Fancy Book Covers, Distributors, and More...

All the world's a subtitle, / And all the men and women merely readers — As You Like It, Act 2 Scene 7(sort of)

Apr 05, 2024

Being the thirteenth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.

Did you catch that this is the thirteenth edition of Assorted Nonsense? Should there even be a thirteenth edition? Or should I just call this the fourteenth edition? Like that whole business with hotel elevators, where they pretend the thirteenth floor is actually the fourteenth.

Nah.

Covers

I’m releasing my first novel, A Time and a Place, with a new cover.

Here’s the previous cover (of the 2nd edition Donovan Street Press version). This cover was put together by Jeff Minkevics (of Five Rivers Press at the time) and I remember being pleased with it. It does effectively convey a main plot point of the book: a man by the name of Barnabus J. Wildebear going through a mysterious portal to, well, another time and place. The man doesn’t look quite like I envisioned Barnabus J. Wildebear but that doesn’t really matter (whenever I think of Wildebear, I think of a younger version of the actor Hugh Laurie).

Several months after the publication of A Time and a Place, somebody sent me the cover of a book by JR Evans (below). I was astounded. I wasn’t sure what to think. (Apparently it’s not a bad book, though I haven’t read it.) I had thought the art for A Time and a Place had been original. Naive on my part: turns out repurposing cover art is actually standard practice.

For example, here’s the cover of one of my favourite books, Little, Big by John Crowley:

Several times while reading the book I closed it to gaze at the cover, reflecting how appropriate I thought it was, wondering at the care that must have gone into composing that photo specifically for this book. Alas, that cover actually uses a stock photo. Here’s roughly the same photo, doctored differently, for an entirely different book:

And this (in what I think we can all agree is a terribly designed cover, with the author’s name barely visible):

Anyway, here’s the updated cover for A Time and a Place:

Let me know what you think in the comments!

This new softcover version of A Time and a Place is now available. The hardcover version should be available shortly.

The art is by my daughter Keira Mahoney, integrated into a cover design by Avery Olive of Bibliofic Designs, who also did the cover for Adventures in the Radio Trade. You’ll notice the line “A Strange Dimensions Book” underneath the title. That’s because I’ve written another couple of books set in the same universe, and plan to write at least one more, and I’m calling the series Strange Dimensions. (I plan to get the first of those books out as soon as possible, but it’ll still be a while yet.)

Keira’s actually read A Time and a Place, so she knows what the book’s about. The creature on the cover (not the seagull, the other creature) is an intelligent alien cat called a T’Klee. I always wanted a T’Klee on the cover. I thought it might help sell books. I still think that.

The reason I think that is because I hand sell a lot of books these days at pop up markets, and I see how people react to the books on my table. Here is the cover that attracts the most attention:

The Deer Yard and Other Stories by Tom Mahoney

The illlustration of the deer here is by my other daughter, Erin Mahoney. It was integrated into a cover design by Valerie Bellamy of Dog Ear Book Design. That deer sells books. At a market recently I sold a copy of this book within 15 minutes to a young lady who didn’t even read the jacket copy or look inside the book. She was with her mother. “Are you sure?” I asked them. They were sure. I felt okay about the sale as this cover in no way misrepresents the book. The title story is called The Deer Yard, and there are deer. The cover reflects the feel of the entire book. And for all I know maybe she just wanted the book to gaze at the cover.

And so it is with this new cover for A Time and a Place. There are a lot of T’Klee in that book. And I feel the new cover reflects the feel of the book in a way that the original cover didn’t, quite.

I’ve also updated the jacket copy to reflect my growing understanding of what works best there. This version of the cover includes a brief description of the book along with a short, hopefully exciting excerpt. The idea is to provide an “open hook,” a question in the reader’s mind that can only be answered (or satisfied) by purchasing and reading the book.

Do I expect to sell many more copies of a Time and a Place with the new cover? I do, actually. Although people who have already purchased a copy will not likely want to buy it again just because of a new cover, I do expect to sell more copies in person at craft fairs and pop up markets to people who find this cover appealing. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Speaking of cool covers, how about this one?

