Bio: Editor of the main poetry imprints until 2007, now focussing on fiction. Editor since 2001
Posts by niiayikwei:
- Your submission is read by our initial readers, who will pick work that is well-structured, edited and presented and forward what they choose to our selection readers. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE INITIAL READERS – 12%
- Your submission is perused by our selection readers who will select work based on originality, style and the priorities of our three editors, sending the chosen work on to specific editors according to their assessment of the work. All fiction submissions will go to Nii Ayikwei Parkes. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE SELECTION READERS – 30%
- Your work is read by one of our three editors who then pick the work they like and share it with the other editors at our editorial meetings (held every six weeks). LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST AN EDITOR – 62%
- Your work is championed by an editor at an editorial meeting. If it is approved, the editor who chose your work will contact you to discuss the possibility of publishing you. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE EDITORIAL MEETING – 99%
The New Foyles
August 28th, 2010In 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!
Where those submissions go
August 13th, 2009I guess I could call this confessions of an idealistic editor, but I’m not making a 70s made-for-TV film so I won’t.
In the early days of flipped eye publishing I saw every submission as a chance to enhance the experience that most aspiring writers have when they submit work to a publisher. I responded to every submission, telling each writer what I liked and didn’t like about their work, what could be improved easily, who I thought they should read, and what magazines to submit to. It was a tall order, but we were new and I was only editing three writers so I was able to keep up with it. Besides, I had been the submitting writer so many times and was so incensed when editors/agents/magazines who asked you NOT to make simultaneous submissions did not respond. I actually got several writers writing back to thank me – and, of course, submissions ballooned because that was effectively a FREE reading service.
Seven years on, I find myself editing twenty two writers, working with two extra editors and – yes – with no time to respond to all submissions. Admittedly, it crept up on me, so I didn’t actually take steps to let writers know of the changes (I do believe clear communication is the foundation of the contract, regardless of how transient, between editor and writer/aspiring writer), but we have ALWAYS said that we accept simultaneous submissions – after all, if an editor likes your work, they should step up and say so! And we don’t require SAEs, which I maintain are a waste of time – in fact, we prefer initial queries by e-mail.
What we have done now, though (a few years late), is create an auto-response that lets writers know EXACTLY what is likely to happen to their submission – where it goes. And the text reads something like this:
Your submission has been received by flipped eye publishing and will now go through a number of stages. You may or may not get a response depending, primarily, on whether or not your submission makes it beyond our initial readers. During low submission periods we endeavour to respond to all submissions, but we cannot promise this.
The stages are as follows:
So, we still love bits of your work – but we can’t always tell you which. We live in crunchy times…
»»
when they submit work to a publisher. I responded to every submission, telling each writer what I liked and didn’t like about their work, what
could be improved easily, who I thought they should read, and what magazines to submit to. It was a tall order, but we were new and I was
only editing three writers so I was able to keep up with it. Besides, I had been the submitting writer so many times and was so incensed
when editors/agents/magazines who asked you NOT to make simultaneous submissions did not respond. I actually got several writers
writing back to thank me – and, of course, submissions ballooned because that was effectively a FREE reading service.
Seven years on, I find myself editing twenty two writers, working with two extra editors and – yes – with no time to respond to all
submissions. Admittedly, it crept up on me, so I didn’t actually take steps to let writers know of the changes (I do believe clear
communication is the foundation of the contract, regardless of how transient, between editor and writer/aspiring writer), but we have
ALWAYS said that we accept simultaneous submissions – after all, if an editor likes your work, they should step up and say so! And we
don’t require SAEs, which I maintain are a waste of time – in fact, we prefer initial queries by e-mail.
What we have done now, though (a few years late), is create an auto-response that lets writers know EXACTLY what is likely to happen to
their submission – where it goes. And the text reads something like this:
Your submission has been received by flipped eye publishing and will now go through a number of stages. You may or may not get a
response depending, primarily, on whether or not your submission makes it beyond our initial readers. During low submission periods we
endeavour to respond to all submissions, but we cannot promise this.
The stages are as follows:
1. Your submission is read by our initial readers, who will pick work that is well-structured, edited and presented and forward what they
choose to our selection readers. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE INITIAL READERS – 12%
2. Your submission is perused by our selection readers who will select work based on originality, style and the priorities of our three
editors, sending the chosen work on to specific editors according to their assessment of the work. All fiction submissions will go to Nii
Ayikwei Parkes. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE SELECTION READERS – 30%
3. Your work is read by one of our three editors who then pick the work they like and share it with the other editors at our editorial meetings
(held every six weeks). LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST AN EDITOR – 62%
4. Your work is championed by an editor at an editorial meeting. If it is approved, the editor who chose your work will contact you to
discuss the possibility of publishing you. LIKELIHOOD OF RESPONSE IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT PAST THE EDITORIAL MEETING – 99%
So, we still love bits of your work – but we can’t always tell you which. We live in crunchy times…
A little distraction
February 27th, 2009Early in the week I was happy to have some non-literary distraction delivered to me by one of my authors and sometime freelance photographer and designer, who designed all but one of the books in our mouthmark series, Inua Ellams. The task was simple – to create out of the multiplicities of randomness the web can provide, a design product, a music CD. It appealed to me because I’m a lover of the random, but also, as Senior Editor, I have to pitch in on design direction so I love to get my hands dirty. Plus, I miss those days in Ghana when I helped a friend set up a graphic design business and I often had to help complete projects to meet deadlines. Anyway, I will ramble no more. The distraction/task is:
1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use Photoshop, Illustrator or similar to put it all together.
