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Northern Powerhouse

Who Needs London? Regional Publishing and Other Stories

Cathy Galvin

When a group of independent northern publishers came together in opposition to what they saw as the elitist practices of major publishers in the south, a formidable new alliance was formed. Four years on, what has happened? And what do they do next?

It began as a battle-cry from the north, with a declaration challenging the entitlements of the soft south; a roar of anger that poured, not into politics, but into the nation’s cultural heartland, the London-based publishing industry.

If this were a film, it would not be directed by Richard Curtis.

In a thrilling, well-executed manoeuvre, the opening scene revealed four independent northern publishers firing a single arrow directly into the open wound of the industry’s compromised conscience. In An Open Letter to the Industry, published in The Bookseller in 2016, they wrote of industry reports demonstrating a white, middle-class and London-centric focus in terms of workforce and the range of writers being published.

Their attack was a shaming that warned: “The lessons from these findings are clear: if you don’t have a diverse workforce or product, sooner or later you will disappear.”

They had a plan: “If our industry is, as it claims, committed to tackling inclusivity then we need to start diversifying our workforces and … dispersing across the UK in order to better engage with and embolden a new generation of writers, readers and aspiring publishers. The provocation, the invitation, then, is this: set up outside of London.”

The original four signatories, Comma Press (Manchester), Peepal Tree Press (Leeds) And Other Stories (Sheffield) and Dead Ink Books (Liverpool), had formed themselves into a new collective, The Northern Fiction Alliance, with moral righteousness on their side: “What message do we send …when entry to this industry relies so heavily on insider networks and the wealth within one’s background?”

Their vision embraced a reconfiguration of the industry, new dialogue in relation to decision-making and acquisitions, between publishers of all sizes, and concrete commitments including paying interns a Living Wage (and offering them accommodation through the Spare Room Project if needs be), monitoring the demographics of workforces, publishing more regional writers, setting up regional offices outside London. Their message rang through the liberal national media and struck home.

If we were looking for a suitable director to capture their passion – Mike Leigh perhaps? – the central characters would be filmed in northern pubs, improvising arguments about an inescapable ethical quandary faced by any ambitious writer or publisher involved in literature: how can an industry that thrives on creativity from the margins ever be comfortable with the realities of selling within the mainstream?

Yet increasingly, independent presses are publishing work that grabs public attention and lucrative prizes. They include Oneworld Publications, responsible for two Man Booker Prize winners, Marlon James and Paul Beatty; Galley Beggar Press, whose support for writers including Eimear McBride, Lucy Ellmann and Preti Taneja, brought them to publication when others turned them down. Independents are also agenda-setting, And Other Stories (with a stable including Deborah Levy and Angela Readman) devoting one year of their publishing to women writers from around the world. They are described as “nimble” by the larger houses, and mostly because independents have to take risks. Recognition doesn’t easily translate, however, into influence, and certainly not into monetary reward.

Small publishers are the talent-spotters, the editors and marketers of books they passionately believe in. Major publishers may be largely London-based, but the most successful are also global conglomerates who fulfil the same publishing roles as the smaller presses but with teams of specialised staff and the guiding demands of the international market-place.

Small publishers are the talent-spotters, the editors and marketers of books they passionately believe in.

They are also faceless. Which cannot be said of the NFA.

The hero of this bold cast is Ra Page, founder of Comma Press. Wiry, unassuming and intense, let’s have him played in our film by Ian Hart. As it happens, Page has film experience. Publisher of the master of the short form, David Constantine (Manchester), he brokered the deal which saw Constantine’s story, ‘In Another Country’, developed into 45 Years, a film starring Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, His imagination draws top writers, including A.S Byatt, to his stable; his determination ensured that the Northern Fiction Alliance had already secured themselves funding to develop their plans before their defiant Open Letter, with support from players including Arts Council England (ACE).

Page runs an innovative, international publishing house promoting work in translation and regional voices. He’s clear about the mission of the NFA: “Power lies in the hands of those dictating the cultural and media narratives and it’s being directed entirely from London, or the south-east. Much of the rest of the country is left feeling invisible.”

“Power lies in the hands of those dictating the cultural and media narratives and it’s being directed entirely from London, or the south-east. Much of the rest of the country is left feeling invisible.”
Ra Page, Comma Press

As the plot has unfolded over the past four years, the big London players sat up and took notice. Some subsequent industry changes, the strategy employed by Penguin Random House, for example, to ensure its staff and authors mirrored the demographics of the UK population, may already have been in train. (Their move provoked controversy when Lionel Shriver denounced the implementation of “diversity quotas”, but was largely welcomed).   Other achievements, not spelled out in the original declaration, made a huge impact. In showcasing the work of their members to the reading public and to major book fairs in Europe, China and North America, the NFA changed working practices.

