Blue Door Press – An Innovative, Writer-led, Solution To Publishing

The idea for the press grew out of a group of published women writers –  of both prose and poetry –  who have been meeting for more than ten years. The group’s mostly based in London and the idea for the press started from conversations we’ve shared about publishing – exchanging ideas on how that can be a better experience.

Two of us decided to explore ways to combat the increasingly unsettled world of commercial publishing in the UK: payment of advances to authors is dwindling, publishers are wary of literary fiction and poetry. We know of work that deserves to be read – including our own. We’ve both been published in mainstream; both have won prizes and awards for our writing. We wanted to stop bemoaning our lot and make a positive response to the situation.

We went to workshops to bring ourselves up to date with Kindle, blogging and Tweeting; we had a look at what agents were up to – several had set up their own imprint. We went to seminars on self-publishing. We read a lot of other people’s experiences.

We read statistics about inequality: more women than men read novels, women buy more books, there are more women in book groups, more women go to book festivals. Yet, oddly enough, there are far more men than women doing book reviews.

We wrote a plan and showed it to friends, with their feedback we began to refine our thoughts. It was clear that it meant spending time on quite tedious work; time that might be better and more happily spent writing. Did we have the stamina? The press that we had in mind would require a long-term commitment. But the idea became more and more exciting as we saw the possibilities for taking control of our work and providing a way to hopefully smooth the path for others.

It took us a while to find a name that suited what we wanted to do. With the blue door  we had our simple, strong image for a logo – an open door to publishing books that we think deserve readers. Pavla Ezeh came up with our image and she helped set up an equally uncluttered look for our website. As one of our associates, she joined a  collective that was beginning to grow as we added editors, copy-editors and designers.

From our own experience of being published, we’ve felt frustrated by inadequate or barely present editing, poor design, minimal marketing. At Blue Door Press we’re clear that books need to be rigorously edited and well-designed.

We’ve heard so many stories from writers about disappointing covers pushed through by publishers. We knew that we needed strong images that would work well as thumbnails as our books will be sold mainly online. It’s been rewarding to commission covers that evoke something at the heart of each book.

We see our website as the hub of a growing community of writers and readers.  Blue Door Press is about getting overlooked books out in the world and sharing them. We’re keeping overheads low, learning to skill-swap. As new writers join the collective we ask what skills they might bring to the venture.

Just as we’ve learned to appreciate all the expertise involved in publishing, we’ve also learned that you can’t simply publish a novel and convince yourself that the book will sell itself. It won’t. It needs all the support it can get, and that means social media. We have a Facebook page and have started a regular newsletter. This is no time to be squeamish about Twitter.

The two novels being launched with the new press in September – Taking In Water and  Don’t Mention Her – have women at the centre of the stories; women facing issues that interest us, and that we believe will connect with readers. The future is not only, though, about fiction, there will be more novels, but also poetry, memoir. Whatever is exciting and needs to be out there being read.

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Jane Kirwan’s poetry collections Stealing the Eiffel Tower (1997) and The Man Who Sold Mirrors (2003) and Second Exile (poems and prose written with Ales Macháček) were published by Rockingham Press. She won an Arts Council Writers’ Award in 2002, has been commended and won prizes in several competitions including the National and Hippocrates; has read poetry on Czech television and festivals in the UK and abroad. In May 2013 Hippocrates Press published Born in the NHS, an A-Z of poetry, prose, memoir and facts written with Wendy French, ‘conceived’ when they were talking about the threats to the NHS. Don’t Mention Her is her first novel.

Tags: blue door press, publishing, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Publishing