Music public relations guru Eric Alper (I follow Eric on Linked In) posted this recently. It is, of course, the album cover for Supertramp’s Breakfast in America. Have you ever looked closely at their version of Manhatten, depicted in the background? It’s constructed out of a cornflake box, an ashtray, cutlery (for the wharfs), pancake syrup bottles, egg crates, salt and pepper shakers, coffee mugs, ketchup and mustard bottles, etc., all spray-painted white. And that’s singer, painter and actress Kate Murtagh as a waitress version of the Statue of Liberty (or “Libby”).

Sales and Distribution

In the last few editions of Assorted Nonsense I surveyed publishers in Atlantic Canada. I did this to understand the landscape in which Donovan Street Press will be operating. I discovered over thirty publishers in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick of all shapes and sizes. One person operations to large teams, many receiving public funding, some obviously labours of love, no one specializing in science fiction and fantasy, some self-distributing, others utilizing the services of major international distributors to get their books around the world, and so on.

Now I want to turn my attention to sales and distribution. I want to understand who’s out there and exactly how they work. There aren’t that many, so I’ll tackle them one at a time. Today we’ll look at a company called Ampersand Inc.

Ampersand Inc.

I happened to stumbled upon a great paper prepared by Melissa Swan called Book Distribution in Canada and Alternatives for Small Publishers. It’s like Melissa wrote this specifically for me, though she actually wrote it for her Masters degree at Simon Fraser University in the Fall of 2021, and then it wound up online somehow. For anyone interested in Canadian publishing, especially how distribution works, it’s a very informative read. Some of the information that follows comes from Melissa’s paper.

I trust Melissa successfully acquired her Masters degree out of it.

So here we go:

Ampersand began in 1957 as JJ Douglas Agencies. Kate Walker bought it in 1991 and renamed it Kate Walker and Company. After she retired, it was rebranded as Ampersand Inc.

Here’s how Ampersand describes itself:

Ampersand is an award-winning, women-led Canadian sales agency, repping the coolest books & gifts for both kids & adults! With over 60 years under our belt, knowledgeable sales reps, and showrooms in Toronto and Vancouver, we’ve got what you’re looking for – from stationery, to puzzles, to games – and more! We sell to all sizes and types of retailers across the country, and we love what we do!

So they represent more than books.

Ampersand wants to be the “leading experts” in the book and gifts markets across Canada. They refer to the products they represent as “lines.” They represent many publishers, but also games and gifts. They have three physical showrooms, one in Toronto, one in Richmond (BC), and one in Mississauga. They take appointments to book a showroom visit. You can visit the Toronto showroom Mondays between 10am to 4pm without an appointment.

As near as I can figure, Ampersand operates primarily as a sales and marketing firm and doesn’t handle the actual distribution of product. Melissa Swan worked with a small press called New Star Books out of Vancouver. At one time, New Star used a distribution company called UTP (University of Toronto Press) to distribute their books but they had a contract with Ampersand to actually market and sell those books. According to Melissa Swan, “Ampersand’s commission terms amount to 10% net on traditional retail accounts and 5% net on all wholesale, warehouse, chain, and Amazon.ca accounts.” (I plan to do a deep dive into the distribution company UTP in a future newsletter.)

Businesses looking for Ampersand to represent their products can fill out a form.

It’s not at all clear what Ampersand’s requirements are, at least according to the information available on their website. Does a publisher need to have been in business a certain amount of time, publish a certain number of books a year, publish a certain type of books? Do they have to first go through UTP?

Curious about all this, I phoned Ampersand. Via a pre-recorded message, a pleasant-sounding young woman recites a litany of names and numbers of employees I can talk to, possibly every employee on staff (there aren’t that many, but there are a few). I scanned the team bios on their website as she recited each name. Titles included presidents, sales managers, account managers, and so on, but it wasn’t quite clear to me exactly who amongst these folks I ought to talk to to find out what I want to know. Their online bios included fun facts like The best piece of advice I've ever been given, What would you be doing for work if not this? and What's your go-to karaoke song? but nothing (beyond their vague titles) about what they actually do.

I did call one of the numbers, but it took me straight to another recorded message. So I pressed * for the operator and it took me to a pre-recorded message by the Operations Manager, Tamara Mair-Wren (a kind of operator, I guess!) who doesn’t work Fridays. I declined to leave a message.

Maybe by the next newsletter I’ll have managed to get in touch with one of them.

I’ll be at the Mother’s Day Market in Richibucto Saturday May 11th from 9am until 2pm.
I’m always on the look out for new places to sell books. If you know of any, lemme know at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com