wORking Press almost died in the summer of 1995. Two years of self-building my own literal 'publishing house' meant no promotion. In that summer Central fined us £30 for three consecutive months for achieving less than £15 worth of sales per month. The writing was, as they say, getting to be on the wall.
But happily the two new books have sold quite well with minimal promotion and few reviews: although Sarah Richardson did have a long interview on Viva Radio at one point. The Greenham book arose from contact with the artist Katrina Howse. The two new books represent the first of a new initiative to focus entirely on books by and about working class women. They are also our first books with full colour covers. Writing on the Line was also the first book actually published with Working Press funds. Both books sported more realistic cover prices of £8.95.
One change that has made a noticeable difference is the decision to take a 50% cut on the retail price of books we sell directly (in line with the distributors cut) compared with the 10% WP levy of the income from distributors (equivalent to only 5% of cover price!) This 50% covers the post and packing expenses but also gives us a more realistic income towards promotion etc. Of course the labour of making these direct sales is not paid.
But the main thing that changed our fortunes was the grant we have obtained from the Arts Council to, at last, publish 'Living Room' by Alison Marchant, designed by Alison and Jason Skeet, which is coming out in 1997. This book contains oral histories and this is a direction I'm interested in pursuing. £1000 of the £5000 ACE grant is earmarked for promotion - £660 has gone on 5000 colour A5 postcards, the rest is going on stamps, addresses and envelopes towards what is to be our most extensive expensive direct mailing ever. (see separate Direct Mail Plan). note how this promotion aims beyond the usual art audience to find new readers amongst womens studies academics, historians(trad), oral history & school teachers.
We plan to spend every spare penny in the next six months pushing what is turning out to be a small but powerful list of books by working class women cultural producers. I see every bit of publicity as a didactic intervention - the value of which is not measured in sales.
A big help in promoting the women's list out will be our new web page which is being developed, as he learns, by Richard McKeever. Contact him with your e-mail number or other contacts or links (e-mail wORking_Press@compuserve.com).
Next year we aim to top off the women's list with the book that Jo Spence was writing for wORking Press before she died - the 'Class Shame' texts. We will need help to publish this important book so if you are able to promise a gift or loan or buy copies in advance please send a cheque right now and we'll start a Class Shame Fund (copies will be £10). Subscribers of £50 or more will be recognised as sponsors as well as getting their 5 or more copies post free.
wORking Press money is currently tied up in 'Writing on the Line' so if we sell copies of that the money will go to the Class Shame Fund. 'Flyposter Frenzy' and Alison's new book both bring in 30% of their cover price to wORking Press (Publicly funded books donate 30% of their income rather than 10%). So please keep us in mind when you visit your local library or bookshop... Take them one of our flyers.
1997 is our ten years birthday - Would anybody like to organise a conference or party?
By the end of the year we should be well on our way to a digital transformation into 'Residuum'(?) press and by the millenium publishing CDs, videos, electronic journals, and broadcasting on the Internet.
After the self-build I went for complete normalisation with a surname extension in the shape of an MA in Time-Based-Media from Maidstone. This was an attempt to retrain myself with digital publishing skills which turned out to be digital video skills. I am now set up to edit Hi-8 videos on a Mac 7500 with Miro DC-20 capture card. However people with the other Multi-media skills are linked in and we would welcome the opportunity to publish a collaborative launch CD (or video).
The WP web site might well develop as a bunch of different interlinked homepages looseley edited around issues of class and culture. If you want to be part of this get in touch with Richard and me.
BUT even if you're still using finger paints, or prefer mud pies to computer bytes, I want to know what you're up to. Get in touch! Come and visit.
Let's crank it up. again...
Postscripts of business details:
Printed Matter in New York is still selling our books but currently has cash flow problems and owes us about £60. Inland has gone bust and taken a load of Flyposter Frenzies and large shipping costs with it. The rest of Inlands stock was shipped to AK USA. USA radical publications are in a bad way...
AK gave us a stock list for the first time ever... although the computerised system, promised for the last 3 years at least, has yet to show any signs of appearing. At least AK survives by the dedication of its barely paid and minimal workforce.
Marginal in Canada has a new manager, a web page which we've links to, and fairly reliable stock/sales accounting... they've been selling a few Frenzies and Conspiracy and they seem dead keen on Writing on the Line. The North American mail out, scheduled for next spring should help this situation. Shipping costs are now avoided except to the UK shipping agents. This work is now done by Central at a reasonable charge.
Central continue to be wonderfully business like, paying on time and generally being good to us. Hassle to get paid can be enervating for all concerned. Generally selling through bookshops is now very difficult and few, if any bookshops, consistently support wORking Press, to our knowledge. The Federation of Radical Bookshops is now defunct and shops like Compendium and ICA seem to be neo conservative (or maybe its liberal) anyway they rarely stock or promote our titles. Transgressive fluff is what the hip shoppers of the '90s seem to 'desire'. Third party recommendations of our list to bookshops are very welcome and useful.
'Writing on the Line' and the Greenham book are being included in the new Cath Tate catalogue. I've just noticed that Counter Productions are still pushing our backlist in their 1000 edition annual catalogue and owe us a bit of money. (Counter Productions PO Box 556, SE5 0RL).
To be honest its quite difficult to find out to whom and where our books do sell! They just seem to slowly seep out.
We are still members of the FED (FWWCP), which is soon to be 25 years old. Sarah Richardson is currently chairperson and is working to catalogue the publications that have come from FED groups over the years. We'd be interested to hear any additions and corrections to the Writing on the Line list, or unpublished or seminal articles or papers on writing by working class women. We intend a second edition someday.
Just remember... it all adds up.
Stefan Szczelkun