A fantastic, funny review of the Unbound book Crushed Mexican Spiders, a collection of two short stories by Tibor Fischer, has been posted over at Metaliterature. Check it out:

”Just who Fischer thinks he is, first attacking Martin Amis and then telling me, his earnest reviewer, that “…most books reviews aren’t very well-written. They tend to be more about the reviewer than the book,” is an interesting question, and, frankly, one I don’t care much for. Me. I don’t care. I have other views too, which may or may not come out in the course of this review of a double-header by Fischer from the wonderful, wonderful people at Unbound. Okay, so I’m stuck in 2003, but then it was a nice place to be, with anticipation building at getting my hands on first a proof of Yellow Dog and then a pristine signed copy of Voyage To The End Of The Room. After 2003 it all felt a bit of a letdown, with the bathetic release of both to muted praise and fierce criticism.

“London has become a much more unpleasant place than it used to be. I don’t think that’s to do with any kind of recent climate of fear, it’s just that nothing works. There are just too many rats in the rat cage now.”

Read the rest of the review here…

Demonica by Elliot Rose (the pseudonym for award-winning author Will Davis) is a terrifying modern fairytale about a spoilt, pretty teenage girl whose face is destroyed in an accident.

“My name was Miranda, which I loved. At school that year we studied The Tempest and I remember feeling proud because I had the same name as Prospero’s daughter. About the only time I ever paid attention in class.

I felt like a heroine in those days; waiting for adventure to come and sweep her off her feet like it does in films and novels. I know it’s easy to romanticise about something that you’ve lost, but back then, at eighteen years old and about to leave school, the world really did seem to glow with opportunity. It was like a sparkling dew-soaked garden on a spring morning, over which someone has strung thousands of tiny shining jewels during the night. And each one of these dewdrop diamonds is a possibility, a multifaceted mirror you could pluck and whisper your secrets to, which would magically unfold into the path to your dreams.

I was pretty too. I had a lovely face. I think that’s one of the things that made it so hard – to have been so pretty. My skin was always very pale and I didn’t tan, but it suited me. I had long red hair - not that carroty ginger stuff that some people have, the ones who are called red-heads when they should be called orange. Mine was proper amber and with the sun shining on me it really did look like my head was on fire. People used to remark on it. Mum used to say it meant I was marked out for greater things. She was very proud of my beauty - the only thing about me she took much notice of. I sometimes wonder if she didn’t accidentally put a curse on me by telling people that…”

You can read the rest of the excerpt here.

And click here if you are interested in supporting the publication of this book by pledging money in return for getting your name printed in the back of every copy of the book, plus an ebook or a first edition hardback (which can be signed) and anything from a goodie bag of treats selected by the author (including a poster), to invites to the launch party and lunch with the author.

26 (an association for writers, editors and language consultants) has posted a great interview with one of our founders, John Mitchinson in which he shares advice for aspiring writers keen to get published by Unbound…

John Mitchinson is the co-founder of Unbound, a revolutionary crowdfunding publishing concept. He is also the co-author of QI books and director of research for QI. As 26 Treasures builds support on the Unbound website, John tells Elen Lewis why we all need to make sure the 26 Treasures book sees the light of day.

What makes 26 Treasures an ideal project for Unbound?
It’s exactly the kind of book that might get overlooked in today’s rather confused publishing environment. Yet it comes with wonderful writers attached – some well known; many not – and four museums supporting it. It offers us the chance to collaborate with readers to producing a memorable, beautiful object – an artefact in its own right – made from words and images. That kind of idea – one which stimulates excitement and offers the chance for readers to create something new and different seems to be the ones that work best for Unbound.

What advice would you offer aspiring writers keen to be considered by Unbound?
Be bold in your ideas and don’t become preoccupied with which niche you fit into. There’s far too much second-guessing in publishing already. Send us your ideas as a pitch, in your own words explaining why you want to write it, with an excerpt of 1,000 words or so. If we like what we read, we’re pretty sure other people will too.

Click here to read the rest of the interview…

We’re publishing a book by 26, called 26 Treasures - it’s an illustrated anthology in which 26 writers (from established authors like Alexander McCall Smith and Gillian Clarke to up and coming talents like Lucy Caldwell) respond to 26 treasures in 4 museums, using only 62 words.

Click here to find out more about the 26 Treasures book, and how you can support it in return for things like a creative writing workshop with the authors, a museum tour with one of the authors to see the featured treasures and plenty more.

Anonymous asked: HI I think that this is a great idea to help authors who often get overlooked but have great books or ideas! i am an author who has been trying to break into the market for a few years now with nothing but refusal letters! I was woundering whether you are also considering children's books?

