Reopening and renewal

After a pandemic pause, and with the warmth of spring in the air, I am pleased to say that Ventura is opening to submissions again.

When COVID-19 first hit Australia in March and we went into lockdown, like everyone else I had no idea what the future would hold. We closed the office and headed for the sanctuary of home, watching the bookshops we love so much close to customers.

It did not feel possible to read manuscripts and give honest feedback on a writer’s hard work when we were filled with anxiety. 

In fact, reading published books was hard in the early days, and many of us bemoaned the fact that as we finally had time to read, the pounding anxiety of not knowing our future stopped us from immersing ourselves in a good book.

 But even a pandemic becomes normalised, and after horrendous sales figures for March, the sales of books started to pick up. Fiction sales boomed thanks to Normal People by Sally Rooney and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and the reading habit re-emerged. 

Online book sales through retailers like Book Depository and Booktopia started to boom, and our favourite indie booksellers like Gleebooks took to their bikes for home delivery with a smile. And then bookstores like Avid Reader and Readings offered some great drive-by pick-up services. Or in my case, a walking the dog /pick-up combo at Potts Point Bookshop.

The book business has always been resilient; we have seen off threats before. In fact predictions of our demise are always wrong: think of what we have faced in recent times: Amazon, ebooks, Netflix, Facebook and Instagram. And my favourite victory is when Readings Carlton saw off Borders after the US giant had opened across the street.

So if the book business is back, then so are we.

 Ventura has always championed the most compelling writing in Australia with globally aware fiction and life enhancing non-fiction books. 

And female agency remains at the core of our business and our list.

We seek stories that are deeply moving, connect with our shared humanity, characters that stay with you and books that can change your life.

From now on, we will be accepting submissions every Friday. You can find more information on how to submit here.

So after a reflective hibernation, the renewal of spring is here and we look forward to selecting new works to be the Ventura titles of the future. 

Cutting the Cord: Natasha's remarks

 Opening Remarks

 Thank you for participating in this online launch of Cutting the Cord.

 This is a difficult time for many of us, and being able to tell stories and to experience them is an important part of coping with the events around us.

 Firstly, I would like to thank Ventura Press for publishing my book and for hosting this launch. I hope that we can still hold a launch in person, but under current circumstances that is of course not possible.

 As part of this launch, we will make the opening chapter from the novel available, and you will also find a video with some questions that Ventura prepared. I hope to be able to do a live question and answer session in the future, and, of course, you can always contact me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or through Ventura.

Cutting the Cord

Cutting the Cord is a terrorist novel that explores fanaticism, through the experiences of its central protagonist, Amira Knox.

 Amira, a twenty-two-year old Australian has been groomed since childhood by her family to commit acts of terrorism against the world’s capitalist elites.

 Her family leads the “Authenticity Movement”, an unconventional terrorist cult with grandiose non-religious pretensions and a melange of rather vague ideas for eliminating a virus of “inauthenticity”.

 The narrative concentrates on how the cult creates a dystopia for both its victims and perpetrators, and centres on Amira’s quest to leave her terrorist identity behind.

 My novel explores what might happen when a terrorist cult forms based on one person’s closed mind and the answer is terrorist violence for broader Western society, and a dystopian outcome for many perpetrators. 

I would add that the ‘virus’ of ‘inauthenticity’ as used in the book is not related in any way to real-life viruses that we may be experiencing at the moment.

The Authenticity Movement and the ‘virus of inauthenticity’

In short, the ‘virus of inauthenticity’ is the way the cult sees the evils of capitalism.

The longer version is that the Authenticity Movement is a variation on the doomsday cults run by charismatic leaders, which were prevalent in the 1960s through to the 1990s, such as the Manson family, the People’s Temple and Branch Davidians. Like Aum Shinrikyo, The Authenticity Movement engages in outward-directed terrorist activities similar to those of jihad operations (excluding suicide bombings). 

The group claims that the generally accepted notion of economic progress is spread throughout society like an infection, hindering the capacity of people to live “authentically”.

The Movement preaches that those who lead and profit from the global financial system – the billionaires – are especially inauthentic and, as key vectors of contagion, must be eliminated.

According to the Movement, the virus of “inauthenticity” steers the populace into myopic consumption, existential alienation and robotic subjugation. The terrorist agglomeration, using twenty-first century technological innovations (such as mobile phones, computers and the internet), seeks to amplify and diffuse system-created global financial crises via acts of terrorism and economic sabotage, inciting a revolution that will create a more “authentic” way of being.

More importantly though, Cutting the Cord is Amira’s story. Amira’s experiences in this cult leading her to the point where she questions everything she believes. It is also her story of empowerment through building her own identity and find her independence.

Acknowledgments:

"I am grateful to Dr Dianne Schwerdt and Dr Carol Lefevre from The University of Adelaide for their careful readings of many drafts and their support. I am also indebted to the University of Adelaide for enabling me to conduct research onsite in Germany and Switzerland through a Research Abroad Scholarship.

I want to thank my mother for her prayers, strength and love; my father for his constant encouragement and feedback; my sisters for their willingness to listen; my son for his inspiration and patience.

I would also like to thank Catherine Heath for her editing help and the team at Ventura – Jane, Zoe and Holly for their help and advice in bringing this book to the public.

Finally, I want to thank my husband Andreas, without whom none of this would have been possible."

Launching a Book Online in the time of Corona

The book launch is a rite of passage for a debut novelist. Well, for any writer publishing a book really. It’s something you muse about during the long journey to publication; who you’ll invite, a cool venue to hold it. What it’s going to be like showing off a real book after all that time working, writing, waiting!

And then … Corona!

I’d booked my launch for No Small Shame at Readings Hawthorn way back in December, I was that excited! After attending many such similar events, it was finally going to be my turn!

Hmm … Corona!

