German quicky indies: Booklits, Singles, microstuff

After a couple of excursions, it's about time I got back to my ebook single project. This week I'd like to take a look at a couple of new German indie publishers that specialise on singles. Some only do digital formats, one actually also publishes Pixi format physical copies, which are totally adorable by the way. By and by I'll hopefully get around to take a look at some of their titles in detail, but for now I'd simply like to introduce them, since they're all pretty much BRAND NEW. (At least to me.)

Literatur-Quickie

To start with the one publisher on this list that still does things with paper, Literatur-Quickie - as their name already suggests - have focussed on short stories since their first series back in 2009. Based in Hamburg and Berlin, they started out with organising the "shortest literary events ever" and discovered that there might be a market for tiny books in German. Since then they've published 10 series of 5 booklits each (that's what they themselves call their Pixis), some of them reprints of earlier texts (some Kafka, some Ringelnatz), most of them new stuff (Juli Zeh, amongst others), between 20 and 50 pages in length. From this autumn onwards, they also do graphic novels - or would that be graphic short stories?

What is interesting concerning the subscription idea I discussed in one of my former blogposts, the Literatur-Quickie peeps offer a subscription of their booklits and send them home to you twice a year. I haven't been able to track down anything comparable for their ebooks, which are distributed by dotbooks by the way.

I chanced upon these guys at the Frankfurt book fair, we got chatting, and I really liked their idea of Pixi books for adults, I think they'd make great tiny presents. I've got one on my pile now and very much look forward to my first grown-up Pixi book. Unfortunately their very hip website doesn't help with browsing through the rest of their titles: the cover thumbnails can't be looked at in detail and they don't list the titles and authors next to them either... is there some web admin listening by any chance?

mikrotext

The first of the three start-ups to be mentioned when I started this project back in October, mikrotext from Berlin (where else?), describe themselves as "a digital publisher for short digital reading" but their texts aren't quite as minute as their name suggests (but who knows, maybe they'll branch out into haikus one day?). They publish only eight books a year, but they are usually thematically linked to one another, cover non-fiction as well as fiction, and some of their texts are available in English, too.They don't sell their ebooks directly from their website, but from all big ebook platforms like Amazon, iTunes, Buecher.de, Hugendubel, kobo, Weltbild, etc. which are all linked. The latest title in their English series, I Love Myself OK? A Berlin Trilogy by Chloe Zeegen, is marketed as a book of the Facebook generation, written in the style of a chatroom. I can't say whether that's a good thing or no since I am yet to read it.

CulturBooks - Elektrische Bücher

CulturBooks have lately created quite a stir in the German publishing landscape as one of the new start-ups that focus on digital-only publishing, like mikrotext. They are essentially a bilingual publishing house that offers different formats from Singles (short stories) via Maxis (novellas) and Longplayers (novels) to Albums (short story collections, as they're known to the rest of the world). Their first programme just got published at the beginning of October, so they're the youngest of the three today. As most start-ups, they've got a motto, which they nicked from Pippi Longstockings: they simply do whatever they like. I'm not entirely sure that this is going to make for a recognisable brand identity, but then Pippi got rather far with that motto, right?

For me personally, "Elektrische Bücher" sets my hipster alarm off and I've proven quite unable to decipher their colour coding (is it a code at all? Or is it only a post-ironic random distribution of green, blue, red and yellow? Should I take my Penguin-tinted glasses off?), but there are a couple of items in their programme I find intriguing/will review/would like to review *nudge, nudge*: I've got "Furthest Point South" by Pippa Goldschmidt on my pile (now there's another thing I miss in the digital world: piles. Seriously, I can't organise my worklife without piles. I forget files. If I had a pile with stuff to review, I would have been able to remember that poor author's name right away and wouldn't have to check again. So it's definitely "Pile, not file!" for me.) And the Album Chicken Sex sounds interesting. Just because.

Anyway, that's it for today. I'll keep a look out for any more subscription news and will hopefully find the time to do a proper review again soon (that thing called Life is currently taking over a bit...).

Another Galley Beggar Single: Almost Blue, by Tony O'Neill

Almost Blue by Tony O'Neill will punch you hard and slap you in the face. The third Galley Beggar Book Single on my list, it's by far the most upsetting until now. Not at all because something dreadful happens, though there is enough potential for this, what with all characters fast on the track towards an overdose. It's more to do with the self-made hamster cages all characters find themselves in but are unable and/or unwilling to leave. It's truly a story of dead ends, and that's the awful bit. The truly awful bit. And that's all I'm going to say about the content. For 1 GBP, Almost Blue is good value - I for once won't forget this one for quite some time to come. So go ahead and read for yourself; here's the link: http://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/book-store/ebook/almost-blue/

I think after having read and attempted to talk about a couple of book singles that all happened to be from the same publisher, it might be a good idea to take stock. Or perhaps it isn't. Anyway, time's running out for my blogpost this week and I don't want to run up any Iron Buchblogger debts. Can't afford it, mind.

