Publish! A Day of Innovation on the Future of the Book- Watershed, Bristol, December 8th.

Do you want to find out how to make money from digital? See some of the most innovative digital publishing projects? Network with colleagues in the publishing industry and beyond?

Please join Media Futures for a day about innovation and the future of the book:
http://www.mediafutures.org.uk/2011

For special discounted rates for Cyprus Well associates and South West writers please e-mail mail@cypruswell.org

For anyone interested in publishing, digital media, creativity and innovation the Day will be both inspiring and practically useful, as well as a chance to meet colleagues in the publishing industry and beyond. We are pleased to present our programme:

Innovation and the Book sets the scene: William Higham of The Next Big Thing describes the trends shaping the future of publishing; Future of Publishing Report author Alastair Horne looks at both the challenges and opportunities the industry currently faces; and Michael Kowalski of tool-makers Contentment presents the development of an app-based e-book, showing innovation in practice.

In Making Money from Digital publishers present ‘show and tells’ sharing their lessons and how they are – or aren’t – generating revenue. Jonas Lennermo of ustwo gives a frank account of their successes and failures and considers new territory for publishing; Meg Geldens of Touch Press demonstrates the much-celebrated The Waste Land app created with Faber & Faber – a great example of how to be imaginative and make money; and e-book packager Amber Books’ Charles Catton discusses its successes with titles such as Bodies of Evidence.

Professionals from the publishing and other industries debate whether publishers are Pioneers or Playing it Safe? in a panel including Fionnula Duggan of CourseSmart (formerly head of Random House Group Digital); digital agency Brandwidth’s Dean Johnson, whose projects include the ground-breaking Guinness World Records iPad app; Naomi Alderman, a novelist who has won the Orange Award for New Writers and written for online alternate reality games.

As well as looking at how we make money from digital, it is also important remain ambitious and excited by the possibilities for publishing – and prepare accordingly. For Inventing the Future we bring together Dave Addey of Agant, which created Malcolm Tucker: The Missing Phone, a new form of app-based storytelling; Bardowl’s Chris Book, who is pioneering a subscription service for audiobooks; and Alexis Kennedy of Failbetter Games, whose Varytale story engine gives writers tools to create game-like narratives – as well creating a new revenue stream.

With so many ideas and so much experience we still need to consider How to Innovate, using systems and ad hoc models from open innovation to labs, hackdays, and ‘20% time’. Matt Marsh of Firsthand Experience describes his novel research methods for Plastic Logic’s e-reader; RedWeb’s David Burton explains how they create environments for rapid innovation for publishers such as Random House; and Mike Phillips of Plymouth University’s i-DAT programme talks about how it is informing innovation in the publishing industry and beyond.

For the full programme and to book please visit:
www.mediafutures.org.uk/2011

The Future of Publishing programme is produced in partnership with Cyprus Well and Plymouth University, powered by NESTA, and supported by the Creative Industries iNet, which is part of the Government’s Solutions for Business portfolio, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and led by South West Screen.

Man Booker Prize longlist

The Man Booker Prize longlist has been published (26th July) and I’ve begun the process of trying to forecast who’ll be the lucky winner this year. The prize is one of the oldest literary prizes in existence, and certainly one of the most coverted amongst writers – but it’s public reputation seems to have lagged a bit behind. I conducted a brief street vox pop – ok, so I asked the woman in front of me in  supermarketqueue if she’d heard of it as we’d started  a conversation about a certain ‘warm’ celebrity gossip magazine headline next to the till – and though she had heard of it,  she denied having read any of the shortlist with the same vehemence she might deny taking drugs.

This is a strange response, but one I’ve come across before. This lady didn’t think ‘that kind of book’ was for her, yet many people read similar books which just don’t happen to make the shortlist. The Man Booker Prize was established to promote the very best of contemporary fiction to the widest possible audience.  Certainly the winners and the authors gain a huge amount from it. ‘The Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel sold 1.4 million copies within 6 months of winning.

The prize gets people talking about literature and what readers want and demand from fiction – and it’s a great promoter of reading. Library lends of Man Booker Prize winners increase by more than three times the average lending levels  – and the Man Booker website offers reader groups some great promotions and ideas to get you going, as well as inviting you to comment and take part in discussions with other readers.