I returned from a writing residency on Norfolk Island at the end of February believing I had four weeks to organise invitations, nibbles, wine, an outfit, and to get out and introduce myself to booksellers, knowing that Ventura Press’s wonderful distributors, Simon and Schuster had been out and about already and the book was on pre-order. Then the Corona sky began to darken as the nightly news went from worrying to more urgent to lockdowns imminent.

Mid-March, on the Saturday, I was a guest speaker at the Women Writing History Day at Eltham Library. It was my first chance to publicly speak about No Small Shame, to sell and sign books, and I was so delighted to be able to do so in advance of the release date. I had the thrill of selling every copy I’d taken and signing each book for the purchaser with my brand new author signature. (As opposed to the one I use on my credit card!)

With the Corona news worsening, I handed out invitations to my launch that day with a pang of trepidation. There was ‘no hugging’ ‘no kissing’, though there were lovely, quiet words of congratulations. ‘We’ll do the real thing at the launch!’

That night, the news made lockdowns sound imminent! My stomach began to knot, but I was amazed at how well I was handling the prospect that my launch could be cancelled. The next day, orders to self-isolate, avoid crowds and any unnecessary gatherings began to bode ill. Still I remained calm!

The next day came the cancellation.

There were tears! And disappointment. But, I do have to say that any misery quickly dissipated, thanks to the instant and voluminous outreach by the online writing community to all authors who’d had their launches and events cancelled. Along with some particularly wonderful offers to assist debut authors.

That same day, fellow debut author, Kirsten Krauth set up a fabulous new Facebook group, Writers Go Forth. Launch Promote Party to provide a forum for authors who’d lost their launches and events to promote and celebrate the release of their books. Opportunities and offers began to flood in and within days I had several fabulous blog and interview spots lined up and two very exciting guest spots on podcasts. Holding a launch online began to seem a real possibility too – though I’d no clue how to go about it. Even, a few days later, as I scheduled and posted news of my virtual launch, I wasn’t sure how it would all work. At first, the plan was for the wonderful Alison Goodman, my launcher, writing buddy and friend, to come to my house, so we could either record or livestream proceedings. We decided, being online, we needed to make the launch more interactive than just speeches, so we’d do a short QandA.

Within a matter of days though, social isolation regulations became more stringent, the need for care more urgent, and the plan changed to prerecording the launch from our separate houses. Perhaps via Zoom.

I wasted several stressful days trying to work out if we could livestream from separate houses, or run a pre-recorded video during a livestream. It’s allegedly possible if you have the know-how and technology. We did not! So we reverted to Plan B, to pre-record the actual launch and then once it played on the night, I’d flip to a livestream. Right up until the moment that the livestream worked, I wasn’t sure or convinced it would; despite having a phone tutorial on the process from wonderful author and tech whiz L.J Owen.

There were a few little hiccoughs along the way! Facebook didn’t deliver all my invitations. Apparently, they have a guest limit and a send only a few ‘at one time’ limit. Some guests were unable to comment during the event. I’m still not sure if it was the group Facebook settings or the guest’s privacy settings? However, I was thrilled that most people managed to let me know that they were there either in the comments, by text, Messenger or email.

I’d seen from others’ experiences how hard it is to search through all the lovely messages and comments to find the questions, so my daughter was on stand-by (at her house) to text me any questions via my laptop.

I am thrilled to say now, that on the night, all went exactly to plan. The video uploaded and played; and when it finished, I successfully switched to the livestream. I was hugely relieved though to see that first message appear in the comments, letting me know that someone was out there and watching. Questions duly arrived via text giving me the chance to talk about the journey of writing No Small Shame and share some of the research and background to the novel. I’m still amazed how natural it all seemed. And it was an absolute joy to know that so many family, friends and peers were there watching, including many that couldn’t have been at a physical launch here in Melbourne. Sadly I did lose a few guests when we switched to livestream who’d not realised the launch was to continue.

It all felt like a real celebration! And strangely, I didn’t feel solitary or socially distanced at all. No, the night wasn’t what I’d planned; but that didn’t lessen the joy of holding up No Small Shame, knowing it was out in the world – finding readers – and being read.

If you’d like to learn more about No Small Shame (or even get yourself a copy!), you can find more information here. To hear more from Christine, check out her website: christinebell.com.au

A screenshot from Christine’s online launch with fellow author Alison Goodman

A Christmas Wishlist

Christmastime is nearly upon us and if you’re in need of some bookish ideas, Ventura has you covered. Here’s our round-up of the best titles to gift loved ones this holiday season.

For the lover of a best-seller:

Whether it’s a thoughtful gift for your partner or a stocking filler for your friends, you can’t go past a best-seller on Christmas. Paris Savages by Katherine Johnson is based on the true story of three Badtjala people from Fraser Island who travel to Europe to perform as part of ethnographic exhibits in the 1800s.
With praise from Alice Nelson, Kate Holden, Peter Cochrane, and reviews from Better Reading, Good Reading and more, this is one new release not to miss!

After being shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, the MUD Literary Prize, an Australian Book Industry Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Writing and a Saltire Literary Society Award (Scotland), A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer has taken the world by storm. If you’re looking for genre- and mind-bending literary fiction, go no further.

For the lover of heartwarming and hilarious women’s fiction:

For many of us, Christmas books means gifting the best new beach reads to fill the time on our summer break. Our November release, The Changing Room by Christine Sykes is just that. Entertaining, captivating and easy-to-read, you’ll be drawn in by the strong character developments and social justice story. Read Better Reading’s review here.

And we can’t forget about other releases from earlier this year! The Age of Discretion by Virginia Duigan is a hilarious and provocative novel that will leave you in stitches one minute and tears the next. A gift that any women in your life will love.

