By the time you read this, Sam&Sam’s new book should be available through Amazon.
No, I can’t say that…
The penny has finally dropped: having Amazon print your book is a complete, utter, irreparable and gut-wrenching break with the previous printing culture; the previous printing culture as I personally have known it for fifty years and as Britain has known it, probably, for a couple of hundred.
Previously, you the publisher decided a publication date and the printer told you precisely when that meant you had to do what, and if you both did it the book would be ready for sale on that day. Thus we decided that we wanted George Calderon: Edwardian Genius in our hands on the anniversary of George’s death, 4 June 2018, master printers Clays told us in February 2018 the dates by which we would have to submit what and pay what, and they duly delivered on 4 June and the book was duly published on the day advertised by Nielsen (who provided the ISBN) over the preceding eight months.
This time the publishers Sam&Sam worked ‘traditionally’ to an exact timetable to deliver the PDF to Amazon by 19 August, providing time for the reading of proofs and actual publication on the day advertised by Nielsen, 8 September, but as soon as the PDF went to Amazon we were in limbo, because it takes Amazon at least three days to respond to anything. A previously unmentioned and frankly formalistic detail was then raised by them (I will leave Sam2 to describe it in his post mortem post) and the process of sorting it has gone on and on past Nielsen’s publication date. Amazon uses Nielsen’s metadata and cover image, incidentally, but blithely ignores their given publication date. Embarassingly, I am therefore having to tell the people I lined up to review this book that its publication (read: printing) has been delayed…
Clearly, in this new, almost quantum/chaos world of Amazon printing (which, dare I say it, has something Trumpesque about it), anything can happen at any time. This is convenient for Amazon, but busts the head of a publisher who is used to the Newtonian universe of calendars and timepieces. Obviously, when this is all over I am going to have to evaluate whether it is worth printing anything with Amazon again. The three proofs that we received from them (printed in Poland) were excellent, we signed the last one off and in the ‘old’ printing world that would have been that. But no, Amazon then moved the goalposts. Watch this space! Fortunately, there is a Plan B (still with Amazon) and even Plan C (go to Clays, who for a paperback like this have a fifteen-day turnaround).
You will have noticed that I refer to Amazon as the ‘printers’, not ‘publishers’. That is the literal truth: Sam&Sam have created the book, typeset it, and are launching it on the world, so we are the publishers. But, of course, the reason we went with Amazon on this book is that they provide fantastic access to enormous markets, run all the sales, and offer not a bad royalty at all. So they are part publisher. They are a hybrid printer-publisher that has simply shattered the mould.
Meanwhile, here for your amusement are the alternative back covers of the book:
Right: the ‘first edition’ back cover, left: the ‘second edition’ back cover (Click on the image to enlarge)
The story behind these is that there was great hilarity at the ‘shoot’, but when we were shown the images of us laughing I suggested to John Polkinghorne that they hardly went with the content of the book. His reponse was: ‘Well, it is a book about hope, and hope is a cheerful thing…’ Eventually we chose the more po-faced image on the right. But the fact that, for reasons I explained in my previous post, we decided to go for two editions, meant we could vary the image on the back cover, so we decided to be subversive and go for the ‘laughing’ version as well. John’s verdict was: ‘I don’t see how anyone could refuse to buy a book with two such handsome fellows on the back!’
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
Related
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
George Calderon c.1901
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George Calderon, 1912
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
…and two back covers
By the time you read this, Sam&Sam’s new book should be available through Amazon.
No, I can’t say that…
The penny has finally dropped: having Amazon print your book is a complete, utter, irreparable and gut-wrenching break with the previous printing culture; the previous printing culture as I personally have known it for fifty years and as Britain has known it, probably, for a couple of hundred.
Previously, you the publisher decided a publication date and the printer told you precisely when that meant you had to do what, and if you both did it the book would be ready for sale on that day. Thus we decided that we wanted George Calderon: Edwardian Genius in our hands on the anniversary of George’s death, 4 June 2018, master printers Clays told us in February 2018 the dates by which we would have to submit what and pay what, and they duly delivered on 4 June and the book was duly published on the day advertised by Nielsen (who provided the ISBN) over the preceding eight months.
This time the publishers Sam&Sam worked ‘traditionally’ to an exact timetable to deliver the PDF to Amazon by 19 August, providing time for the reading of proofs and actual publication on the day advertised by Nielsen, 8 September, but as soon as the PDF went to Amazon we were in limbo, because it takes Amazon at least three days to respond to anything. A previously unmentioned and frankly formalistic detail was then raised by them (I will leave Sam2 to describe it in his post mortem post) and the process of sorting it has gone on and on past Nielsen’s publication date. Amazon uses Nielsen’s metadata and cover image, incidentally, but blithely ignores their given publication date. Embarassingly, I am therefore having to tell the people I lined up to review this book that its publication (read: printing) has been delayed…
Clearly, in this new, almost quantum/chaos world of Amazon printing (which, dare I say it, has something Trumpesque about it), anything can happen at any time. This is convenient for Amazon, but busts the head of a publisher who is used to the Newtonian universe of calendars and timepieces. Obviously, when this is all over I am going to have to evaluate whether it is worth printing anything with Amazon again. The three proofs that we received from them (printed in Poland) were excellent, we signed the last one off and in the ‘old’ printing world that would have been that. But no, Amazon then moved the goalposts. Watch this space! Fortunately, there is a Plan B (still with Amazon) and even Plan C (go to Clays, who for a paperback like this have a fifteen-day turnaround).
You will have noticed that I refer to Amazon as the ‘printers’, not ‘publishers’. That is the literal truth: Sam&Sam have created the book, typeset it, and are launching it on the world, so we are the publishers. But, of course, the reason we went with Amazon on this book is that they provide fantastic access to enormous markets, run all the sales, and offer not a bad royalty at all. So they are part publisher. They are a hybrid printer-publisher that has simply shattered the mould.
Meanwhile, here for your amusement are the alternative back covers of the book:
Right: the ‘first edition’ back cover, left: the ‘second edition’ back cover (Click on the image to enlarge)
The story behind these is that there was great hilarity at the ‘shoot’, but when we were shown the images of us laughing I suggested to John Polkinghorne that they hardly went with the content of the book. His reponse was: ‘Well, it is a book about hope, and hope is a cheerful thing…’ Eventually we chose the more po-faced image on the right. But the fact that, for reasons I explained in my previous post, we decided to go for two editions, meant we could vary the image on the back cover, so we decided to be subversive and go for the ‘laughing’ version as well. John’s verdict was: ‘I don’t see how anyone could refuse to buy a book with two such handsome fellows on the back!’
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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