Yes, we are considering books from all genres so please feel free to send a pitch for your children’s book to authors@unbound.co.uk.

The pitch must be in the form of the pitches for books that we have on our site:

- a max. 400 word pitch (summary) of what your book is all about.

- a short excerpt  of no more than 1000 words.

- an author biography.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

photo: Martin Burns on Flickr

Matt Keay has written a great article discussing crowd-funded publishing and Unbound for One & Other. In response to some of the questions he raised about what it all means for unknown authors, we’d like to note that we are working with writing community sites such as ABCtales and Jottify, and will soon have many more unknown authors up on Unbound.

“Historically, budding authors wishing to have their work published would have to individually print out a manuscript, post it to their chosen publisher, and feverishly hope with their fingers tightly crossed that eventually they would receive a positive reply. As technology advanced, and with the advent of the Internet, it became easier for writers to get their work to a wider audience.

As time progressed, so did the sheer number of authors hoping for fame and fortune, and with the success of such massive book series as Harry Potter, the Twilight saga and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, more people than ever want to be writers.  Now, with the highly functional and social resources of Twitter and Facebook at their fingertips, wannabe authors can persuade friends, followers and even strangers to help them in their quest for publication.

Unbound offers a completely different way to get your work published. The brainchild of John Mitchinson, Dan Kieran and Justin Pollard, Unbound is a website which endeavours to “crowd-fund” books. The premise is simple. Visitors to Unbound can pledge money for a book that is only part-written.

If enough money is raised, the author can afford to finish the book, and each pledger gets a copy. “We can make books work at a much lower level of investment,” explains Mitchinson, who has already proved his literary chops, being a successful author himself, as well as a former Marketing Director of Waterstone’s, Managing Director of Harvill Press, vice-President of the Hay Festival and Director of Research For QI, the popular BBC television programme.

The founders understand the importance of allowing authors to retain as many rights as possible. Significantly, Unbound retains the publication rights in books it signs for the first year. (“Longer copyright terms are increasingly becoming meaningless,” says Mitchinson). After that first year authors can sell paperback rights to traditional publishers if they wish to do so. This method of publication ensures the relatively inexpensive exposure of the work initially, leading to a wider distribution if the book is successful.”

Read the full article here.

This week’s issue of Time Out London contains a brilliant article about Unbound author Jenny Pickup whose first novel, Unbelievable, will be out in March!

Jenny is on twitter and abctales.com. Click here to watch her pitch video for Unbelievable, read an excerpt of it, and even pre-order it for access to her shed (a behind-the-scenes area where you get an exclusive view of how the book is coming into shape).

A New Chapter for the Book

by Rhymer Rigby Sunday, 01 January 2012

The rise of the e-book has left many fearing for the future of the printed word. Yet, there is room for them both to peacefully co-exist, as long as publishers make the most of new platforms, without losing sight of their traditional strengths.

By way of research into the future of book publishing in the age of the Kindle, Kobo and iPad, MT has become a patron of the arts, doing its bit to help first-time author Jennifer Pickup into print. We pledged to pay £12 for a hardback of her crime novel Unbelievable, should it make it to production.

Her publisher, Unbound, is a new outfit with an innovative demand-led business model in an inky old industry dominated by the supply side. The firm’s authors, from the well known (such as the Booker-shortlisted Tibor Fischer) to the unpublished (such as Ms Pickup), describe the book they want to publish on its website - what it’s about, who it’s for - and they can even leave videos of themselves reading extracts. The public can then pledge to buy these books. Entry level support is £6 for the e-book version, rising to £12 for the hardback, all the way up to £250, for which sum the pledgee’s name may grace a character in the book. When the support reaches a pre-determined level (typically, some thousands of pounds), the book is printed. If it doesn’t, it isn’t. What could be fairer than that?

Unbound is one of the more radical new models in a sector where many existing players are struggling to get to grips with the implications of digital technology. Trade book publishing (which means the works you find on sale on Amazon and at Waterstones) was once regarded as the fustiest of industries: a gentleman’s profession run from tome-filled garrets in Soho, where making money was somewhere below choosing the wine at lunch on the chairman’s list of priorities. It now stands on the brink of huge technological change, as Tom Weldon, CEO of Penguin UK, says: ‘Our industry is going through more changes now than it has for the past 300 years.’

Click here to continue reading…

Justin Pollard, one of the founders of Unbound, first got the idea for a radical new model for book publishing while sitting in the pub with his friend and fellow author Dan Kieran. “In the way that writers do, we were having a good old moan about publishers and how they don’t get any publicity for their books, and how advances are getting ever smaller,” he recalls. “I mean, friends of ours, established authors, were getting advances of £4,000. That’s a nice amount for a hobby, but not for a proper job.”