For the non-fiction reader:

If your loved ones are book lovers, then they might already have a copy of Jane Sullivan’s Storytime, but if not, it’s the perfect present. A bibliomemoir delving into your favourite childhood books, Storytime is a wander down memory-lane and a reminder that childhood books have a deep impact on who we become.

And for those who love essays, Split by Lee Kofman is the go-to. Acclaimed Australian writers are brought together in this anthology of writing about leaving, loss and new beginnings. It’s a book to gift to any loved one who has experienced grief, and the overwhelming changes that can come after - all tied together by the literary prowess of Lee Kofman.

For the business minded:

Venturing into the New Year means creating new years resolutions. Maybe it’s time to take the career step you’ve always dreamed of? Career to Calling by Annie Stewart is the guidebook for turning your calling into a reality, from lifetime career coach Annie Stewart. A perfect gift for university leavers, back-to-work mums or anyone in your life who needs a nudge in the right direction.

Then there’s Breaking the Banks by Joseph Healy, the insider’s guide to what went wrong with Australian banking, from a career banker. Exploring the criticisms from the Royal Commission and ideas of how to improve, this book is the gift to give the financially-savvy person in your social circle.

For when you can’t decide what to give:

With climate change gracing the news at all hours of the day and fires burning all over the country, what happens when this becomes a reality? The Warming by Craig Ensor is a climate-fiction-romance about humanity at the end of the world. A stocking-filler to give someone who needs a little bit of hope in these times of crisis.

Happy shopping and Merry Christmas from the Ventura team!

The Secret Life of an Editor

By Jane Curry, Publisher and Director of Ventura Press.

‘Who’s the editor?’ I have only been asked this question once in my career and it was by a very savvy US fiction agent who really knew how to assess a manuscript with forensic precision.

It is very rare for an editor to receive credit for their work on a book or get a mention in the sales points. Any appreciation shown is usually from the author, tucked away in the acknowledgments. And yet at the very core of our industry is the quality of the writing.

How has the role of the editor become hidden in plain sight? Time and money are the main culprits. Ever since the 1980s, when the consolidation of small companies into large multi-nationals began, the need to feed the engines of turnover has seen every publishing schedule reduced to the fastest turnaround. The pressure is on from payment of the advance to the pub date: to be first to market, make the catalogue deadline, make the budget, maintain market share, impress investors, sign the next book, publish simultaneously with other countries.

Commercial imperatives are the antithesis of good editing because editing needs time: time for re-reading, re-drafting, reflection and discussion. At Ventura, for example, debut novelist Craig Ensor has been working with his editor on The Warming for well over a year. What came to us as a brilliant novella has been reworked into a full literary work. We allowed him this time but we can make our own rules as a small press and not every publisher has that luxury.

Of editing’s three distinct stages, the most satisfying for me is the structural edit where the book is reviewed as a whole, with the characters, narrative, timeline and length all assessed for their credibility and contribution to the overall work. To do this properly the manuscript needs to be read and re-read—with the money clock ticking.

After the structural edit comes a thorough copyedit, and the manuscript is then typeset before the third editorial stage—proofreading and taking in corrections—takes place. The three stages of the editorial process each need extraordinary expertise and experience—and time.

Compounding the issue of editors’ work hiding in plain sight is the fact that managing directors—the corner office folk who set the corporate culture—most often come through the ranks of sales and marketing, and very rarely come from the editorial side. Our best editors may rise to become publishing directors but they usually stay there. Most often the people who call the shots have never edited a book.

American publishing is a wonderful exception to the ‘hidden editor’ rule. US authors are very close to their editors and often move with their editor if the editor changes house. Editors are more highly valued as a result because they are seen as profit centres—they keep the big authors on the list. You will often see a US editor given their own list (a great way to keep them in the tent).

But in Australia we have seen a curbing of the editor’s power, not only because of commercial factors but also because editing has become gendered. It is now seen as a female profession and, like nursing and teaching, it is undervalued as a result. Editors may ‘lean in’ in terms of commitment and skill but they certainly don’t get valued for these attributes on payday.

Of course the converse is often true too. An editor or publisher with the Y chromosome is seen as a serious thinker. They are seen as adding gravitas and depth to the same job, rather like a dad getting brownie points for doing what mothers do every day.

I was as guilty as the next publisher of treating editing as something that could be minimised or rushed—trying to squeeze another book into the month or onto the Christmas list—but I have changed my ways since working with the wonderful Zoe Hale, who joined Ventura as managing editor a few years ago.

Thanks to Zoe’s gentle yet firm professionalism, we have instituted a minimum turnaround of nine months from receipt of manuscript to release into bookshops.

I am soundly rebuffed if I say we can move a pub date forward—a decision that I respect as I know it is right. And Zoe also has power of veto over our marketing material so I can no longer make ambit claims on ARC covers!

Our list has matured and our reputation has grown as a direct result of putting the editorial process at the centre of our company. I hope it heralds the start of a ‘slow publishing’ movement where we can pursue both editorial excellence and commercial success.

This article was originally published on Books + Publishing.

Writing a Personal Essay with Lee Kofman

Renowned author, writing teacher, speaker and mentor, Lee Kofman, is the queen of creative non-fiction and personal essays. Here, Lee shares her insights into crafting a personal essay: what makes it ‘good’? How do we define a ‘bad’ personal essay? And who does Lee reach to for inspiration?

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I’ve always loved the personal essay genre, especially because of the freedom embedded within it. A personal essayist can say whatever they wish directly; unlike in fiction, there is no need to couch their views, or research, in an imagined story, set the stage, develop a plausible plot. In short, personal essays don’t require any of the artifice fiction needs. And yet, in contrast to ‘straight’ nonfiction, personal essayists can also be as creative as they like – write lyrically, incorporate description, dialogue and scenes, develop characters, quote poetry or do whatever else they find useful to explore their subjects.

