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What Merry Jeapes we Played
Ben Jeapes, founder of science fiction book publisher Big Engine
and the great new 3SF magazine, interviewed by our Hunty on the tricky
act of keeping the drool from running down his gibbering physiognomy
while running a burgeoning SF empire.
I didn't! I wanted to set up my own academic, or at least non-fiction, publishing house. The market for such is much more clearly defined and, unlike fiction, doesn't depend on something so ephemeral as the public's taste.
All my publishing experience was for small academic publishers: being in a small publisher is far preferable to being a small wheel in a march larger machine, but it does mean you hit your head on the ceiling very soon. Promotion prospects past a certain point aren't good, because chances are that the company is privately owned and the owners are the ones at the top. So, for several years I had had a feeling that one day I would be starting my own company. When the decision was suddenly thrust upon me by my losing my job, however, I had no contacts or particular interests in non-fiction fields that weren't already adequately covered. So it had to be what I probably knew best, which is SF. What’s the Big Engine policy on e-books? Big Engine is in favour of them, generally speaking. We don't actually have any yet, but intend to. As an individual I would always prefer to read a treeware product, but there's a portion of the readership who like e-books and so it's my job to cater for them. Did you design your own web site? Yup -- all my own work! Have you been approached by agents, and what’s your attitude to them … would you prefer your authors agented or unagented?
Generally speaking, I've found that if the agent works for an established and reputable firm, or is an experienced author in his/her own right, then the experience of working with them is usually okay. It also means I will trust their judgement about whether or not an MS is worth looking at, and they can be useful sources of information, too. On the other hand, if the agent is just a mate of the author, or (as I sometimes suspect has happened) has conned the author into believing they know much more about the business than they actually do, then the experience is usually not happy and I would much rather just work with the author direct. What’s your experience been like with POD – is the technology maturing? I had some deeply unhappy experiences with PoD at first, which wasn't due to to the technology, just the competence of the staff at the other end. That changed when the company in question opened a UK office and started employing professional printing people. It's not so much the technology maturing, now, as the various companies getting off the ground, getting more investment and offering a more mature service with the same technology. It's happening. I still come across the occasional myth like "Amazon won't stock print-on-demand books". Public perception is still not all it could be. In terms of the economics between POD and traditional book printing, what are the differences; is there a big cost divergence, and what would an economic POD print run stand at? POD tends to charge a flat fee, so a run of 1000 is no more or less economic than a run of 25. That's its biggest drawback. Traditional book printing continues to over economies of scale: but of course, to get a cost-per-copy of a few pence, you need to spend several thousand pounds up front on a nice large print run. What’s your experience been like with Big Engine’s fairly direct to reader distribution policy? It saves time and they know me well at the post office! I just wish franking machines were cheaper to rent. Did you ever try to contact any of the big wholesalers and retailers, and if so, what was their attitude to Big Engine? The attitude of retailers depends on whether or not you speak to them while they have a customer breathing down their necks. Talk to them on their own and they have shields on full. So, you just don't bother. But then, if a customer comes into the shop and asks about their book, and they phone up, they are unlikely to be quite so intransigent with a member of the public standing within earshot. They can agree to much more acceptable terms that way ... I had no problems at all with the big wholesalers, Bertrams and Gardners -- they have both been very accommodating. THE wouldn't answer any phone calls or return emails, so ... Selling direct, have you find a healthier appetitive for Big Engine’s works in Europe or across the pond in the US? Pretty similar on either side in terms of percentage of the population. It's just that the US population is so much bigger, so that's the one I want to reach! If you could turn the clock back to just before you started Big Engine, what would you do differently? I'd be a lot less sanguine in my promises. I was offering 12 books in one year! Sheer madness ... I think the fact that I couldn't come up with the goods put a lot of people off, and frankly I can't blame them. What’s your editorial policy with regards to new works – do you aim for a consistent style or theme to your novels, or is Big Engine a broad church? It's a broad church, though fantasy has to be very good, simply because I'm not a great fantasy reader. There has to be something that takes me by surprise. If they're reworking an old theme (which happens 9/10 times in any book) then there has to be something you can put your finger on and say they're doing it differently. What feedback have you had from your published authors? No complaints yet ... How do you filter your slushpile? I just ask for the first few chapters, in the first instance. If I want to see more, I'll then ask for it. In the early days, I would manfully slog through the whole thing: nowadays, if I'm not enjoying the first few pages, I'll call it quits there. It's no good saying "but it gets better later". It should be good now. What’s the size of the Big Engine slushpile … has it surprised you, either in terms of quality or quantity? The quantity hasn't particularly surprised me. The amount of badly written stuff has. I'm not just talking tin ears for dialogue or dire characterisation -- I'm talking bad or missing punctuation, bad spelling ... things I've known how to do since I was about 10. How does Big Engine scout its talent? I let them come to me -- simple! How do your contracts with authors differ from that of the likes of the Tor’s and Penguin’s of the world? I haven't seen a Tor or Penguin contract, so couldn't say ... I'm a Random House author myself, and the contracts are pretty similar. Except for the amounts I can pay, of course -- very low royalties and no advance. How much do you copy-edit the works of your authors? Minimally. A well-written MS will take care of most of it anyway. It really should be just a matter of checking the commas are in the right place, people's physical descriptions are the same from chapter to chapter etc. I've worked with people who get power drunk on editing and rewrite the entire MS simply because they can. That's not what editing should be about. Why did you set-up 3SF magazine? Well, (a) I've always wanted to, ever since finding a complete dearth of magazines to send my work to when I was about 18 or 19. (Interzone did exist by then, but it wasn't widely known.) and (b) Cash flow. A periodical gets money flowing in the company on a much more regular basis than publishing a book every couple of months. How have you found the differences in models between the SFF book publishing and magazine business? Any publishing model requires a timetable of deadlines for submission, proofs and final copies, so they're not dissimilar. With a magazine you're dealing with many more authors, so you need to factor in a lot of extra time. When it comes to selling the magazine, you need to put in more effort. Could Big Engine exist without the Internet as a component of your operations? It could exist, but it would be a lot harder. It certainly couldn't exist in its present form. A drawback of that is people who get carried away with what the internet can offer -- for example, they can't understand why I continue to require submissions as hard copy. (Answer: because it's easier to read, so one of us is going to have to print it out; and as I publish books entirely at my own cost and risk, I regard printing out an MS as being a small sacrifice on the author's part.) Do you find the magazine tends to bring in different submissions – either in terms of quantity or quality? I couldn't say, because I don't edit the magazine - Liz Holliday does. But from feedback received from her, I would say the proportions of dross v. okay v. good v. excellent seem pretty similar. What books are you reading for your own enjoyment at the moment? Sorry, does not compute ... apart from being reasonably well-paid, time to read for pleasure is what I miss the most. Do you have any hobbies and interests outside the genre and the job? Writing and church are the two main ones, both of which I would do even I wasn't in publishing. I do my best to keep my weekends and evenings free for something -- anything -- that isn't publishing. It's the best way to keep sane. So, that might be writing, seeing friends, going to the cinema, going for a walk ... or just vegging out in front of the TV. Have you noticed that weekends are actually getting bearable again in the evenings? Dark Angel, Alias, Stargate ... Do you attend SFF conventions, and what’s your experience of them been? I went to a few now and then before Big Engine, and a lot more after. Eventually you start to see familiar faces and make friends, and then it all becomes a lot easier. The first few cons I went to I just turned up not knowing anyone, which can be horrible. Nowadays, of course, I spend most of the con in the dealers room flogging my stuff, or trying to. You have to learn to be hard hearted because people will cluster around the table and chat, and block it off from potential buyers. Has being a publisher made you appreciate the other side of the coin as far as some of the gripes you may have had as an author are concerned? I was a publisher before I was an author, so it might have pre-empted some gripes. I've never had a publisher try to pull a fast one on me with a bit of publishing doubletalk -- though I've met authors who have. In the unlikely event of their trying, I'd be able to recognise it. What role do you think writer’s workshops and author’s support groups can play in a writer’s existence? From my own experience, absolutely essential. You so badly need feedback from someone who doesn't love you, who isn't even necessarily a friend -- impartial, professional advice. I noticed the difference immediately after the first Milford I went to in 1991. On the other hand, I've also found that being in an authors' group can make a coward of you -- you daren't submit anything without getting the approval of everyone else. And trying to take everyone's advice on board will just be impossible. You need to have a pretty strong idea of what you're trying to say and where're you're trying to go before joining the group. They can nudge you in the right direction. Do you think being a SF author yourself has made you a better publisher? It makes me tread very carefully as a publisher -- for instance, if an MS comes in that deals with a theme I've already been thinking about, I'll declare my interest immediately. And I have to make sure that I don't pinch authors' ideas, even subconsciously. I don't think it's made me a better publisher. I just try to be a good publisher anyway. Have POD novels sales been increasing, declining or remaining static given the abysmal current state of the world economy? I have absolutely no idea! You had better ask a POD printer. Where do you hope Big Engine will be in five year’s time? Making much more money. It would be nice to be getting bored of making my Hugo acceptance speech ...
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OTHER CONTENT - February 2003
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What
made you want to set up your own SFF publishing house?
I
have been approached by agents and the experience is variable. You have to remember
that the agent market is entirely unregulated. Anyone can say they're an
agent and still know squat about the whole business.
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