This must be more or less how Amundsen and that lot felt after they did the equivalent of finally getting their books back from the printers. Do I mean Amundsen? Shall we assume I do?
There's really no means of adequately conveying how stunning these tree-derived beasts are. Mostly we're terrifically excited about the spines, and the colours and also the lack of staples.
I think you people should be buying them. Hugely. I did, and I work here, which is a bit like laughing at your own jokes. Oh they ARE so great.
Great like flying ponies.
Sam.
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4 comments:
I am very excited by this and will, naturally, be purchasing books once I have some of that all important Money that you people seem to want in exchange for paper.
Liz.xx
YAY! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I mean... - o public - I do know who Liz is, but I did not actually force Liz into loving the books. Liz loved the books spontaneously. Liz is great at loving the books. Go Liz.
I've now read two Leaf books, and have to say the print quality and writing standard is incredibly high, and the A6 pocket-size is novel and very different, but for me I just don't think paying for a single short story is effective enough: I love the Leaf idea: instead of reading the paper, read a story, but a newspaper is cheaper than a Leaf.
As previously stated in this entry, the decision to go A5 is a sound one, and something which I wholeheartedly support - well, the more short-story publishers there are, the better insofar has I am concerned, and we small publishers in Wales should stick together! Who says the Valleys are full of illiterates, like init? :-)
I wouldn't want to see the demise of the pocket-book - from a marketing point of view, it's unique - but perhaps if the price was £1 (and the upper-word limit could be increased to 10k words) then it would be more competitively priced on the railway station platform.
Just a couple of thoughts, but on the whole I can see the Leaf motif rising...
Who actually works there - is it just one man/woman and their dog, or a team?
Hi Chris.
Cheers for the comment.
There are four of us working more-or-less full time up here, (down here? Across here? Doesn't much matter). We all mostly do a bit of everything though specifically Sam is the Editor and for the most part Ceci is The Boss. Gav is our web *genius* and Matt, though uncomfortable writing in the third person, has recently started doing more of the production stuff. Everything else is allocated and shared as equally as is possible for that day, be it promo, admin, newsletter writing, etc. When we're up to deadlines we all work closely on proofing, design and everything else together. It's a good balance.
For the most part we'd love to be able to reduce the costs of the pocket books. But unfunded, this just isn't feasible. As much as we acknowledge that £2 is to some too much, to others it's also a fair price to get new authors out there. There are too many technical pricings and so forth to get into on a blog but chiefly yes, the A5 books present an opportunity to get more writers published, and also, of course, to push ourselves beyond the niche we've created and be able to slot happily onto a standard bookshelf.
We're certainly not going to ignore the small books, though, and as Leaf continues grow (it's still an ambitious baby, business-wise) we're still trialling things, playing with others, considering other ideas.
As for wordcounts... well. When you start pushing 10,000 words you also start pushing towards novellas. I myself believe that there's an art to a SHORT story, as opposed to a slightly longer one. Concision, sharpness, all of that sort of thing. If they get longer perhaps they might also become sloppier? Personally I'd much sooner enjoy a well-crafted 3000 word glimpse than read a 10,000 word piece that says too much about itself.
Always open to debate :)
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