Over the years, I’ve read countless personal essays and essay collections (I’m addicted to the Best American Essays series), and I’ve written many of my own. More recently, I progressed my love affair with this genre by curating two anthologies of essays from well-known Australian writers for Ventura Press: Rebellious Daughters (with Maria Katsonis), and Split: True stories of leaving, loss and new beginnings (on my own). Still, whenever I get asked what in my opinion constitutes a good personal essay, I feel somewhat at a loss. Here I’ll try to unpick why I feel so, and to answer the question.

My uncertainty about defining ‘good’ is somewhat symptomatic of the genre itself. The personal essay is a versatile animal. I could have said ‘chameleon’, but then it frequently changes not only colour but also shape. Some essays actually do read like short fiction – they are narrative-driven snapshots of a particular event or relationship or some other slice of life. My own essay in Split, Bruised, is an example. There I describe the end of both my life in Tel Aviv and a bad relationship I was in then. Other essays – often about ongoing, and/or less dramatic, life experiences, like parenting or gardening – might be more discursive. Then there are the personal essays that can sound as not personal at all. Some of these would critically dissect various phenomena, such as Madonna’s music, chess or behavioural therapy; or they may even engage with so-called ‘issues’, say de-forestation or rising anti-Semitism. The structure of such essays is usually more argumentative as the authors consider various positions and press certain points. So what would make this last essay category ‘personal’ then? To answer this question would be to start answering the main question too – what constitutes a good personal essay.

What all personal essays share is the emphasis on writer’s voice.

Their topics, be this an author’s teenage crush or Putin’s policies, are always filtered through the writer’s unique prism – their personal experience/history with their subject (with possibly some related anecdotes told), their emotional (as well as cognitive, of course) responses, and their idiosyncratic worldviews. So when I think of the ‘goodness’ of a personal essay, I foremostly consider the quality of the voice.

Then in a good personal essay the process of how the writer arrives at their interests and views is often a part of the essay’s drama. An essayist doesn’t avoid self-scrutiny, but rather thrives on it, examining their views in light of the time and place they live in, as well as in light of history. They relish presenting the reader with the inner workings of their (often conflicted) consciousness, or as David Shields puts it – ‘the theatre of the brain’. For personal essayists, Robert Dessaix suggests in his seminal essay Letters To The Unknown Friend, ‘the underlying air of incoherence that characterises our thought is something to be joyfully acknowledged – it’s what makes us who we are.’

Of course, writers cannot copy their consciousness precisely nor do they need to – this can make for self-indulgent writing and tedious reading (I have read some not good personal essays that did just that). Good essayists order their reflective flow to some extent, but do so while striving towards authenticity, towards showing the overall contours of their thinking process with all its doubts and paradoxes.

Certainty, then, isn’t good personal essayists’ currency. These essayists don’t scream at you, don’t wave fingers nor do they take the high moral ground, drunk on self-righteousness. They don’t hit you with a lecture or opinion piece or a litany of complaints. As Virginia Woolf puts it, ‘Literal truth-telling and finding fault with a culprit for his good are out of place in an essay… the voice of the scold should never be heard.’

It’s not that personal essayists don’t have a viewpoint, but that curiosity is a major part of their mindset, including towards their potential opposition; as is awareness of the multitudes of contradictions that characterise human thoughts and behaviour. ‘Contradiction, paradox and questioning best reflect the moving, morphing human mind, which is what the essayist wants to capture… An essayist celebrates questions, loves the liminal, and feels that life is best lived between the may and be of maybe,’ writes Lauren Slater ever so poetically.

The poetry, the delivery, the voice… ‘A genuine essay is not a doctrinaire tract or propaganda effort...’ tells us Cynthia Ozick. ‘The essay is not meant for barricades... [it] courts agreement; it seduces agreement.’

Good personal essays court their readers by sharing intimacies, and confusions, with them as one does with a trusted interlocutor, and often by using humour. Some even address readers directly, like Laura Kipnis does in the ironic opening of her essay Sexual Paranoia:

‘You have to feel a little sorry these days for professors married to their former students. They used to be respectable citizens – leaders in their fields, department chairs, maybe even a dean or two – and now they’re abusers of power avant la letter. I suspect you can barely throw a stone on most campuses around the country without hitting a few of these neo-miscreants.’

Surprise is another of my parameters of goodness. An essay, Ozick tells us, ‘is a stroll through someone’s mazy mind’. It’s only natural that some mazes will be more twisted, will contain more detours, unexpected stopovers and hidden alleyways than others. Many good essays have a serpentine structure that reflects the author’s delightfully idiosyncratic and wandering mind. Ramona Koval, for example, in her essay Goodbye And Good Luck in Split, discusses her career at the ABC while also venturing into such topics as pre-digital technology and Ovid’s life. Digressiveness, for me, when not so excessive as to muddle the heart of the essay, is a sign of a healthy sensibility, of the author’s willingness to engage with the untidiness and richness of life.

A good personal essay also has to have a certain energy – feel urgent, or at least bubble with excitement.

Good personal essayists choose themes that truly matter to them. Dessaix says his writing can be about ‘Vladivostok, the subjunctive, swearing, silence, Saturday afternoons – almost anything will do. Well, anything that the voices in my head habitually talk about with passion.’ As a reader, though, how can you tell how much the subject has mattered to the essayist? We can’t, of course, know this with any certainty, but I do know well that electric charge, that tension I sometimes feel when the writer’s urgency infuses the work. Often I sense this energy in the rhythm, the music of the writing. Listen to these lines from Resisting The Nipple, Rochelle Siemienowicz’s essay in Rebellious Daughters. Listen to the aria performed in the theatre of this writer’s mind:

Will I ever escape the push to rebel against my mother, and the equal and opposite pull to please her? I wonder at my compulsion still, to tell her everything, the whole truth, so that she might understand me, forgive me, accept me, difficult daughter that I am. As I’m writing these words, I wonder what she might think if she reads them. I want to send my essay to her, like a cat that’s killed a rat and rushes to lay it at the feet of its owner. Would she see this as a gift of love, my struggling with truth and memory? Or as a mangled dead thing, disgracing her doorstep?

