Bloggasm

The Grumpy Old Bookman, aka Michael Allen, is a 67-year-old retired Englishman whose primary career was in education (teaching followed by jobs in university administration). In parallel, he always had a career (of sorts) as a writer. He was first paid for writing a piece for a newspaper in 1955 (no misprint; that’s 51 years ago). He has subsequently written (and had published or produced) about 15 novels (the first in 1963), 2 stage plays, some TV scripts and radio plays, 4 non-fiction books, and masses of book reviews, magazine articles, and so forth. He currently spends far too much of his time blogging at Grumpy Old Bookman. He also runs a small press, Kingsfield Publications, through which he publishes his current work, both under his own name and under other names, depending on the genre.

Simon Owens: In what ways has your experience lit blogging affected your expertise with your small press? Has working on each project influenced the other?

Michael Allen: I cannot say that lit blogging — to use your term — has helped my small-press work. For one thing, blogging takes up so much time that I have little time to devote to the press. But since the press only exists to provide an outlet for my own current work, I guess that doesn’t matter very much. Nobody is ‘hurt’ except me. Every morning when I get up I am free to decide how to spend my own day, so I suppose if I spend most of my time blogging then that must be the thing I enjoy most.

Having some experience of running a small press has certainly influenced what I write on my blog. Before starting Kingsfield Publications I had about ten years’ experience as Director of a small academic publishing company, and that has influenced me too.

Simon Owens: Do you use the Grumpy Old Bookman to help market the books you publish for Kingsfield Publications?

Michael Allen: Yes, but I am a seriously lousy marketeer. I mean really, really bad. Study any bog-standard text on how to market a book and you will find a list of things to do, and each and every one of them is a thing that I don’t like doing. So, by and large, I don’t do them. Again, the only person who ’suffers’ is me.

Simon Owens: Other than the fact that it’s much smaller, how does the book-publishing scene differ between the United Kingdom and the US?

Michael Allen: By and large, I think book design is considerably better in the US than in the UK. Ditto for book production standards. British publishing is still, even today, heavily influenced by the concept of the gentleman amateur. Making a profit and publishing popular books is still considered more than a little bit vulgar, and something that a true gentleman simply would not do. Americans tend to be more hard-nosed and realistic.

Simon Owens: What are some of your favorite European small presses?

Michael Allen: You know, I really can’t think of any. I don’t mean to be difficult here, but I really can’t. There are a few American small presses which spring to mind, e.g. Soft Skull Press and Contemporary Books, but my mind is pretty blank even here. Renaissance books is of course excellent on ebooks (including ebook versions of a couple of my own books; under different titles, obviously; publishers do that kind of thing just to confuse people).

In the distant past (e.g. the 1950s) there was a famous small French publishing house called the Olympia Press. It was run by Maurice Girodias, and it published either out and out pornography (which could then get you into prison) or cutting-edge literary stuff. Olympia Press was the first publisher of Nabokov’s Lolita. The real Olympia Press has now disappeared.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Michael Allen: I am mainly reactive rather than proactive here. In other words, I tend to find out about books after they’ve appeared (sometimes years after) rather than before. But I have ordered a copy of Alan Moore’s Lost Girls, and I wait to see with interest whether the forces of darkness will delay or prevent its publication. There is also a new book by Susanna Clarke coming out soon — The Ladies of Grace Adieu; I suspect that this is a collection of her earlier short work. I shall also buy anything new from Neal Stephenson.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Michael Allen: The five blogs that I myself read most regularly are pretty professional pieces of work. In alphabetical order: Bookslut; Buzz, Balls & Hype; Galleycat; the Literary Saloon; Maud Newton.

(Related posts: Interview with Mark Thwaite from ReadySteadyBook, Interview with George Murray from Bookninja, Interview with John Joseph Adams, Interview with Collected Miscellany, Can’t get Paris Hilton to pose nude for you? Get the next best thing)