So if you are under the impression that the Man Booker Prize isn’t something relevant to you – why not give it a go this year? Go to their website at www.themanbookerprize.com and try to guess who’ll win. The judging panel read all 120 books entered – but you can start with just the one. Whatever else happens you’ll enjoy a fantastic read and you might join the mad crowd of us who decide they will read the entire shortlist before the next prize comes around.   Enjoy!

 

Open Government Services are here

You might have missed this news amidst the din of alleged phone hacking and corruption – but the long-awaited Government White Paper on ‘Open Government Services’ has been published. Most of you won’t be engaged in providing services to the public sector – but everyone will be affected by receiving these services. For the creative, arts and cultural sector this paper will have a fundamental (the rhetoric calls it ‘transformative’ ) impact on how we work so Cyprus Well will be thinking about how the services we offer could rise to the challenge of new ways of working with Local Authorities.

The White Paper describes how Government will be “opening public services because we believe that giving people more control over the public services they receive, and opening up the delivery of those services to new providers, will lead to better public services for all. Whatever the circumstances, this Government would be modernising public services in this way.But in this economic climate, when times are tight and budgets are being cut to stabilise the economy and reduce our debts, opening public services is more important than ever – if we want to deliver better services for less money, improve public service productivity and stimulate innovation to drive the wider growth of the UK economy”.

The White Paper sets out a new policy framework for public service provision over the next few years as well as setting out their ambitions and assuring us of further consultation to arrive at informed solutions.

As a publicly funded charity which provides reading and writing development activities the new paper offers Cyprus Well opportunities to flourish and to fail – but whatever happens it will certainly have a huge impact on our organisation, and all other arts/culture organisations which have a relationship with government. Three key areas we will need to get a grip of are:

- Public service tendering. Local Authorities have, for the most part, already chosen their preferred tender partners for service provision, including those for cultural services. For those who haven’t started this conversation with their local government the process will be more complicated, and sub-contracting to other suppliers may be the only avenue open to you. Find out who your local service contractors are and make them a pitch about how you can help them deliver.

- Competition. As a contracted or sub-contracted service supplier you may not be able to get all your costs covered in your tender. Margins will be cut to a minimum  some charities may not be able to compete since we don’t have capital reserves which allow us to take as many risks as larger commercial organisations. But  the specialist expertise of our staff and contacts gives us the edge when measuring the impact of our work so we need to be more bullish about the ‘intellectual property’ of our long histories of successful service delivery and charge a realistic price for them. Remember, the clients, communities and members that we talk to everyday could be other organisation’s   ‘hard to reach’ niche audience.

- Monitoring and data collection. Impact and the old chestnut of how to measure and quantify it is likely to get more complicated. This brings the additional burden of costs and staff resource, and too much collected data remains buried on a spreadsheet never to see the light of day again – but we all need to be more savvy about understanding the motivations of the communities we serve, and the difference our services make. Start thinking in terms of ‘satisfaction’ and ‘evidence of impact’ and work out how you can provide this as part of your offer. There will flocks of overly complicated and technology led toolkits, resources, maps, ratings and methodologies abounding in the coming years around evaluation and evidence and I predict an entire industry will be created to cope with it. Charities and arts organisations need to keep pace in order to stay in competition so start looking at your data or gather together in consortia to collect data with others in the same line of work to make the most of your assets.

And I can’t end without our own quick pitch – Cyprus Well works to support writers’ careers and to get communities enjoying the benefits of reading and writing – and we’d love to work with anyone who wants to help us provide more!  Give us a call if you want to discuss any aspect of literature work. 

For more information on Open Public Services go to: http://www.openpublicservices.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/

 

Turning the page? Publishing in the South West

The Future of Publishing programme, kicked off by a Book Hackday last weekend, combines a national overview with a focus on the South West. The South West economy has fared reasonably well over the past year of uncertainty and challenge. The South West Observatory, in its ‘State of the South West’ report for 2011 estimated it to be worth £95.3 billion in 2009, 9% of English ‘gross value added’ (GVA), the measure of business output which, although not the whole picture, gives a good guide to the health of industry.