Perhaps, though, the best answer to the question at the heart of this essay can be found in a straightforward recitation of my favourite essayists’ names.

I’ve already mentioned several ones earlier, so I’m ending up with another (non-exhaustive) list. If you like the works of these writers, it’s possible you’ll then notice some other commonalities between them and come up with your own criteria for what constitutes a good personal essay.

• Adam Gopnik

• Emily Gould

• Patricia Hampl

• Alexander Hemon

• Katie Roiphe

• Zadie Smith

• Sandra Tsing Loh

• Maria Tumarkin

• Fiona Wright

• Poe Ballantine

• Elif Batuman

• Terry Castle

• Bernard Cooper

• Rachel Cusk

• Meghan Daum

• Joan Didion

• Geoff Dyer

• Helen Garner

Dr Lee Kofman is a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist and sometimes-poet based in Melbourne. Lee holds a PhD in social sciences and MA in creative writing. She is the author of three fiction books and two memoirs, The Dangerous Bride (Melbourne University Press 2014), and Imperfect (Affirm Press 2019). Lee co-edited Rebellious Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016), an anthology of memoir by prominent female Australian authors, and most recently, Split: true stories of leaving, loss and new beginnings (Ventura Press, 2019). Her short works have been published in Australia, Scotland, UK, Israel, USA and Canada. Her writing has won many awards, including the Australian Council grant and Varuna’s flagship fellowship, and her blog on writing was a finalist for Best Australian Blogs 2014.

You can find Lee on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook!

The Art of Book Cover Design with Alissa Dinallo

Alissa Dinallo’s designs grace the covers of many Ventura books - from the more complex Paris Savages, Matryoshka and Raptures Roadway to the minimalist cover of The Warming. To celebrate the release of Paris Savages, we chatted to Alissa about the origins of her design career, the evolution of a book cover, and where her inspiration comes from.

Tell us a little about yourself – how did you get into book design, and what do you love about it?

While I was at university (UTS) I met a brilliant tutor by the name of Zoe Sadokierski, who was a former book designer from Allen and Unwin. She really opened my eyes to the possibilities of book design as a career. As I was completing my degree, I managed to get a job at Allen and Unwin archiving books. Once I was in-house working I got to understand how the design process worked and eventually applied for the role of junior designer. After 3 years at Allen and Unwin I moved to Penguin Random House. At the end of 2015 I decided to start my own business as design freelance for all publishers in Australia and worldwide.

When you received the initial cover brief for Paris Savages, what was your process of coming up with the resulting concepts? Talk us through your process.

This is the third of Katherine’s books I’ve designed. I love her writing, and have a good understanding of the mood and tone she conveys in novels. I wanted to create something dark, naturally beautiful and subtly Australian. I knew I wanted to use flora in an eye catching, clever way. I was originally inspired by the beautiful Ernst Haeckel illustrations, which have a great sense of dark, yet beautiful mystery. As I worked on these concepts, Ventura felt we needed a human element, so I focused on creating covers that hinted at a female character. I tried overlaying illustrations of Australian flora onto a woman’s skin/face. Whilst working through these concepts I started collaging a woman’s face with leaves and flowers. And that’s how I eventually arrived at the final cover.

some early concepts of Paris Savages

How long does it usually take you to come up with concepts once receiving a cover brief from the publisher? Do you have a number of concepts you aim for? 

Depending on the urgency of the cover, it generally takes me around 3 weeks. This gives me time to read the manuscript properly and come up with key imagery I think best illustrates the text, whilst keeping it commercial/appropriate to the books genre. I don’t aim for a certain number of roughs, but once I’m on a roll I can produce a lot, and I generally need to cull them before sending them off.

Where do you draw your inspiration from as a designer?

I’m always looking at how image and text interact in the world. I’m always taking note/photos of cool shop signs, menus, movie posters, artworks, logos, vintage books, and other graphic design (the list is honestly endless). Social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest also allow me to catalogue inspiring visuals so I can look back at them when I receive new briefs.

What is the aim of any cover you design?

There are a lot of things you want to achieve when designing a cover – from good design to a product that sells. But I think the most important aim for me is to honour the work of the author, and give their hard work a brilliant face for the world.

Do you have any other memorable Ventura covers you’ve worked on?

I have to say, Paris Savages is one of my all time favourite covers with Ventura. I also loved working on Katherine’s previous books (The Better Son and Matryoshka). More recently I loved working on The Warming and Rapture’s Roadway.

more Alissa Dinallo cover designs for Ventura

You can find Alissa’s portfolio here, or follow her on Instagram here.

Nine million books in Beijing - What's the Deal with Publishing in China?

Ventura Press founder and publisher Jane Curry attended this year’s Beijing International Book Fair, which ran from 21–25 August.

I am writing these words as I prepare to fly home from the Beijing International Book Fair. To be in the heart of a city of 21.8 million people, capital of a country of 1.3 billion, certainly makes you aware of the vastness of the market potential here.

The metrics are impressive. In 2018 the book market turned over 89.4 billion yuan renminbi (RMB) (A$18 billion), up 11.7% from 2017. Online sales account for 48% of the market even with Amazon China bowing out in 2019, leaving the dominant players Dangdang and JD.com.

As head of the Independent Publishers Committee (IPC) at the Australian Publishers Association (APA), I have been a keen advocate of strengthening our relationship with China. This year we had eight publishers on the APA stand: Rockpool Publishing, Big Sky Publishing, CSIRO Publishing, UQP, National Museum of Australia Press, Atlas Jones & Co, Australian Scholarly Publishing and Ventura. Of course, we are there primarily to sell rights, but I strongly believe it is essential to our understanding of the world that we understand China. To do so represents vital cultural literacy. The Frankfurt Book Fair skews towards the UK, US and Europe, but as Australian publishers we need to know more about the vast single-language market of our near neighbour.

