cream. It’s not the end of the world, but it does underscore the importance of taking your time and double checking everything.
I made Adventures in the Radio Trade available as an ebook, a softcover trade paperback (with black and white photos), and in a deluxe hardcover, colour edition via Amazon. It’s also available via Barnes & Noble, and Chapters, and Kobo, and in a handful of brick and mortar stores.
It’s available to bookstores everywhere via IngramSpark. To make books available via IngramSpark you can either go through IngramSpark directly or through a third party such as Draft2Digital. I don’t use IngramSpark because I find them a pain in the ass to deal with (with some exceptions). I have one book I tried to publish with them several months ago that is still “pending.” Worse, somehow they have the wrong cover attached to it. I have asked them via their helpline to fix both these issues; I’m still waiting.
So, whenever I want my books available via IngramSpark, I use Draft2Digital (D2D) instead. But even they’re not one hundred percent straightforward.
It took me a while to figure out that the best, most acceptable ISBN for D2D—one that won’t screw up the process—was a D2D generated ISBN. Other ISBNs will work but you have to be careful not to conflict with any versions you have up on Amazon, IngramSpark etc. For example, if you’ve selected Expanded Distribution on Amazon, then your ISBN for that book will conflict with your D2D ISBN.
(Donovan Street Press gets all the rest of its ISBNs, which stands for “International Standard Book Number” for free from Libraries & Archives Canada. Technically, this is in exchange for publishers providing L&A Canada “Legal Deposit” copies of their books at the publishers’ expense. Donovan Street Press adheres to this practise.)
So when I initially set up Adventures in the Radio Trade on D2D, they wouldn’t accept it, because they didn’t like my L&A Canada generated ISBNs. So I got D2D to generate one, and then asked my long-suffering book designer Avery Olive of Bibliofic Designs to update all my copies of the book with that ISBN. Sigh. I hate asking her to do extra work, but she never complains, which is why we love her.
Long story short, D2D finally accepted the book and made it available via all their partners, of which there are many.
But wait! We still weren’t done.
Even though D2D had made Adventures in the Radio Trade available via IngramSpark, that meant squat. All sorts of bookstores, including Chapters/Indigo, have access to the IngramSpark feed, but that doesn’t mean that they ingest IngramSpark’s main data feed. To get Adventures in the Radio Trade into the Chapters/Indigo system properly, and get it displayed as “available online” on their website, it was necessary to email its ISBN to NewAuthor@indigo.ca with a request to add it to the Chapters/Indigo Ingram curated file.
And only then did it become available to order on the Chapters/Indigo website.
I paid Arleane Ralph $350 to edit Adventues in the Radio Trade (she deserved far more. This was Arleane being a friend.)
I paid Avery Olive of Bibliofic Designs $2500 for the cover and the book formatting along with the fancy index.
With all due respect to Avery, whom I adore, and whom I do not begrudge a single cent, I will never pay that much for book design again. This is why I purchased Vellum, so that I could do it myself, and save myself and my company a lot of money.
All told, it cost me $2850 to get the book published.
Later expenses included the Kirkus book review, which cost me $631.82. I also paid for a press release, a brief Booksprout subscription (for book reviews; a waste of money), and of course many authors copies to resell.
A quick survey suggests I’ve sold 167 copies of Adventures in the Radio Trade (including one ebook version that somebody kindly purchased just today, as I was writing this). That ebook earned me $4.47 in royalties. Print copies I sell myself earn me a bit more. After the costs of authors copies, table rentals at crafts fairs etc., I would say that Adventures in the Radio Trade has earned me about $1200. A far cry from what it cost to make.
Of course, books have long tails, as they say. It may yet make its money back.
In the meantime, it taught me a bit more about the publishing industry, which I would consider worth a few bucks.
Next up, in part five of Adventures in Publishing: Donovan Street Press Inc. branches out to authors not named “Mahoney.”
Stay tuned for the next step in the evolution of Donovan Street Press Inc. in a future edition of this newsletter.
Cherry Whip
by Michael Antman
Full release September 15th!
The funny and tragic story of a Japanese jazz musician's first encounter with America, presented here in its 20th Anniversary edition. A young man who overthinks everything but doesn't understand himself, Hiroshi encounters unexpected adversity and faces destruction unless he can figure out who he really is. Hiroshi's struggle for self-acceptance is a tale with universal resonance.
The 20th Anniversary edition of a novel whose reputation has continued to grow over the years.
Praise for Cherry Whip:
"Whip smart... humane and warm" ~ Time Out Chicago
"A marvellous novel" ~ Curled Up With A Good Book
"Moving and sexy and funny in fresh ways" ~ Jay Rubin, Editor, The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories and translator of Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
"A terrific and fascinating character study" ~Estella's Revenge
Michael Antman is the author of the novels Cherry Whip and Everything Solid Has a Shadow and the co-author, with Irina Velitskaya, of the forthcoming novel A Distant Place of Slaughter. He is an urban photographer, poet, and book and theatre critic, and a two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Award for Excellence in Reviewing. He is the former Global Head of Marketing for a Fortune 100 Company. He lived in Japan for two and a half years, and now makes his home in Chicago.
Thanks for reading!
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This has been the 64th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Another great tale from the versatile world of publishing, Joe. But hidden in the essay I found the title of its sequel: “I am as weak and as vain as the rest of you.”