Yet at the same time, Pollard and Kieran observed that book sales were hardly in freefall. More books were being published than ever. People were still reading. “And so we decided to ask: where is the money going? And what we realised is that the problem isn’t to do with middle men taking it all. It’s to do with the traditional model of publishing, where you have to pay advances that are non-returnable. Because most books don’t earn out their advances, publishers have a huge exposure up front. That’s where an awful lot of the money goes.”

Pollard and Kieran (by now working with the company’s third co-founder, John Mitchinson) decided that there had to be another way of doing things. For inspiration, they looked partly to the music industry, and bands like Marillion who, after they were dropped by their record label, asked their fans directly to put up enough money for a recording session and printing. At the same time, they looked back to a much older model of book publishing. “Subscription publishing is extremely old when it comes to books,” Pollard says. “It’s how Johnson’s dictionary was published, as well as a large number of 18th- and 19th-century novels.”

From the yoking together of these two ideas – online pledging in the music business, and old-fashioned subscription publishing – Unbound Books was born.

Read the rest here!

How a new online venture helped to publish Evil Machines

Photograph: Jose Frade

It was only when I sat and counted them last Friday that I discovered I’m now the proud author of 26 books. Some would call that a library. The first, Chaucer’s Knight, might never have found a publisher if I had not already made a name for myself as a Python. In the late 1970s it was rather tricky for a new writer to get a book published, especially on what was seen as an academic subject. As it happens, were it not for the launch of the publishers Unbound, my most recent collection, Evil Machines, might not have been published either.

Earlier this year I was approached by my old friend Justin Pollard, a writer for QI who, along with a couple of other writers, had the novel idea of getting books published by involving readers directly. They were frustrated by the way in which the publishing industry seems to have lurched towards the pile-‘em-high bestseller, leaving many books that don’t fit the mould on the slush pile, with brilliant yet quirky ideas never seeing the light of day. Worse still, it is getting increasingly harder for an author to survive on ever-dwindling commissions. UK authors on average earned just £4,000 from writing last year on royalty figures of less than 10%. That’s hardly enough to pay for all our fast cars, lavish houses and gold-plated fountain pens, let alone food and a mortgage.

The Unbounders’ solution is to use their website to cut out the middle men. They ask readers directly what books they would like to see funded and then politely suggest that they might like to put their money where their mouths are. By bringing readers and authors closer together, the publishing process can be demystified, even democratised. Authors can publish books that would not be commercially viable for a big publisher and receive 50% of the profits. How could I not be interested?

Read the rest of the article here.

fuckyeahbookarts:

Unbound: BRINGING AUTHORS AND READERS TOGETHER!

“We think authors and readers should decide which books get published. On the Unbound site, authors pitch their ideas directly to you. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen. Everyone who supports an author before they reach 100% of the funding target gets their name printed in every edition of that book. All levels include a digital version and immediate access to the author’s shed while they write the book, and supporters of projects that don’t reach their target receive a full refund.”

Brilliant idea- become an author today! 

All photos by Paul Clarke

See more of the night here.

Publishing Books Together

Unbound is a new type of publishing house. Using crowd-sourced funding, it allows authors to write the books they want to. It also gives readers access to the writing process and involvement with their chosen book on varying levels. Sponsor a book’s publishing with a donation and your name is included in the back of the book. You might even get an invite to the launch party. 

One of the co-founders of the project is John Mitchinson. Away from Unbound he’s also the director of research at QI, co-author of the QI books and Vice President of the Hay Festival of Literature. After Unbound’s first live event, we spoke to John about helping out unknown authors, the pleasure of a good read and advice for setting up a small press. 

Unbound has just run its first live event. How did it go?

It was a triumph. 300 people, 180 pledges, thousands of pounds spent. It’s a new model - like a publisher’s sales conference for the public, with the participatory excitement of an auction of promises. Several of the authors at the event, including Jenny Pickup and George Chopping, were unknown. That’s a huge part of it - showcasing the new by packing in the audience with the better known.

Each author made a six minute pitch. We had a trapeze artist and novelist to open and a kick-arse band to close, with every shade of literary, commercial, serious and amusing in between.

Would you have been able to set up Unbound without your previous experience in book publishing?

I think good ideas always tend to come from the outside and although we are all writers, we’re determined not to reproduce the same rather cliquey, inward-looking feel that surrounds many publishers.

How does Unbound find its authors?

Many come direct from authors themselves; some come via agents and writers’ groups like ABCTales. Others come out of jolly lunches and drinks in the pub with people we love, or better still people we have only just met and who we will come to love.

What do you think attracts them to Unbound rather than established publishing houses?