This is the third year that the IPC has hosted an Australian stand at the Beijing Book Fair. We receive no funding other than from our own IPC budget, and as a result our stand is extremely spartan compared to other group stands. We look with envy at the stands of France, Germany, Britain, Korea and even tiny Macau. Fortunately, this year Maree Ringland, counsellor for Public Affairs and Culture at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, together with Guo Ying of DFAT, hosted a pre-fair lunch for visiting publishers to meet our Chinese counterparts.

The lunch was very productive as it brought together the actual publishers rather than the figurehead-only chairmen, which is so often the case at more formal events. We were united as publishers talking books, all with a keen interest in literature, retail and cultural trends.

I sat next to Peng Lun of indie press Archipel, the publisher of Sally Rooney in China. He printed 25,000 copies of Normal People, which lasted a month before reprinting—an achievement that puts the ‘othering’ of the Chinese market in context. Also at the lunch was Azia Cheng, the new CEO of Penguin Random House North Asia, who, being young and dynamic, epitomises the new generation of Chinese publishers.

The business side does butt up against the state. Only a state-owned publisher can issue an ISBN, so a small press has to be ‘adopted’ by a state-owned publisher and share the ISBN allocation after the title has been approved. ISBNs can also be ‘auctioned’ as they have a separate market value to the book. And I was informed that in one sweep of the presidential pen the booming children’s market could be closed if it is deemed to allow too much Western influence. There are also cultural sensitivities. Our book Everyday Ethics (Simon Longstaff), which contains issues of abortion, gender and religion has sold into Taiwan but not into China.

But, overall, I can only enthuse about the welcome we were given, the interest in our books and the respect we were offered as fellow professionals. It is an extremely worthwhile adventure both personally and financially.

This was originally published in Books + Publishing.

What Makes a Good Author?

by Ventura’s Director, Jane Curry.

Writing is a solitary and fiercely intellectual craft that is also a sheer slog. To hand over your work to a third party is an act of deep trust and one that good publishers do not take lightly. A writer becomes an author only when they are published, and because publishers and authors both need each other, ours is the ultimate symbiotic relationship.

So what makes a good author?

Well, the most important attribute is clearly the writing. It should be writing that inspires and transports the reader. It should be stories that you don’t want to finish, as you love the alternative world they create: the imagery, characters, plot twists, pace and revelation. For nonfiction works, it should be ideas that challenge and change our worldview. Good writing creates the lodestar of publishing: word of mouth. Good writing can create the kind of buzz that drives people to bookshops in a way that advertising and publicity alone cannot achieve.

So assuming an author writes well, what else makes a good author?

The answer at Ventura is ‘author DNA’: an expression coined by the wonderful and much-missed Simon Milne during one of our strategy workshops. We had conducted a deep dive into the performance of our titles over the previous 12 months, which included reviewing the genre, price, positioning and author. We found that one of the key factors in the success of a book was the right author DNA.

This means that the author must be the unabashed champion of their own work, with a strong commitment to success and the motivation to support their work long after the launch champagne has gone flat. A healthy ego is also important: if the author is to really shine on the platform we publishers create, they have to enjoy the limelight.

I often refer to publishing as an energy transfer—our passionate belief in the book must be transferred to sales reps, booksellers, the media and ultimately the reader. It is impossible to achieve this without the author being a key partner or, dare I say, a stakeholder. Maria Katsonis, the author of our bestselling book The Good Greek Girl, has gold-standard author DNA. Maria worked every facet of the market upon launch and continues to promote her books many years after publication. We call this the long tail: library talks, book clubs, events, articles—they all contribute to backlist sales and provide a platform for future works.

The book market is flooded with 5000 new titles every month, so much is made of ‘author platform’. What is the author’s background, their profession, their story? What makes them different to the rest? These details can provide the key to achieving cut-through at retail. Publishers seek this information to see if there is a hook on which to hang a marketing campaign or start an author profile. Authors with a strong social media presence provide a ready market for their books and are largely published because of it. But for other authors, social media is irrelevant—it is their very gravitas that impresses.

In small companies such as Ventura we view our stable of authors like our kin. We seize every chance to promote them both here and overseas, whether frontlist or backlist, at book fairs or in impromptu settings. We maintain a very strong sense of alliance and collaboration, and I am convinced this commitment has contributed to our success, as we genuinely believe in every author we publish.

There are some potential authors who do need a reality check, so that their expectations of our publicity campaign are realistic. When meeting a first-time author I always say, ‘I cannot make you famous’ before we sign, and remind them that becoming a household name takes many years. When I published Robin Barker (Baby Love) at Macmillan, sales were slow initially but after I negotiated a monthly column at the Australian Women’s Weekly her name slowly built to become the brand that it is today.

I also say to authors that I cannot dictate to booksellers what books they should stock—it is ultimately the bookseller’s choice. We publishers can persuade with the strength of the concept, the profile, the marketing and the writing itself, but being stocked in bookshops is not an automatic right just because the book is in print—a fact we clearly articulate with authors.

As a career publisher, I can say that the best authors are the ones that submit a stunning and compelling manuscript, take a receptive position on editing and cover design, have a healthy sense of self to cope with the publicity trail, and the stamina to keep going into the backlist years. And a new book every other year please!

This article was originally published in Books + Publishing.

The Rise of #Bookstagram

With 5000 new titles a month released into the Australian market, what publishers seek is cut-through: the ability to stand out from the crowd.

Cut-through can be achieved by many methods but the sweet spot, which is available to all publishers, is the cover. Books that are the same size, the same price and the same specs all have one obvious variable from the outside: the cover.

