Library

My sixth idea for April (see others below) is that I am going to put my entire personal library online for sale in order to raise money to do new works. I will be adding them at a rate of about 25 books a day.

Close to end of first Month

It's very hard to achieve anything interesting if you have more sense than money. I think I am quite lucky that, though I don't have a lot of money, I am powerfully deficient in good sense.

I am planning lots of things for the site in the next couple of weeks:

The first is a page explaining about the field. I am planting trees to offset the print and packaging I use. I do use heavy packaging but it is necessary to ensure the books stay in shape.

The second is a gallery of inside packaging art. All the delivery packaging will from next month unfold into a picture that someone can keep, either on their wall, or folded back on a shelf.

The third is a subscription service, because a good few people have asked for this. Subscribers will get a surprise book once a month, a month before the books become available online or in bookshops.

The fourth is a recommendation network. This will be a general committee for the recommendation of new works that Trashface should go after. I have not decided yet how to moderate membership but I will endeavour to be democratic. All the best ideas I have had have come from interested readers online. The originators of recommendations that I take up will receive royalties. Have not yet figured how much but enough to reward success. Obviously that means there will be a restricted number of recommendations anyone can make during a fixed period. Anyone who is interested should get in touch with me.

The fifth is two brand new titles as promised. Confidential, sadly.

So that is what I am planning for April.

Not broke yet

First week over and I am not broke yet. Lots of great people buying books so that is good. Also I have the €25 I won at the chipper, so that's handy.

I have calculated that I can publish 2 books a month and advertise at my current level for 10 months before I go completely bust. Before the end, though, I will be eating spam and beans from a tin pot and cursing the cruel world. That part was not actually a mathematical calculation.

Still writers give me enormous optimism. Perhaps because they are mostly insane. I have read that fiction writers are madder than poets. I sadly cannot locate the reference. It seems to me that poetry is quite an expressive, healthy activity. Fiction writing, on the other hand, is insular, rejects the personal and indulges heavily in fantasy.

Insane or not, the optimism is a great lift. Selling is a rather dreary activity, as most of us know from firsthand experience, but I think the internet has the potential to make that entire process a pleasure rather than a chore. As people become more mature internet users they do tend to respond best to the gentle, informative, hands off approach - rather than buying mortgages all day or whatever it is we are supposed to do. I don't personally have a mortgage, but I believe many people do nowadays...

A curious thing happened in the chipper

Good omen this evening. I was working late this evening and on my way back from the office I decided to buy a bag of chips. For any American readers, that is basically a bag of big fat french fries. I rarely eat them but once in a while the craving for salt and vinegar can get the better of you. I'd been swimming at the Forty Foot (in the Irish sea) in the afternoon and the cold can make you hungry all day.

I walked in the door of the chipper and they have this monstrous gambling machine there. I think everyone knows them. A huge, glaring, completely incomprehensible slot machine. Well while I wait for my chips I decide what the hell, so I put 2 euros into the beast. Lights flashed, buttons flashed. Some were pressed, some were not. I still have no idea what I was doing at the time. In short, after some flase dawns, I found myself 25 euro richer and very confused.

Now the trick is not to go back.

"Trashface" - a bit Nathan Barley...

I got an email from a friend about the launch of Trashface. He says:

"The name is a bit Nathan Barley but the content is definitely not. There is defo plenty of time wasting appeal there, which is just too tempting on a Monday morning..."

I'm not sensitive. I enjoy feedback of every kind. But I was a bit lost about this. What in God's name is "Nathan Barley"? Google. Wikipedia:

"Nathan Barley is a Channel 4 sitcom written by Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris which follows the exploits of a loathsome, fictional twenty-something London media type. Described by his own creator as a 'meaningless strutting cadaver-in-waiting'..."

Furthermore:

"He is convinced he is the epitome of urban cool"

And is:

"in his own words, a 'self-facilitating media node'"

It looks funny. Then I see the key to my friend's observation. Nathan Barley's own website is "http://www.trashbat.co.ck/". Suddenly I find myself irrevocably twinned with the strutting cadaver-in-waiting.

As a lame attempt, therefore, to extricate myself, I thought the following very brief explanation of how the name came into my mind, might help:

I HAD IT IN A DREAM.

Why Publish?

I've spent most of my spare time in the last eight months getting Trashface ready between putting the money together, building a viable site, tracking down authors, preparing the books and so on. Trying at the same time to learn as much about the business of publishing as possible along the way. One thing is certain: There's no money in it, unless you're publishing Jordan's memoirs...which are fascinating in their own way, by the by.

So the question comes readily to mind, now and every day for the last 8 months. Why go into publishing?

I think principally because I want to live in a culture that appreciates genre fiction writers. Not in an ironic, sidelong way, either. I want to live in a culture where these men and women are appreciated for the talent they give for entertainment and often for an unselfconscious enlightenment too. Fiction reading takes us out of ourselves, returns us with a greater solicitude for our fellow man.

Take Thomas Page as an example. Thomas is urbane and witty. He has a great intellect. He is a highly educated man. He has that old-school American politesse: Something we Europeans need to give more credit for these days. He is also a genre fiction writer. We don't always realise just how much skill, imagination and artistry it takes to produce great genre fiction...

Book signings of two very different kinds...

On the first day of Trashface's existence I might have been expected to be very busy or very drunk. Not so.

While in Burbank, California, Thomas Page was having his signing at Dark Delicacies, which I understand went very well, I was wandering like a vagrant about the streets of Dublin with Patrick Healy, doorstepping unsuspecting members of Dublin's social elite: Giving them the Hard Sell on Bebuquin, which Patrick has translated for Trashface.

Patrick is mentally, vocally and physically notable. He does not pass unremarked. He also has a unique walking style which consists of slow stepping and irregular, unsignposted stops to pass comment on a door or a graveyard or a flower. I told him I know nothing about nature but he insists on educating me. He is only passing through Dublin today, but he knows everyone we pass. This is a Dublin phenomenon. Most Dubliners won't pass a couple of hundred metres without hailing an acquaintance, but Patrick meets someone he has not seen in years every ten to fifteen steps. And he has small steps as I say.

"You're looking well. I've lost some weight. You're too kind. Buy my latest book. It was wonderful to see you. Next." It was a book signing tour of the town.

I was hungry, tired, in need of coffee. Patrick wants to go cheap. He doesn't like unnecesary expense. I'll pay I say. Ah well he says if you twist my arm we'll go to The Merrion [think Claridge's or Beverly Hills Hotel - in terms of expense anyway].

At the front door I offer to help Andrew "Pretty in Pink" McCarthy lift a buggy up the stairs. He is slight and his features are surprisingly...normal. He declines my help in a whisper. It is only his concern at being recognised that makes me twig who he is. Poor man he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. It could be the bill at the Merrion.

Some kinds of luxury are ok. But sometimes you feel like you're being forced to wipe your ass with Cashmere. Rich, yes, but not comfortable. The Merrion is kind of like that. The food and drink is good, the seats are comfortable but there is, for me, an oppressively formal level of service. That said I don't think they had any prejudice against my tramplike clothing. We drank a lot of coffee. Ate a chicken sandwich.

Afterwards, Patrick went off walking back to his digs in a bitterly cold wind, looking like Beethoven on the deck of a ship. I went back to the office and tried to organise myself and didn't leave till 2am.

Knackered this morning. Mother's Day ahead.