I have pasted my result below. If you decide to try it, please put a link in the comments on this post so I can check it out.
underpromise, overdeliver: my fake album cover
The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets
February 4th, 2009So, I arrived from a British Council-linked trip to India to find a press release about the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets. I’m very pleased about the awards for two reasons: 1) there is an award for both authors and publishers 2) I can’t help but feel that we contributed to the higher profile of poetry pamphlets/chapbooks in the UK market. Now I’m not suggesting that flipped eye publishing started publishing pamphlets in the UK – in fact two of the pamphlet publishers I most admire started well before us; Torriano have been releasing beautifully-priced pamphlets since 1987 (if not earlier) and Flarestack have been doing the same since 1995 [both retail their pamphlets for £3]. However, until we started the mouthmark series in 2005, the pamphlets being produced followed the trend of a regular publishing programme; there was no pamphlet imprint that was producing a focussed series of work linked to a specific objective. mouthmark was started with the aim of taking work that had been succesful in live readings and translating it for the page. This meant that we used a very intensive editing process which often involved helping each poet find a comfortable mode of expression on the page; one that was accessible but didn’t kill the vibrancy that their work held on stage.
some of the jackets for the mouthmark pamphlet series
We also developed a distinctive look for the imprint which often has punters stopping for a second look at book fairs (samples on the right). The outcomes of the mouthmark pamphlet series initiative include press exposure in Straight No Chaser and the Independent on Sunday, a couple of PBS Pamphlet Choice Awards and – my love/hate outcome – a rush of submissions! More importantly, we noticed other publishers in the marketplace establishing similar initiatives. One of my favourites is the pilot series run by the tall-lighthouse – publisher of my chapbook M is for Madrigal. Launched in 2007 and edited by the ultra-talented Roddy Lumsden, the series aims to unearth young poetry talent in the UK and I believe it has already won three PBS Pamphlet Choice awards in its short life.
I believe the emergence of such well-managed, elegantly-designed pamphlet series meant that it was only a matter of time before an award such as the Michael Marks came along. Of course, the Poetry Book Society has been working on this for a while, but it’s always easier to close a deal when you have the quality to back it up. Now, the first award for publishers covers work published in 2008 and since mouthmark didn’t release any titles last year, my money is on the tall-lighthouse; Roddy has edited and groomed a truly amazing crop of writers and noone deserves it more.
To find out more about the awards, visit this link: http://www.bl.uk/news/2009/pressrelease20090203.html
State of the Desk
January 7th, 2009Of course, I’m calling my new year rant ‘State of the Desk’ as opposed to ‘of the Industry’ or ‘of the Nation’ because I know that all I can control is my desk – and even that is a bit chaotic. But, the topmost thing in my mind does, in fact, relate to the publishing industry: I am often asked if I think e-books will take off. Interesting question, because if I’m being asked about them, they must have taken off to some degree, right? What always strikes me it the context of the question; it is always along the lines of, do you think that e-books will replace printed books? First of all, the question in that context is silly; what do you think we would we do with all the paper books we have already? Which effectively is my answer to the question; I think they will exist side-by-side. But the difficulty of putting that thought across to certain people has got me thinking about Western thought in general – this notion of either/or, this/that, wrong/right, superior/inferior. It seems to me that this is what makes it so difficult for people to adapt or simply to exist in a changing world. When I was growing up in Ghana we had the notion of it is what it is deal with it and, man, it was way less stressful than trying to figure out who was right or wrong – the question is, how do we evolve/adapt to survive/thrive… But let me let that go and turn to Hollywood or rather ‘Disney’ thought, this making of the impossible commonplace. I’m having real issue with it; I am 99% certain that it’s indirectly responsible for all the terrible submissions we’ve been getting – everybody thinks they’re Kim Possible, they can do everything, they can write gold in their sleep – even when they can’t structure a sentence. In the meantime, we have to deal with the overwhelming volume and the good writers don’t get as much of our attention (even when we’re rejecting their manuscripts) as they should. I guess, in fairness, Disney also created Goofy, but nobody seems to want to be goofy…
Regardless, I start the year happy – very happy indeed – because we just got some funding to allow me to employ two of my most respected authors as poetry editors for two of our imprints over the next two years. This will allow me time to do some of the more strategic things that have needed doing for flipped eye for so long, and it will add a nice new flavour to our offerings. I’m hoping to be able to do the same in the US as well soon since we have some fine writers there who could easily make the jump to editing, but, for now, I’ll use the time wisely working on strategic goals, growing our fiction list and liaising with our new rights manager to build some solid bridges worldwide and generate extra income in these tight-belt-times. Also, brilliant, for me, is I made the shortlist for the UK Young Publishing Entrepreneur Award and will be flying to India (sponsored by the British Council) to check out the market there etc. It’s already been fantastic because I’ve met a couple of the other shortlisted candidates and I can see already what more interaction and information sharing at the cutting edge of the publishing industry can do to promote rapid growth and innovation.
So, that’s my State of the Desk address. You can catch me next at Spread the Word‘s Novel Pitch at Stratford Circus on April 25. I’ll be one of four editors (including my own editor at Jonathan Cape) giving hopeful novelists the low down on what works and what doesn’t. Until then, please keep the crap away from my postbox – I only want roses
