Publisher's Diary: My Brain on Books

"Eagerness to read", the anti-social publisher, and your four line poems

I’m in the mood for a rambling, multi-subject post today, sharing a few things that have been on my mind lately – so into the “Publisher’s Diary” we go. Of course, I have not forgotten that last time you heard from me, I rebooted the “Changing the Subject” poetry competition and asked for your four-liners on that topic; so I will sprinkle my favourite entries throughout this post, in no particular order.

This first one is a version of the Roman poet Martial, epigram 7.3 – perhaps a little on-the-nose given the origins of this contest, but still a fun four lines!

“You say I never send you my poems
And want to know the cause
Don’t strain your brain: it’s to ensure
You never send me yours.”
— John Farquhar

Our latest award

I’ll start with an anecdote that’s likely to put a smile on your face. Every Friday at my son’s school, they hold an assembly and give out awards to a couple of children from each class – parents are notified when their child is getting a certificate, and given the chance to attend, but are not told what the award is for. So you can imagine my delight last Friday, when I headed down to see him given this:

(I’ve scrubbed out my son’s name, digitally, in a half-hearted attempt at privacy, but I can assure you it’s fully legit!)

By pure coincidence, as the award was announced, I was sat next to one of the lecturers who taught me on my English Literature degree back in 2009 – exactly the company you want to be in at that moment. “Oh, that’s my boy!” I squeaked, in a tone too high to be heard by human ears. The now award-winning reader was asked to stand at the front of the hall, though with all those eyes on him, he quickly hid behind the certificate for safety – only emerging to cheer and clap when his friend won one for maths. (They’d make quite a team one day.)

After twelve hours of glowing pride, I did eventually reflect whether it bodes well for the future that “eagerness to read” is a rare enough quality to merit a certificate – but let’s park that for now. I can only do so much!

“Changing the subject of a formula is a way to determine
a missing quantity in terms of other quantities. Similarly,
changing the subject of a sentence is a way to determine
you are to blame when all those quantities go missing.”
— Oz Hardwick

Revenge of the brain

It’s been a long time since I talked about my autism on this blog, but it’s been “flaring up” something terrible lately (if that’s a remotely valid term), holding me and the business back all month – which I couldn't really afford to surrender, with the summer holidays fast approaching. I put it down partly to chance, partly to circumstances (like extended water issues in the building where I live), and partly down to not looking after myself and my schedule properly (including working far too hard in May).

I’m not sure why I feel the need to share that with you, but I do find that writing something in this blog is by far the best way for me to remember it! I can’t do much about those first two causes, but I can be a lot more mindful of my schedule – and if I promise such to all of you, on here, I am more likely to stick to it. However, that does mean any blogs that emerge in the next month or two are likely to be sporadic and self-indulgent; please bear that in mind when committing to paid subscriptions (though they are still hugely welcome!)

“And there it is. Tissue-weighted lies stumbled upon like pressed flowers
dropping from the pages of a seldom opened book. Fragments of dry
dust staining the leaves of our lives. You flick paper-thin words
from brittle lips, presuming a change of subject will mend broken stems.”
— Elizabeth Stanforth-Sharpe

At large in Leeds

Despite the above, with the priceless help of my assistant Lindsey, Valley Press did manage to make a full appearance at the Leeds Lit Fest this past weekend, and Permanent Emotion was properly launched at an event full of fantastic readings by the contributors. Certificates all round I think!

“It’s not the sky
but empty sense 
beyond the glass
aching with daylight”
— Thomas Legendre

Taking a hike

In this recent post, I mentioned a forthcoming author who had organised a big event for their book – this turned out to be in Estonia on July 1st, and with all of the above to battle with, I sadly wasn’t able to get even a single copy there on time.

Instead, I have launched pre-orders for Hiking for Healing on our website, with an intention to bring you a hardback edition later in the summer. It’s going to be fantastic; the true story of a novice hiker’s experience of el Camino de Santiago, by former Mindvalley Editor-in-Chief Amy White. It’s thoughtful, unique, earnest, exceptional – all of my favourite adjectives – but also hilariously funny, which I am still trying to find a way to properly indicate in the subtitle. More on this later, for sure, so watch this space. (The cover below is provisional.)

“I like to swap my point of view,
perceive things like they’re new;
I read your book, that's all it took,
now I'm not me – I'm you.”
— Jonny Aldridge

Getting anti-social

After being placed on the back burner for many months, the question of Valley Press and social media is now near the front of my mind (and in the minds of others). I voiced my concerns to a few people in Leeds, and they all said with absolute conviction that we needed to be back out there. (For context, we haven’t posted on any platform besides this one since mid-January – and I’m told Substack doesn’t count, as it’s a blog and newsletter service, not a place to reach the wider public.)

So moved was I by their conviction that the moment I got home, I booted up Instagram (a platform I have never used before) and had a look around, acting as Valley Press. Readers: I hated it. It made my brain hurt and my skin crawl. If I was any kind of social media enjoyer, this company would doubtless be a lot bigger, but I feel less and less inclined that way as the years go by – I think it’s too late for me now, and historically, someone else posting on our behalf has never led to positive results.

“They loved my little gadget
but when I said the project
entails a hefty budget
they shrugged and changed the subject.”
— Tim Ellis

So what to do? My instincts are to properly close down all VP social accounts, rather than just leaving them dormant, and write a more formal post announcing that I’m doing that, and explaining why. This would hopefully generate a bit of attention, and possibly set a good example too: I just typed in “why to quit social media” and found a seemingly reputable article saying “social media has the same effect on our bodies as smoking 15 cigarettes a day… [it] doubles loneliness, triples depression, makes it harder to sleep, leads to addiction, anxiety” etc. (I haven’t followed that up, mind you, and as Winston Churchill famously said, you should be cautious believing everything you read online.)

There’s also the fact that, since we stopped posting on the socials in January, we’ve had one of the most successful periods in Valley Press history, by almost any measure. So it’s not an existential threat – though I wonder how we’d be doing if all our authors, contributors and well-wishers took a similar vow of silence? Could be tricky?

I’m not going to reduce this to a simple black-and-white poll about what we do next, but I would gratefully receive your thoughts, should you wish to share them. To that end, I have opened up the comments section for this post to everyone, if you’d like to have your say in public; or you can just email me of course.

The last poem has a topical twist, and claims to be entering both versions of the contest:

“Lost all but my shirt,
in a life of love-lorn scheming;
still, thirty years of hurt
never stopped me dreaming.”
— Anon

That’s about all that’s on my mind today; thank you for reading, as ever, and thanks to everyone who contributed those four-line poems. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above.