Three things. One. Speed of turnaround. The first conversation to the pitch can take as little as a fortnight. Two. The financial upside. It’s a fifity-fifty profit share, so if a book does take off the author stands to make more than the traditional 10% royalty. Three. The direct contact with the most important people of all: their readers.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Boy George in the Guardian talking about Unbound book We Can be Heroes by Graham Smith and Chris Sullivan:

Claire Thom, Philip Sallon and Boy George in 1980 on a coach trip to Margate Photograph: Graham Smith/grsmith@mac.com.jpg

” I don’t know who said it but someone wise once warned that, “You should have a healthy respect for the past but never wallow in it.” One of the worst things you can do is live your life in retrospect, but there is a kind of magic to old pictures. Graham Smith’s brilliant photos, most of which I have never seen before, recall a time of great adventure and naivety. We thought we knew it all and could change the world with a lick of eyeliner and a dash of rouge.

Of the new romantic moment I have always said, “It was all Bowie’s fault”, but factor in Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, Quentin Crisp, Sally Bowles, and a whole daisychain of others who made us dream of a magical world without rules where there really was a wizard behind the curtain.

The 70s were the best time ever to be a teenager. It was the decade that had it all: glam rock, punk, ska, reggae, northern soul, disco, electronica. Pop stars, rock stars, were mythical creatures with lives we could only dream of living, but we tried, oh how we tried. It was punk that finally demystified the rock’n’roll dream, but those of us who loved Bowie could not get him out of our veins. I was just 12 years old when I first saw him as Ziggy Stardust at Lewisham Odeon, and only 15 when I met Philip Sallon; both encounters were to have a profound effect on me…”

read the rest here.

Last week a couple of exciting things happened to me. On Wednesday I spoke to someone who could put me in touch with Silvia Hussleman, the 1961 water skiing world champion from Luxembourg. Then on Friday I managed to track down Vicki Van Hook, the American who Silvia beat in 1961, together with Jean Calmes, another Luxembourg water skier who won the European championship in 1962.

Okay, none of that sounds particularly enthralling, but for me it represents what started off as a joke, a fantasy, becoming very much real.  

It’s all happened very fast. For years I used to joke that, as an academic expert on heavy metal and the British Jewish community, I was simply a biggish fish in a smallish pond – like the best water skier in Luxembourg. I’m not sure what caused it, but driving down to Bournemouth for the Easter holidays last April, I suddenly thought: ‘maybe I should try and find the best water skier in Luxembourg’. An idea for a book quickly followed and a synopsis suddenly poured out of me, seemingly fully formed: a book about big fishes in small ponds, started with the eponymous best water skier in Luxembourg, then moving on to others like the best bassoonist in Finland and the top novelist in Surinam.

I didn’t really expect anyone to be interested in my idea. I only sent it off to the just-launched Unbound in May because I thought there was a tiny opportunity to be in on the ground floor of an interesting new project. I didn’t expect a reply, but to my astonishment, John Mitchinson responded enthusiastically.

From then on, everything turned a little unreal as what had for a long time been an idle joke suddenly become real.  In early August I found myself at a water skiing club in the New Forest, filming my pitch video. By the end of the month my project was live on the Unbound site and live appearances talking about it quickly followed at the Voewood Festival and the Unbound Live event in Notting Hill. It’s now late September, my project is nearly 60% funded and in anticipation of full funding I’m starting to do the research. There’s a good chance that I will be visiting Luxembourg by the end of the year. 

I can safely say that becoming an Unbound author has been one of the more surprising yet exhilarating experiences of my life. My previous experiences with publishing have often been positive, but they have always been slow and immensely laboured. Writing detailed proposals and getting them accepted takes months if not years. Steering books through editing and production is also a lengthy process. In contrast, with Unbound all I really needed was a germ of a good idea and the support of the Unbounders themselves. 

Of course, getting funding takes work. I’ve spent a lot of time hustling to get support for my book, using all my contacts to try and bring supporters on board. It’s not easy and there are no guarantees that my book will ever get fully funded, but it has been hugely enjoyable. In the process of hustling and pitching I’ve clarified and refined my ideas for the book. I’ve tried to create a germ of a community around it. Books are nothing without readers and being forced to recruit every reader yourself is a very good antidote to smugness and superiority. The Best Water Skier in Luxembourg is about meeting people and it’s entirely appropriate that I should start doing so even before the research and writing starts. 

I don’t think that Unbound needs to become the dominant model in publishing. However it is definitely a good thing to have a space in publishing for people to take some risks, to offer new and quirky books to new audiences. Wherever Unbound goes in the future, whether or not it succeeds in sending me to Luxembourg, it has made publishing fun - at least for me – and in the context of an industry struggling to adapt to new conditions that is quite a feat.