So, these singles on the short end of the spectrum brought me back to the short story. Not that I was very far away from them before, what with my students unearthing new ones every summer term, but I hadn't read too many of them fresh from the publishers, rather slightly older stuff, or simply, the stuff that tends to get washed up at universities some decades after their first publication. And some things that I like about the short story popped back into my consciousness again; the limited perspective of the narration, the sketchiness of the characters who don't need a back story or anything to make their stories interesting or plausible. They're stories that are sort of 'natural' stories; for me, they are like meeting someone in a bar who - perhaps slightly drunkenly - tells you a story, something they've experienced and want to share for one reason or another. And as with strangers in a pub, I think there's a similar momentary  intimacy that retreats within minutes after having read the last sentence - no, I don't want to know more about those people and what happened to them afterwards; I'm content and intrigued with what I heard, that's that and that is good.

Tech stuff: After having been not really convinced of reading the files in PDF format, I finally managed to read Almost Blue on my kindle app for Android (yay!). Unfortunately you need to trick the app into believing that you bought it via the kindle shop, which is not as intuitive as it should be. Anyway, once you've found the folder where the app stores its ebooks and you've copied your brand new single into this bespoke folder, it works perfectly (took me only ten days to figure this out - of course the idea came in the middle of the night - so if you ever experience similar troubles and my solution turns out to work for you too, think of me and offer me a highly paid position right away - you won't regret it).

Book Single information:
Almost Blue, by Tony O'Neill. Published by Galley Beggar Press, 2013. GBP 1.

Next week I'll try out singles by another publisher. In fact, they only just launched last week, so this stuff would be hot off the presses if there was such a thing any longer. Watch this space!

Shortie subscriptions: get your weekly dose of literature!

On another note, Galley Beggar Press have announced in their newsletter that they're contemplating a Singles Club subscription, which I think is a great idea - not at least because I've been talking about something similar for months now and my secretly hot air balloon-sized ego still likes its own ideas best. However, such a subscription scheme might simply prove great for all agents involved: writers see their shorter texts, including poems, reach an audience they otherwise would probably struggle to attract outside of - let's face it - rather niche specialized magazines; readers get the opportunity to discover new voices they like without having to comb the net; and publishers are able to establish a closer relationship with their customers and at the same time can cut the distribution chain in the case of digital subscriptions - and communicate with people's email inboxes or mobile devices right away.

And, perhaps, physical book lovers like me could book a nice little extra of getting the most popular stories/poems of a year in a lovely little anthology? Just a thought.... Anyway: I'm in.

Single Review: Best Friend, by Samuel Wright

I've got another book single from the short end of the short story/novella spectrum of Galley Beggar's Singles Club on my list today (doesn't 'Singles Club' sound a bit like a dating thing? But then again, how better to meet someone than over a book or story? There might be something in this...): Best Friend peeks into the psychological cosmos of children and their acute sense for loyalty.

The story of Bobby and Jay explores the rather paradoxical tos and fros of one of the most important questions for kids - "who's your best friend?". Bobby is sure that he and Jay are best friends; after all, they explore Hackney Marshes together and dream of living in the wild in a shed made of sticks - and that's clearly something only best friends could pull off together. However, when Jay doesn't come to school for quite some time, Bobby finds himself strangely reluctant to go and see what has become of his best friend. Since it's actually a bit tricky to sum up without major spoilers what happens when Jay eventually comes back, let's just say that although they continue to hang out with each other, something's gone missing from their friendship.

What's great about this story is that we as readers are so close to Bobby's confusion as he tries to grasp what has happened and grapples with accepting his own role in the events. The limited perspective of the child makes us share Bobby's insecurity and horror, and leaves all the 'adult' work of judging his behaviour to the reader. Nice one!

Book Single information:
Best Friend, by Samuel Wright. Published by Galley Beggar Press, 2013. 7pp. GBP 1.

The Frankfurt Bookfair and me

I've decided to go to the Frankfurt Bookfair again this year. Yes, it's madness; yes, my feet will fall off; yes, I will collect way too many catalogues that I'm never going to look at in any detail. Yes, the food will be too expensive for its crappiness and don't get me started on accomodation... But still. It's hall after hall full of books. And of book people. Seriously, how could one resist?