Peepal Tree Press is the most significant publisher of Caribbean, Black British and South Asian writers in the UK, their authors including Kwame Dawes, Jacob Ross and Anthony Joseph. Operations Manager Hannah Bannister (Sandra Bullock), explains: “We hadn’t sold foreign rights before and now we are selling right across Europe, including Denmark and Sweden, and to North America. At the Frankfurt book fair, people already knew who we were and understood what we were doing. All of this is good news for us and our writers: they are better paid as a result of selling rights overseas.”

Bannister admits to a previous envy of the London publishing scene: “But now we’ve learned a great deal about rights, and IP. Our networks have increased, we are more plugged in and we’re getting our books in front of more people.” They have taken on their first freelance publicist.

In the initial stages of the NFA project (October 2016-June 2018) the core four publishers saw an increase of 125% in their income from rights sales and a 141% increase in the monthly average income from them. A total of £43,000 was generated, an increase of £24,000 on the previous period. They built a new working relationship with the powerful Publishers Association which has provided training and mentorship for members of the alliance. It seems doubtful that leading publishing figures will have signed up to the Spare Room Project the alliance advocated, but two of the big five houses, Hachette and Harper Collins, have announced they are opening offices in Manchester. (Hachette also have a new office in Bristol.)

While this is welcome, Page warns: “Mancunians are alert to ‘second bubble syndrome’, especially if those incoming publishers just parachute in London personnel and approaches. We don’t want a publishing equivalent of what happened with Media City UK, and the arrival of the BBC and ITV in Salford Quays, creating in effect a ‘London Island’. So if I were to write the Open Letter again, I would add a couple of addenda to that last step – to recruit only locally and remember, it’s not about Northerness, it’s about viewing things from the periphery.

“Pound for pound, the north publishes more work in translation, more poetry and more short fiction than the ‘big five’ or even the large indies in London. It’s not about flat caps and thick accents. It’s about approaching what we do differently, not following the gravitational vortex that is unquestioned, London-based trends.”

“Pound for pound, the north publishes more work in translation, more poetry and more short fiction than the ‘big five’ or even the large indies in London. It’s not about flat caps and thick accents. It’s about approaching what we do differently, not following the gravitational vortex that is unquestioned, London-based trends.”
Ra Page

There’s a new confidence about setting up in the north. And Other Stories founder Stefan Tobler (Martin Freeman) moved his business from High Wycombe to Sheffield. He says: “We’ve benefitted from the collegial atmosphere of the NFA, from the brand it has created, and from the trust we have generated between us. Rents and mortgages in our part of the north are still affordable to people on average salaries so I can hire people and know they have a good quality of life. That wouldn’t be true of London.”

Could the alliance offer a template for other regions? Is there potential for a sequel, The Alliance Goes West?  After all, many of the leading players in the north publish with printers in the West including TJ International and Imprint Digital.

Jamie McGarry of Valley Press (Scarborough, played by James Cordon) is one of the smaller and newer members of the alliance, alongside other presses including Saraband (Salford), Bluemoose (Hebden Bridge) Tilted Axis (Sheffield) Mayfly (Newcastle), Route (Pontefract) and Wrecking Ball (Hull). He said: “The north has a strong identity and a sense of common values. Having a megaphone to shout about what we are doing binds us together. We also have to acknowledge that in Ra Page, we have vision and acumen. Page and his colleagues at Comma are the spark that led to the fire of the NFA. It is hard to know whether what we have is unique to us, or transferable.”

Future plans, funding from ACE and others permitting, involve continuing representation at the major book fairs, including London (where, even if it had gone ahead, they wouldn’t have been able to afford a stand this year due to lack of funding); an International Fellowship programme, a shared rights catalogue, a website listing service providers in the north – from presses, to agents, festivals, designers, editors and more – and a range of national and international alliances that will support their showcasing of northern talent.

The final scene of the NFA film hasn’t yet been written. In it, the unheard will demand the right to be heard on their own terms, though how unheard they are in reality is difficult to assess given their powerful impact. With or without funding, the alliance is continuing to grow and inspire other independents beyond London. They will soon also incorporate the thriving northern-based poetry houses, Carcanet Press (Manchester), Bloodaxe Books (Northumberland), Arc Publications (Todmorden) and The Poetry Business (Sheffield), necessitating a new name for the alliance: the Northern Publishers Network.

It feels right to give Ra Page the final word. What for him has been the biggest impact of the NFA? “I think it has made us all realise we do know what we are doing! We all carry a tiny bit of impostor syndrome through our careers. But when we start to see our work being bought by publishers around the world, there’s a huge sense of affirmation that comes with this, one that you won’t get from the UK industry in London.

“The sense of camaraderie between indie presses – especially those based outside of London – is enormous and the potential inside that shouldn’t go untapped.”

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The Numbers...

The proportion of people working in the industry from the north was 10.1% compared to the 23% of the UK population the north constitutes. (4.9% from the north-west; 3.2% from Yorkshire, and 2% from the north-east).

Publishing Industry Workforce and Diversity and Inclusion Survey 2018 , Publishers Association

 

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