A Christmas Tale

Once upon a time, in a town far, far away, there lived two people, Sam and Elly. They were writers.

Sam wrote fast-selling, humorous non-fiction, plus a dash of more serious journalism. Elly wrote lovingly crafted literary fiction.

But the thing is, although they were writers, it turned out that, they had a flame that shone still more brightly again. They wanted to be publishers.

But they didn’t want to be Sensible Publishers churning out me-too commercial fiction and hurling it at supermarkets. They wanted to be Real Publishers, finding books that they genuinely loved and bringing them to a small but appreciative audience.

The books they loved were crotchety, contrary things. One of their authors Eimar McBride wrote sentences like this:

For you. You’ll soon. You’ll give her name. In the stitches of her skin she’ll wear your say.

Any Sensible Publisher could tell at a glance that a book like that was totally unsaleable, so they didn’t pick it up. But Sam and Elly – trading under the name Galley Beggar Press – did.

That wasn’t the only horrendous decision they made. They also published a book called Ducks, Newburyport, which was also obviously unsaleable, not least because it was over 1000 pages long and composed, almost entirely, of just eight monster sentences.

The thing is, though, this story has a happy outcome. (And an unhappy one. And then a happy one again.)

Because although those books and dozens like it were obviously unpublishable, people LOVED them. In fact, the books put out by this tiny little publisher have gone on to be longlisted, shortlisted, or winners of pretty much every major literary prize you can think of. Prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Wellcome Book Prize, The Goldsmiths Prize, The Desmond Elliott Prize, The Jan Michalski Prize, The Folio Prize, The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize. Some of the books have sold in very large numbers too.

But this is publishing, so wherever you find a happy outcome, you can be pretty sure that a freight train with failed brakes is hurtling down some track towards you, gathering speed as it approaches.

And so it turned out.

If a book is shortlisted for the Booker Prize, part of the entry condition is that a certain number of books have to be made available to one of the prize’s retail partners, The Book People. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing. Because The Book People were going to pay £40,000 (around $55,000) for the books.

So, that’s good, right?

Well, yes.  Except that The Book People took the books and promptly went bankrupt. “Hey, you know that £40K we owe you? Yeah, well. In your dreams. Sorry ’bout that. Merry Christmas.”

I happen to know Sam and Elly reasonably well. They have both done a fair bit of editorial work for Jericho Writers (under our previous moniker, mostly.) And I remember, not long after they moved to Norwich, that their plumbing collapsed. It was winter. They had a tiny baby. And no heating. Not good, right?

So we told them to fix the heating and we’d pay what it took. They could pay us back in manuscript assessments. So they fixed their heating. We sent them manuscripts. And everyone, including our clients and including one tiny shivery baby, was happy again.

Anyway, the point of that story was to indicate that Sam and Elly aren’t plutocrats who wear Laboutin shoes, drive Aston Martins, live in castles and dine off roasted swan. They’re the sort of people to whom £40,000 is rather a lot of money.

It felt like, via The Book People, their entire world had collapsed.

But this is Christmas. And this email tells a Christmas story.

Because Sam and Elly asked the world for help. They didn’t just wander out into the Norfolk marshes and shout at clouds (though, you never know, that might have worked too.) They put an appeal out on the Internet. Here in fact:

Help Fund Galley Beggar

And the world responded. We at Jericho flung some shiny gold coins into their cyber-hat, but so did hundreds and hundreds of other people too.

And a couple of days back, I had imagined that the gist of this email was going to be “Could you please help this gallant pair reach their very demanding £40,000 funding target.” But I’ve just been to the funding page now and they’ve already blown their way through that target and money is still coming in.

But wouldn’t it be the greatest of all possible Christmas gifts if Sam and Elly actually got enough funding that their publisher could live on a slightly less precarious footing? What if they didn’t have to live, hand-to-mouth, knowing that a couple of failures could drag the bulwarks of their little ship down close to the waterline again?

So, if you have a few pounds, dollars, roubles or rupees jingling in your pocket, how about you toss it into Galley’s outstretched hat. You aren’t simply funding Galley Beggar. You are funding literature.

And literature needs you.

Donations don’t have to be big. The small ones all add up. And everything makes a difference.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas. I’ll be back in the New Year.

Go steal an Aston Martin and don’t overcook that swan. Chat about anything you like down below. If you have a wonderful recipe for Christmas food, I’d love to hear it.