Welcome Back! As you can see, Linen Press has had a make-over! The previous website did not capture the originality and energy of this small but evolving publishing house nor the excitement I feel about publishing brilliant books by women writers. I hope you love Linen Press’s new clothes as much as I do.
Linen Press is a small publisher of women’s writing based in Edinburgh. We are passionate about original, beautifully crafted books that speak directly to women.
I’m writing this on a dark evening in November. Outside, the pavement has a slimy coating of pulped leaves and in the morning, the light will be as thin as dishwater. But the news from Linen Press is bright. Juliet Bates has been short-listed for the Bridgeport Short Story competition, our new website has received a lot of praise and we have plans to go digital very soon.
If I had to define what is unique about Linen Press, I would say the close collaboration between writer and publisher. I pick up submissions that are raw but show considerable promise and work with the author, chapter by chapter, until we have a book which satisfies both of us. I may have just invented interactive editing.
Of course the book trade is not a particularly happy place to be just now. One of my authors phoned her local Waterstones to be told they were taking no new novels – in fact they were chucking out half of their fiction to make way for stationery. It sells better. My response is to ask authors to work with me to find creative, diverse methods of marketing. Linen Press is moving towards a collaborative and co-operative model of publishing which may prove to be the only way forward for small independent presses. We can’t compete with the Big Guy Publishers by printing 100,000 copies and selling them to a book chain at a 60% discount. We can’t do 3 for 2 offers. So we are not even going down that route but will find our own creative way forward to reach women who like very good books.
We have three new publications lined up for 2012:
The Henry Experiment by Sophie Radice is a novel about mothering in a society which sometimes seems hostile and over-ready to criticise. It raises questions about whether outsiders should step in when they see a child who is perhaps in danger.
The Making of Her by Susie Nott-Bower is a blackly funny novel about being made to feel unwanted and irrelevant in middle-age. It is love story that will make you laugh and cry.
Shooting Stars are the Flying Fish of the Night – by myself and Stefan Gregory is about an ocean crossing told from male and female perspectives. Is this the same voyage?
Linen Press will be at the Feminist Library in December, the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August and the Literary Festival at St Clemintin, France with Helen Dunmore in September. Foreign Rights agent Edwin Hawkes of Makepeace Towle Literary Agents continues to represent us at all international book fairs.
The story unfolds…..
