The New Foyles
Summary
Blogger: NiiRole: Senior Editor
Area: Fiction & Poetry
Original Career: Scientist
Editor of the main poetry imprints until 2007, now focussing on fiction. Editor since 2001 » »
Books
As Editor:14-2: twenty eight love poems
Dance the Guns to Silence (with Kadija Sesay)
x-24: unclassified (with Tash Aw) mouthmark series
waterways poetry
lubin & kleyner
As Author:
eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999)
In spite of myself, I have to come out and praise Foyles; it’s a store much changed for the better – what it has lost in character it has gained in integrity. When I began to work in publishing in the UK we used to regard books and magazines delivered to Foyles in much the same way as we still regard books sold under Amazon’s Advantage programme – as a marketing cost – because there was no way to make money off them. In those early noughties getting money out of Foyles was a marathon game – it was near impossible. Your invoices would be lost, accounting would never have heard of your company and cheques would be ‘sent’ 100 times and each time Royal Mail would fluff the delivery – and, of course, there was no Foyles online!
These days, regardless of which store we deliver to, we find that our invoices are paid on time and when books are ordered for specific events, the booksellers promote them well and keep a couple of copies after the event to keep the writer in stock. We have been lucky to have several of our authors on at the Royal Festival Hall and the branch there is exemplary: the communication prior to events is timely, the displays during and after the events are splendid and all signings are well managed. I know no one is asking, but occasionally a good word is just deserved. Well done Foyles!
I do still have my gripes, well, one gripe – the cost of organising readings at the Charing Cross store is exorbitant. A fail-safe killer for small presses – especially ones like flipped eye that love to read!
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