But, as with everyone, the period from 2008 to 2010 was difficult, with negative growth rates in the South West matching the glum national average. Not surprisingly, the publishing sector, as one of the largest contributors to Gross Value Added (GVA) of all the creative industries in the South West, was one of the hardest hit, and not only because of a general economic downturn. The publishing sector in general is facing one of the greatest sea-changes in its history with the explosion of new production, distribution and consumption models appearing on the market every day. The concept of writing, printing and selling books under the market influences of a few major publishers is changing, and that brings both challenges and opportunities.

The UK publishing industry is the second largest in Europe, with over 8000 publishing companies spread mostly across London and the South East. The major publishing companies employ more than half the workforce in publishing – and that means the rest are mostly freelancers, sole traders or small businesses, who traditionally feel the pain of hard times first. Though these smaller organisations are usually more able to respond quickly and flexibly to new ideas, they are the least able to draw down financial capital and support to help them develop a more robust business defence.

The industry is also faced with the added complication of the sheer size of product that the word ‘publishing’ encompasses: it includes printed and digital information for individuals and businesses, books, magazines, newspapers, journals, databases, directories and electronic media – and, of course, the internet and other digital channels are changing the landscape of the whole industry in ways that we can’t even imagine yet.

Understanding these changes, and being able to effectively innovate and develop new business models, is critical. To this end Cyprus Well and Media Futures, supported by the Creative Industries iNet, are presenting a series of workshops and a conference at which we want to meet as a many publishers from around the region as possible – to find out where they feel their sector is headed. We read in the press that publishers need to seek new, and more personal, ways to engage with their consumers – so we want to find out what that means for them in terms of developing sustainable business models. Consumers are becoming more demanding in terms of making their own choices about how they want to engage with books and literature – and our workshops and conference programme with Media Futures will engage with that debate.

Books are going to be digital product in the future, I think we can all agree that much, but ‘digital’ is proving to be such a ubiquitous term – iPads, twitter feeds, the cloud, web, Xboxes, Kindle – as an industry, publishers still seem unclear as to where their long-term future lies. At what point should they draw the line in the sand and say ‘right, this is where I’m prepared to invest…’?

New technologies will be fundamental to the future of publishing and a greater co-operation between the creative design and publishers can begin to develop new ways to reach new markets. But this brings with it the thorny question of copyright. It’s not just about the technology, however beautiful. If writers, authors or ‘content producers’ cannot make a living from creating narratives, then the whole industry will shrivel, free-ware will rule, and any notion of digital services being able to sustain a business will disappear.

Publishers, especially the smaller ones, have by necessity always been entrepreneurial, so we want to work more closely with them to focus on ways to diversify their incomes to protect against short term solutions, volatile markets and fast moving technologies. We need to find out what their key issues really are. Is it just about access to financial investment and support in ways that allow them to innovate? Do they really feel they’ve lost connections with their consumers? If we can develop more and better ways for publishers to strike up a two-way conversation between production and consumption – then that will surely help publishers survive. This may mean the end of the ‘book sitting between two covers’, other than at the high-end collector’s market – but reading should always remain the key aim.

If you want more information about our conference, planned for Bournemouth BIC, October 6th 2011, please get in contact with us.

Get into the Twinterview

I’m looking forward to this morning’s twinterview with Jill Mansell. Helena Towers over at Headline has set this up to allow us to have a live interview over Twitter – a twinterview. This is a new one for us, and I can’t wait to see the results. We’ve already had plenty of interest, so if you are a twitter fan, then come along and join in! This might revolutionise the way we can bring writers and literature professionals to a much wider audience… it’s a really great way of putting forward your questions and knowing that the person is right there giving answers. And to celebrate, Cyprus Well has some book give-aways too! See you there at #jillmeets

Preparing for Author events

Author events are the bread and butter of literature development. For readers to have the chance to meet the creators of their favourite characters and stories,  to question them about how the work was put together, and to hear well known lines being read out in the first voice they were ever heard in, always gives me a thrill. To meet the actual person who thought the whole book up – right there in the flesh -  can never be matched by watching a film or video, or by downloading a biog or podcast.  And for the writer too, there is nothing to compare with a live audience. To get real feedback, or to get out and meet fans who give praise and validiation for the work you are doing must be a great help during the long solitary days spent developing a manuscript.