Like the LP record covers of my youth, a book cover is consumable art that appeals to our sense of aesthetics. The cover of a book positions it in the marketplace; it relays a message about the content and is a call-out to a loyal readership. I am always amused by the publishing maxim ‘Know thy shelf ’—a directive to visit bookshops and observe how different books are displayed—and this is particularly useful when thinking about cover design.

The first role of design is to define the genre. In fiction the big divide is between commercial and literary fiction, and this influences everything from the book’s title to the final typography. There are accepted norms for each genre that are obvious to anyone browsing in a bookshop: thrillers have the author’s name in BIG CAPITALS; crime covers are bold, black and red; motivation books are often white with strong typography; and biographies feature a full-bleed headshot and a title based on wordplay (Shane Warne’s No Spin being a prime example). But ‘knowing thy shelf ’ makes commercial sense too: it is a hedge against getting lost in the vast market. You want the bookseller and the reader to recognise the genre immediately and know they will enjoy the book.

Despite this herd mentality, the best cover designs often don’t follow a trend, and many stand-out examples of this come from the small literary publishers. Giramondo’s spare minimalist covers are worthy of framing; Xoum and Transit Lounge also punch above their weight. Their covers convey the message: ‘I am intellectual and don’t play by the commercial rules. I am special like you.’

Ventura’s most recent ‘instagrammable’ cover: Paris Savages, by Katherine Johnson

At Ventura, before we even start on cover design we hold a positioning meeting where we decide the readership profile for this book—is it literary, commercial or genre? What are the key elements of the manuscript and why do we love this book? We complete a competitive market analysis and produce a mood board of competing titles. We observe the trends, the imagery and typography, as well as the use of cover quotes, shout lines and subtitles. We want our book to reflect its genre, which offers assurance to both retailer and reader, but also to be unique.

The biggest influence on design trends this decade has been the advent of Instagram and the notion of a curated feed. This concept was introduced to me by the wonderful Ventura author Melanie Dimmitt (Special, September 2019). Melanie comes from a digital background with Collective Hub, HuffPost and Mamamia. She arrived at Ventura with her own mood board, a colour palette for the book and social media promotions. It was a complete visual marketing package for the digital age, and I was very impressed.

This trend for curated visuals has given rise to #booksofinstagram, which links Instagram users to a world of stylish books and equally stylish readers. This hashtag is not exclusive, but it is only really effective for books with high design values—they often feature elaborate flat-lays that relay some of the narrative or add to the hygge feeling of curling up with a book.

We ventured into this world when our marketing coordinator Sophie Hodge joined us last year straight from university. Like her peers, digital is in Sophie’s DNA and she has crafted our Instagram feed to great effect. Our covers are very ‘Instagrammable’ as a result. But there is more than sheer aesthetics to this. We have found a small army of Instagram reviewers who ply their craft outside the legacy media, and we have a younger and more active readership as a result.

The rise of Bookstagram also offers an opportunity to extend our franchises through visual merchandising. Even bricks-and- mortar bookshops sometimes seem to sell more non-book paraphernalia than books. We in the book world have traditionally been reluctant to venture into designed objects beyond book covers, but when we do break out it has great impact. I will never forget the sight of the stunning Holly Ringland tote bags at the London Book Fair in 2017—it was a delight to see rich Australian botanicals livening up the dull surrounds of Olympia. Maybe more should follow.

An investment in good design leads to a stronger, more vibrant and diverse book market. We should rejoice in the stunning covers that appear on the bookshop shelves and in our feeds. This way we can find new markets and a new generation of readers.

This article was written by Ventura’s Director & Publisher, Jane Curry.

Originally published in Books + Publishing.

You can find Ventura’s instagram here: @venturapress__

What You May Not Know About Your Editor

By Zoe Hale, Ventura’s Managing Editor

In the editorial industry there are a lot of common stereotypes you may have heard about – we’re often (but not always) female, we’re cat people, tea people, book people, and we’re cardigan wearing, glasses wearing grammar Nazis. And if we ever went to war, it would be over the oxford comma. A lot of those stereotypes prove true, while others, well ... we like to think of ourselves as a little more diverse.

That said, if you are new to publishing, a first-time author, or are about to engage an editor for the first time, here are some things you might not know about your editor.

1. We’re on the side of the reader

Editors read a manuscript with the end reader and target market in mind. They are constantly asking the question – will the reader understand this? And especially for fiction – will the reader believe this? An ego during the editorial process, from either the author or the editor, is the worst thing that can happen to a book. Each side must be prepared to let go of firmly held beliefs about the text and serve the potential of the work and reader, whether the reader is a 16-year-old girl browsing her school library, or a middle-aged father receiving a birthday gift.

2. We like collaboration

The editor is not out to get you, or itching to slash your work into a million pieces. Most editors, myself included, see the editorial process as a partnership, one that concentrates on bringing the book to its full potential. This means an editor won’t be rewriting passages that don’t work, but may make suggestions. It also means the author needs to take ownership of their work and consider each editorial suggestion seriously, before deciding whether to accept or reject that suggestion. Simply accepting or rejecting all suggestions without considering them, or asking the editor to write something else that works, is not collaborative and goes against the spirit of editing.

3. We can’t tell you if your book will sell millions

If we are working on your book it means we believe in it. We believe in the power of your story and the importance that your work goes out into the world. But we can’t tell you how many people will buy it, if it will be the next Harry Potter or if you will be the next Liane Moriarty. And if you are engaging us privately, we can’t tell you if it will be picked up by a publisher. How many sales a book will make is a task undertaken by the marketing and sales and PR teams of a publishing house, and for a self-published author, the author themselves. We are gradually reaching the point where there will be more writers than readers, and in an increasingly competitive market, excellent content or writing is not enough to make a book sell. Sales and marketing lie outside of the domain of the humble editor. We will help you craft the content to be the most compelling it can be. After that, the baton is passed to marketing.

