Short Stories Will Do It for You

Short stories have triumphed again, this time in the Wales Book of the Year Award 2009, which has been won by Deborah Kay Davies for her debut collection Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful (Parthian).

And here's the latest on Facebook from Salt director Chris Hamilton-Emery on the amazingly successful Just One Book campaign:

A month [and] we’ve had 1,400 orders and taken over £30K (two months’ cash): it’s been extraordinary, exhausting and exhilarating.

The ICA is now supporting the campaign, there's to be a new ad in the London Review of Books and Birminghan New Street Waterstone's is doing a Salt table display.

Makes one wonder if, in spite of the recession - or maybe because of it? - short stories (and poetry!) are turning the corner...

From the Brink towards a Possible Future

Due to all the remarkable support for Salt's Just One Book, it is no longer a campaign to save Salt from immediate demise but has become a campaign to build a sustainable business. Here's Salt's latest announcement:

We’ve been busy campaigning over the last two weeks to save Salt. The business has faced some serious financial difficulties as the recession hit us hard. I’m pleased to say we’ve stabilised the business, but we still need to build our cash reserves to secure our future. We’d like to thank all our customers for supporting us; but more than that, we thought we’d offer everyone a summer treat:—

A THIRD OFF ALL SALT TITLES THROUGHOUT JUNE

We’re now giving you a huge 33% off ALL books till the end of June. Use the coupon code G3SRT453 when in the checkout to benefit. Don't forget if you spend £30 or $30 you get free shipping too.
Please continue to spread the word, and spread news of this offer. Please don't let up. It's been extraordinary, but we're not out of danger yet. Every penny goes into developing Salt's books and services. We want to start a new children's list, and offer more resources to teachers and schools. We want to extend our publishing in new areas including our translations programme, we want to offer you more free magazines online. We want to help develop more support for debuts with the enhancement of our Crashaw and Scott prizes. We're planning audio books, ebooks and new videos for you. We only want to move forward, to develop and expand what we do and deliver great books in new ways to you and yours.

We need your support throughout June. We'll try and organise more readings and promotions with our authors. Virtual book tours. More launches. We'll work with bookstores to bring you short story and poety evenings. Stick with us throughout June and we can do something astonishing. That's the power of Just One Book — we want you to be a part of it. Follow us on Twitter look for #SaltBooks and #JustOneBook. Join our Facebook Group.

And have a giggle at the vid, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcTqXaOD2s

Oh, and one last special offer — Catherine Eisner’s magnificent crime novel, Sister Morphine for £7.50 plus P&P, simply enter coupon code EISNER in the UK checkout http://bit.ly/8rHDa

Watch out for more special offers throughout June.

Crossposted with Elizabeth Baines.

Just One Book: the Debate

An excellent, judicious post about the Salt Just One book campaign by Sheila Bounford at Off the Page, written largely in response to a fierce debate on Jane Smith's How Publishing Really Works.

Just One Book: latest

Here's Chris Hamilton-Emery's latest Facebook bulletin on the Just One Book campaign:

Sunday, May 31 2009

It's been impossible to think. Just over a week ago we were facing oblivion, the backlist would have sold on, but the business as a going concern was all over. I was job hunting. Stress had left me deaf. We were about to lose our home and it seemed everything had fallen off some precipice and was hurtling down into the frozen dark. We began cancelling the list and preparing for the worst. Nearly a decade of effort was being lost.

Then our viral campaign led to an extraordinary sequence of events. Facebook, Twitter and hundreds of blogs all covered the story of Salt's Just One Book offer. The media picked up on the story and suddenly over a 1,000 orders poured in, supporters arrived in virtual droves and the goodwill and great ideas became emotionally overwhelming; we had support from Foyles and Waterstone's in the UK, from independent bookstores around the globe, The Bookseller and The Guardian covered the story, the BBC wanted to cover us. The office changed from its usual focus on editorial, marketing and publicity to become a non-stop postal service, sending thousands of books off around the globe.



Alex Pryce had arrived to do a week's work experience as a Salt intern (part of our widening programme to support those wanting careers in literary publishing), what began as a project surrounding audio developments was swamped as she was drawn in to picking, packing and despatching order after order. Beside Alex, the Salt team grafted away. Charlotte and Tom, Jen and I, still haven't caught up with it all. But we're working hard, all day, all night, and still the orders are coming in.

Last week was half term, and most of my days were spent at home with the kids, sometimes reassuring them that there was going to be a future and that we would get paid at some point. I was spending as much time as I could helping make those sales. Just over a week later and we've now raised £24,000 or our £55,000 target. There's still some climb ahead, a big climb, but the enormous support of our friends and customers has bought us all time; it's all about time. What we hope most of all, is that we can keep our new customers, and that we've shown them that there's something wonderful and fulfilling about our list and our site, something exceptional about our authors.

I need to keep it all going, I need your support for one more month. So here's an offer for everyone and we hope more customers will come and join the campaign to buy just one book:

A THIRD OFF ALL SALT TITLES THROUGHOUT JUNE

We're now giving you a huge 33% off ALL books till the end of June. Use the coupon code G3SRT453 when in the checkout to benefit. Don't forget if you spend £30 or $30 you get free shipping too.

Please continue to spread the word, and spread news of this offer. Please don't let up. It's been extraordinary, but we're not out of danger yet. Every penny goes into developing Salt's books and services. We want to start a new children's list, and offer more resources to teachers and schools. We want to extend our publishing in new areas including our translations programme, we want to offer you more free magazines online. We want to help develop more support for debuts with the enhancement of our Crashaw and Scott prizes. We're planning audio books, ebooks and new videos for you. We only want to move forward, to develop and expand what we do and deliver great books in new ways to you and yours.

We need your support throughout June. We'll try and organise more readings and promotions with our authors. Virtual book tours. More launches. We'll work with bookstores to bring you short story and poety evenings. Stick with us throughout June and we can do something astonishing. That's the power of Just One Book — we want you to be a part of it. Follow us on Twitter look for #SaltBooks and #JustOneBook. Join our Facebook Group.

And have a giggle at the vid, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcTqXaOD2s

Oh, and one last special offer — Catherine Eisner’s magnificent crime novel, Sister Morphine for £7.50 plus P&P, simply enter coupon code EISNER in the UK checkout http://bit.ly/8rHDa

Watch out for more special offers throughout June.

Thank you.
Chris

Bookshops take up Just One Book Campaign

Latest news in the Salt Just One book campaign from the Bookseller blog:

Chris will be on BBC2 "Newsnight" tonight (29th May). Foyles will shortly be running a benefit to help raise funds for Salt for the summer. Bookshops around the country are putting on displays of Salt's latest titles. http://www.saltpublishing.com.

The bookseller quotes Chris:

Over the past five days we've taken close on 1,000 direct orders and generated over £20,000 of sales: trade sales have tripled. For a little family business like ours this has been humbling and exhausting. No one likes being on the brink, now we've stepped back a few paces. We're not out of danger, but we've seen that linking a viral campaign to drive sales to bookshops and our own website can have dramatic effects. People are saving us one book at a time.