An important part of the work Cyprus Well does is provide funding to enable writers to meet with audiences, so that’s why we are working with the Reading Agency to bring writers and their publishers together with librarians from around the South West. The event is called the Reading Partners Roadshow and it will provide an opportunity for librarians to meet and talk with publishers about the kind of support they can offer.

Tomorrow we will host Robert Goddard, Amelia Carr, Lilian Harry, Graham Hurley, Sarah Moss and Julian Stockwin – and meet publishing staff from Headline, Orion, Hodder, Transworld, HarperCollins and Random House – so today I’m busy making the final arrangments.

From this Cyprus Well hopes to continue to raise funds to support this vital work. We  manage the ‘Read South West’ network – so we’ve brought together that membership, of librarians involved in reader development,  to represent as many of the libraries in the South West as possible. With library cuts biting into events budgets, it’s even more vital that Cyprus Well can continue to raise funds to make sure everyone has a chance to meet the real people behind the books they love, and by forging stronger partnerships with the publishers we hope to be able to bring events like these to as many places and people around the South West region as possible – so we look forward to seeing you at one of these in 2011!

Fundraising Part 1: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it

A good 60% of the time I spend in meetings with writers  and arts organisations, and of my working life in general, is devoted to fundraising; how to find funding, how to approach funders, how to manage funds once you have them, how to pick yourself up and survive when you get turned down. And I’ve a feeling that this percentage will probably rise over the next 2 or 3 years at least. Like it or not, fundraising is a key part of any arts management job, and I’m always surprised by how many people are firmly in the ‘or not’ camp.

Some disagree with fundraising on principal. They feel it’s the root of all evil in the arts sector, that a desperate search for funding is the time-consuming, soul destroying and terrifying death of creative excellence (no…be calm…step away from the excellence).  Some people feel that the skills needed to apply for funds are in direct opposition to the skills needed to be creative – but I think that’s just a clever and creative ruse to avoid having to just sit down and do something which, at worst,  can be a bit dull.

I (happily – see 60% above) find fundraising a creative and exciting challenge in itself. I don’t see much difference between ‘creative/artistic’ and ‘business’ people. I was in conversation with someone a while back who dismissed my opinion with a patronising  smile and a ‘yes…but you’re a business person’,  as if (a) that meant I couldn’t possibly grasp the greatness of art and (b) that I was somehow involved in hurting small creatures.  Ive toured the country in a van based Theatre-in-education a la ‘Legs Akimbo’, I’ve worked on films, spent a brief but happy time in a tattoo studio, have a BA and MA in Drama and Film respectively, ( I also have a Post Grad Diploma in ‘Sugaring’, which is a whole other story), I’ve finished my first manuscript,  I write a newspaper column – and yet… I see no reason why I shouldn’t happily  run up a business plan with associated costs, calculate and apply depreciation/VAT/tax,  manage payroll, file annual accounts, raise and manage large sums of money, mentor people interested in running a business…it’s FUN.

So I thought I’d spend a few blogs this week debunking the Dark Art of fundraising and sharing  a few of my top tips. I do this from the perspective of 1) the Arts, in all forms,  should be funded. Not everyone agrees with this, but I believe that subsidised arts should be a fundamental offer without which our society will become culturally bankcrupt and the world will end, 2) anyone can apply for funding – and if you have any challenges due to accessiblity, literacy, ability or culture, then there is someone out there who can help you. Check out the Arts Council website for more support.

Ten Top Tips

1) It’s easy.  Anyone can fundraise. Don’t believe the hype that you need some special skill, expertise, job, lucky charm. These things all help, but everyone has a first time, so just decide you can do it and get on with it. Don’t let any tells you it’s rocket science.

2) Say what you want to do.  You should be able to describe what you want to do in one paragraph, certainly never more than one side of A4. If you need to ramble on for longer  about your basic idea, then you probably won’t be able to convey it to someone else before they lose interest.