4. It’s all about style

Sometimes whether or not to use that contentious piece of punctuation, the oxford comma, comes down to a matter of style. Style is the instituted punctuation and spelling decisions taken on a piece of writing. Every publishing house will have their own house style – a handbook that says whether it is ‘focused’ or ‘focussed’, ‘aging’ or ‘ageing’, oxford comma or no. Us editors love consistency in style; so much of our job at the microlevel will be to make sure the text conforms to the chosen style. Australian publishers and editors tend to prefer the Macquarie Dictionary spelling, but each publisher will have a slightly different style for how they prefer to list references, or whether or not to have a spaced en dash or unspaced em dash, and even whether or not to use the oxford comma.

5. Pet peeves

Every editor will have a grammatical or language usage error that sticks out to them and rubs them more than others. Mine is the use of eggcorns. What’s an eggcorn, you ask? An eggcorn is the misspelling or construction of a common idiom. A common one is ‘For all intensive purposes’, rather than ‘For all intents and purposes’. Or, ‘the crutch of the situation’, rather than ‘the crux of the situation’. I find these faults in language simultaneously fascinating and headache inducing. In my experience though, they aren’t too common – you might find only one or two in entire first draft. If you’re interested in finding out more about eggcorns, there’s a great database here: https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ 

How To: Create the Perfect Book Title

You may be surprised to read that the title of your book is one of the most important marketing strategies you have as an author. The title is most often how a person will hear about your book for the first time. It has the power to lure the reader in, capture their imagination, or let them know what lies between the pages.

In that moment it doesn’t matter if you’re an unknown author, whether your book is hardcover or paperback or digital, if the genre is unfamiliar, or the price is expensive. A title that successfully captures the essence of your book will help overcome all those obstacles, which is why you need to spend as much energy crafting and editing your title as you would the rest of your manuscript. The last thing you want to do is underrate your book with a poorly crafted title!

One of the best ways to start thinking about your title is to research what makes a good title. Think of a title that has tempted you into picking up the book or clicking on the cover – what was it that sparked your curiosity? What was it that made it memorable for you? A strong title should be distinctive but not distracting. Some titles we love here at Ventura include:

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

• Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain)

• The Museum of Modern Love (Heather Rose)

• Paris Savages (Katherine Johnson)

And just in case you weren’t convinced yet, here is further evidence of how important titles are. Consider what these well known books could have ended up with as titles.  

• The Great Gatsby could have been Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires

• 1984 was suggested by Orwell’s publisher, but it was originally The Last Man in Europe

• To Kill a Mockingbird was simply Atticus

• Pride and Prejudice could have been First Impressions

• War and Peace was originally titled All’s Well that Ends Well

• Of Mice and Men was originally Something That Happened

• Gone with the Wind was Tomorrow is Another Day

• Lord of the Flies was originally Strangers from Within

EVERY GOOD BOOK TITLE SHOULD: 

1. Be unique and personal to your story. The easiest way to tell if you have an original title is to Google it. While titles aren’t subjected to copyright, and in theory you could name your book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it’s probably not a good idea.

2.  Be memorable. Your title should be one that readers will never forget, so that when they want to recommend it, or have it recommended to them, they remember what they are looking for when they get to the bookstore or are searching for it online. A good tip here is to select precise nouns and strong active verbs.

3. Provide insight. Many readers consider your title twice: once when they pick up the book, and a second time when they finish reading. What can the reader expect from your book? Provide a glimpse into the world of your book, something that will become clear as the reader comes to understand the characters, the plot, or the argument of your book.

HOW TO ACHIEVE TITLE GREATNESS:

1. Relax. Stress inhibits creativity and won’t help you. If you haven’t yet finished your manuscript, then focus on that. The telling of the story or the finishing of your argument may uncover the perfect title in the process.

2. Brainstorm. We recommend a minimum of five titles, but don’t feel you have to stop there. Keep going if you want until you reach 20 or 30, or even 50 titles!

As you brainstorm, try to think of you book in different ways.

Who is the book about?

• Rebellious Daughters (Edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman)

• The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)

• My Cousin Rachel (Daphne Du Maurier)

What is the book about?

• The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

• The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)

• The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

When does your book take place?

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell)

• The Last Anniversary (Liane Moriarty)

• Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez) 

Where does your book take place?

• Camino Island (John Grisham)

• The Light Between Oceans (M. L. Stedman)

• Black Rock White City (A. S. Patric)

Why should someone read your book?

• See What I have Done (Sarah Schmidt) – What has she done?

• The Many Ways of Seeing (Nick Gleeson with Peter Bishop) – What are the many ways of seeing?

• A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing (Eimear McBride) – What is a girl only half-formed?

Also as you brainstorm:

• Don’t forget voice and point of view – make sure your title is consistent with the point of view in your story. For example, if your crime fiction book is written in third person, don’t call it My Encounter with A Killer.

• Avoid sabotaging your plot with your title – if your book is a mystery or suspense, don’t give away the ending on the cover! By the same token, don’t take your title from the first or last lines of your story as this can dampen the curiosity for your potential reader and also comes across as trite.

• Make sure your title matches your story. This is the most important rule of coming up with your title. If you crafted your title before you finished your story, or even think of a great title during your brainstorm session, it’s critical that you can clearly state how this relates to your story.

• If your non-fiction book is part of branding, make sure this is worked in to the title, for example, Impact Press author Renee Mill uses her brand Anxiety Solutions in her book, Anxiety Free, Drug Free.

EDIT IT!

Your title, just like your manuscript, will need to be edited and polished. The team at Ventura will help you come up with the best title that will have the most cut-through in the market, will have the most appeal to readers, while still successfully reflecting the content of your book.

Good luck!