And then my former visits to the bookfair have always triggered some project or another. I've met the most generous people who were fabulous for contacts, others helped me with finding the right titles for a project (yeah, you keep trying to get an overview of what is currently being published in connection to one topic in fiction if there's nothing like a database with proper tags available...!). And some were just incredibly nice.

This time I want to focus on small publishers who put their energy into coming up with new ideas instead of whinging about how bloody awful the world's become since the arrival of amazon. I want to see where publishing on the fringe is going, and what this has to offer for us readers. I hope I'll be able to find them.

So, that's it then. I'll pack my bag, get myself on the bus on Oct 12 really early in the morning, make sure I've got an audiobook with me to keep me entertained on the motorway, and hello again, Frankfurt! Anybody else coming?

P.S.: By the way, I'm still looking for a sofa to rest my weary head on that night. I'm small and I don't snore. :-)

First Single Review: My Beauty, by Rowana Macdonald

My Beauty, written by Rowana Macdonald is a short story of the very short kind, totalling three and a half pages. But then, as is the case with most decent short stories, there's no need for more. It focusses on a couple of hours in the life of Danuta, a Lithuanian beauty who works on a Danish fur farm to finance her studies. Or rather, who used to work at the farm until she became the owner's favourite and moved in with him. Danuta has learned a lot about fur during her shifts at the farm, but above all she's learned the value of flawless beauty - and she is determined to use her own marble features to make her way in the world. Danuta's biggest rival for Sven's admiration turns out to be Princess, the only mink with a name on the farm, flawless too with her white fur, and tame in Sven's hands.

Macdonald eerily connects the two beauties' fates with each other, whose existence stands and falls with Sven's mercy, thereby playing with the commercialisation of beauty and the possessiveness and cruelty of those who "appreciate" it. In instances like "His favourite mink is asleep in her cage, reclining with a seductive twist on her back. Her nipples are tender pink berries and her mouth is curled in a secretive smile as if she's having sweet dreams", the parallel exploitation of minx and mink becomes almost too obvious. However, although fur and skin are the pervading motifs, the story exudes such a coldness through the characters that any notion of emotional kitsch is kept at bay. Everybody in this story - even the animal - seems to be constantly calculating their profits, and every kind of relationship is solely based on these. Three and a half pages is all it takes Macdonald to conjure up a story that alludes to the exploitation of immigrants, prostitution, and violence and that leaves you with a feeling of chilly unease.


As to the technical side of things - I suppose this is the digital equivalent of that part of the review where you usually comment on the quality of the editing and the academic apparatus, at least in academic reviewing, so I think this is somewhat important for my purposes here - the ebook is designed probably pretty much in the same way as Galley Beggar's physical books are. Nothing wrong with that, but the format doesn't adapt too well to the screen size of my 7'' tablet: the pages are too wide and the type size appears tiny, so that a lot of time passes with enlargening, scrolling and swishing over my screen to follow the sentences. I have to add thought that I got the PDF version; perhaps the other digital formats are easier to navigate in this respect. I promise to try out alternatives.

Book Single information:
My Beauty, by Rowana Macdonald. Published by Galley Beggar Press, 2013. 4pp. GBP 1.

New Project: Ebook Singles

Last Thursday the Guardian's Julian Gough predicted that Amazon's Kindle Singles are going to be the future. Thank dog he also included other publishers' digital copies of fiction and non-fiction texts that allow authors to get work published which doesn't fit any of the traditional formats, i.e. which is too long to count as a short story, too short to be a novel, too long as an essay and too short for a monograph. He proposes to call these texts 'bookeens', little books. I'm not sure that this term will eventually make it, but I leave that for definers of genre to ponder over.

I myself am intrigued by this new format and the texts themselves: are we really going to witness the evolution of new genres, somewhere between the short and the long form for both fiction and non-fiction? Will they be new in any structural sense? Is there really something like a text "at [its] natural length" (Gough) or do Singles simply mean that the sometimes necessary cuts and focussing got lost? To find out, I'll have to read some, I suppose. And that's what I'm planning to do: review Book Singles.

This is a bit of a new departure for me because I've always been (and am going to stay!) a proper paper book lover, who enjoys nothing more than leaving train tickets and receipts in books, placing finished volumes on my shelves, and scribbling in the margins. The Singles are digital only in their nature, so I suppose I will have to get used to that first.

I asked for indie publishers on twitter yesterday that also offer these short texts, but apart from the Galley Beggar Press with their Singles Club I didn't get any further recommendations other than Amazon (by the way, thanks, Thom!). So, I'd be really glad to get any more suggestions, preferably from smaller presses, since the whole Amazon malarkey simply bores the sh*t out of me when it comes to publishing.

Thanks in advance for all your suggestions and comments, I hope some of you would like to join me in reading and discussing!