3) Be clear. Describe what you want to do as clearly as possible. Don’t try to appear more learned / fascinating / artistic by writing long, complicated, poetic sentences. The people who read these bids are humans, possibly tired, possibly emotional / hungry / seething / disappointed / in love. They read 10-30 bids a day.  Be kind to them. Use bullet points as much as possible, they are great for piling in loads of info without loads of words.

4) Describe what ISN’T happening.  Your idea will have developed out of a need. Funders nowadays want more proof than ever that their funding will be used to make a difference, so they’ll ask you to ‘demonstrate’ or ‘evidence’ a need. What lack or gap is there that your work fills? Are certain communities lacking services, are there no arts venues in your town, is there a communications gap between older and younger generations? – the list is endless, and in a future blog I will try to outline some of the ‘gaps’ that Local Authorites, Trusts and Funds are most attracted to. And back to that ‘evidence’ of need – try to find a trustworthy source to make your case. Local Authorities are great for statistics – look up the ‘Indices of Deprivation’, they’ll tell you if your community is lacking services / economic development / how your community is made up.

5) Describe all the outcomes your work will result in. This is usually best done in bullet points – as concise as possible. Outcomes are the results your work produces, the effect it has. Think through all the reactions that people will have to your work, or through participating in it. What will change in their life or behaviour because of it.

6) Research, research, research. There are hundreds of sources of information on funds availalbe – and internet access opens them all to you. You can google ‘arts funding’ – you can look up Local Authority websites and subscribe to the Arts newsletters, you can check out Fundraising UK website, the Directory of Social Change, Arts Council websites. If you can’t get online (then you probably won’t be reading this) – but you can try your local library and they will help you search their online resources and provide tons of information. All funders will give you information on what outcomes they will invest their money in. Most funders are very clear on this point. If they fund activities that combat isolation amongst older people – then don’t ask them to fund your Mother and Toddler reading group. Match the outcomes you have listed with the outcomes the funder tells you they will support.

7) Follow the funder’s instructions precisely. Many funders now have online application systems that prevent you putting in too many words, for example, but also watch out for their advice and guidance notes on the kinds of things they want you to tell them. One frustration for fundraisers like me is that each funder has different needs – so a full and fresh application needs to be written, even for the same project. One funder might want to support slightly different outcomes than another – so cut and pasting won’t work. If you want money from these funders, then at least you must show them respect in that you read their guidelines and give them the information they ask in the format they ask it.

8) When you’ve finished an application – sleep on it. I can guarantee you will think of something brilliant the next day that you forgot to include in your bid. Check spelling! I once applied for Writing bursary funds on the basis that it would improve communicatons. Didn’t get it.

9) Balance your finances! Set up a spreadsheet, or a paper with two columns. On one side put all the income you think have. Include cash from sponsors, ticket income, the fundraising you hope to  bring in from every source, spare change, everything. Also include ‘in-kind’ income. This is usually attached to people’s time, which they give for free.  If you imagine having to pay everyone, including yourself, an hourly rate for your time – then this can count as your in-kind contribution.  I’ll talk more about in kind and match funding next blog. On the other side, put all your costs. Include people, travel, accommodation, materials, marketing, venue, catering, speakers, web design – every single thing you can think of. Make sure that your income is greater than your costs – there, business planning in a nutshell.

10) If you need more information from the funder,  and they have given a telephone number, do call them for a chat. They are really nice people. The bigger Trusts and Foundations have full time grant giving staff. Their job depends on getting requests for funding from people like you – and they really are completely happy to answer questions, however odd. They don’t want to turn down applications, and they’d far rather you explored ideas before you send in an entire bid. Obviously don’t phone up with an idea you just woke up with. Impress them with your ability to describe your idea, how it perfectly solves a problem and what people will come  away with, and take their advice on how to get the best from your bid.

Next time : turning outcomes into income (do you see what I did there…?)

What’s a library without a librarian?

I did a live radio interview recently -  a quick-fire discussion about the value of libraries in society, and how the cuts might affect writers. In the five minutes between the last record and the News it’s always difficult to get your views across – and the challenges faced by libraries are so complex that we could never have resolved anything in the short time we had.

We know that cuts are being made, have to be made, to all services – and that the Government has put that responsibility onto the Local Authorities, some of whom seem to think that libraries are a soft target, and others who are trying other models to ensure their libraries stay open, even if for shortened hours.

But, just as you always thinking of something dazzlingly witty to say the minute you have missed your chance, I wanted to raise the issue that so many articles seem to have overlooked. We are rightly concerned about the loss of libraries – but we should be equally concerned about the loss of Librarians too.

Librarians are highly skilled and qualified staff – if we lose them now, and replace the librarian’s role with an untrained, possibly part-time, volunteer –  we risk losing the entire profession. Are students going to apply to train for a role they see as devalued? Are educational establishments still going to run training courses or degrees if there is less demand?

A typical librarian will advise library users on resources, information, stock and IT. They keep the books in good condition, make selections of new publications, circulate resources, help others to access huge layers of information – not to mention the social value of having  friendly human contact.  There are of course jobs in libraries that do not need a degree – but even they do require a high level of education, usually at least 5 GCSE’s. But anyone who has chosen a library career will have a degree in Librarianship, or Information Science / Management or even Computer Science. Graduates without a degree in one of these fields would need  a post-graduate diploma or MA/MSc in Librarianship or Information Science / Management.

Any good Librarian would be the first in line to say how supportive and, often, crucial volunteers are to enabling them to provide excellent services. But Libraries have a uniquely important role to play in civic society, and that in no small part is because of Librarians.

Happy Christmas and a great New Year

December has flown past and suddenly it’s time to shut up shop for 2010 and get ready for 2011! It’s going to be a really exciting year – not least with the Arts Council deadline for Portfolio bids looming on January 24th. We’ll be setting out our plans and hoping to receive ongoing support for literature development in the South West. We had a great year in 2010. Our Grassroots Literature Programme supported excellent literature development opportunities to communities around the region. We gave out over £10,000 and generated a further £42,000 in support through venues, volunteers and the untiring work of authors, festival organisers and other literature professionals. We know next year’s funding will have as great an impact, so watch out for our application system to open in March 2011. Through January we’ll be working with our partners to bring the case studies for our funded work to our site. Read South West have had a tough year, with threatened cuts to library services starting to bite. We’ll be working with them to raise as much funding as we can to support the work they do for reading and writing development – and we’ll be starting our Author tours around schools programme too. We had a great time at the Reading Agency ‘Reading Partners’ meeting and will be working closely with them next year to bring in funding and activities to ensure we can make the most of their investment in the region.

So, until next year, I hope you all have the very best holidays, and we look forward to working with you in 2011.

Tracey

Don’t axe our libraries

Libraries are facing a perfect storm of budget cuts in the coming months and it won’t be clear until the end of the year just who will be left standing by the time we reach next year. Authors have backed the fight to save libraries and their arguments stand for libraries everywhere.  Libraries are the doorway to reading for thousands of people many of whom wouldn’t otherwise  have the opportunity.

Cyprus Well’s own Patron, Helen Dunmore was quoted in the Evening Standard article about the threatened closure of London libraries. She said: “It will weaken literacy and weaken communities. They are not a frill, they are a vital part of society. They are a core service at the time of so much uncertainty and unemployment. I’ve always been moved by the enthusiasm of library staff and the way they go beyond the call of duty. Once that is destroyed you cannot build it again.”

Cyprus Well works with all the library services in the South West. They are a vital part of our community programmes proving space for activities, events and opportunities for readers to meet writers and for writers to get in front of readers. We are building our author touring programme now, and have included a strand dedicated to getting authors into libraries. We’re also having a strand to ensure school libraries and schools can always call on a resource that enables them to bring authors in. We piloted this by bringing the wonderful Cathy MacPhail on tour around Devon schools in partnership with The Scottish Book Trust and the reviews and feedback from that has been fantastic. We’ll be posting more on this programme on our website, so if you want to hear more, or if you might be able to help and get involved, sign up to our database or get in touch.