{"id":148,"date":"2011-04-11T21:53:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T21:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=148"},"modified":"2012-01-31T21:06:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T21:06:26","slug":"impressions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/impressions","title":{"rendered":"Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Child is Father of the Pressman<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Amatoritsero Ede in Conversation with Jamis Paulson<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/em><\/h6>\n

\"Author\"\/Amatoritsero Ede:<\/strong> Turnstone began operations in 1978 to publish works by poets. Did poets establish it; necessarily you have diversified. How do you or have you sustained your initial focus on poetry?<\/p>\n

Jamis Paulson:<\/strong> Robert Enright, John Beaver and Dennis Cooley started Turnstone Press to bring Manitoba poets to a larger audience. While they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all poets, they all shared a common interest in seeing talented writers around them get published. Today, while we publish fiction and non-fiction as well as a genre imprint, we try to ensure that at least a quarter of our list is poetry. While many publishers have reduced their number of poetry titles or stopped publishing poetry altogether I find there is less uncertainty when committing to a print run for poetry compared to other genres. Poets are often very engaged in their writing communities so they often have a dedicated, albeit small audience. The predictability of sales along with increasingly affordable short print runs allows us to continue to publish poetry in Canada.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> Can we talk a bit about the role of the Canada Council for the arts here \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not only in terms of the publishing of poetry but as far as support for Canadian publishing goes generally?<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Public funding across a variety of jurisdictions play a critical role in developing and maintaining professional publishing standards in Canada. A good portion of Canada\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s independent publishing scene began with the commitment of talented \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amateurs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who, while not knowing a lot about publishing, knew that creating books by Canadians was important and something they wanted to do. Of course desire and commitment doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily pay the bills, especially when it comes to poetry, and the financial support provided by these funding agencies allow poetry publishers and other small presses to retain salaried staff instead of relying on volunteer support and in turn thrive. Without their support of publishers and the numerous educational programs and organizations related to writing and publishing, Canadian publishing would not have the richness, diversity or level of regard it has today.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> What was or were your initial personal motivations for the art of book making \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we can call it an art, can we not \u00e2\u20ac\u201c what has sustained this interest over the years? I would definitely call book making an art.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> I grew up around books, my mom worked in a bindery while I was growing up and my first job was working for a small print shop running printing presses, folders, paper cutters and even doing layout and design by hand. I think my early exposure to the production of print has given me an understanding and appreciation for a well-made book. There is nothing quite like reading a book that puts the elements of paper choice, binding style, and graphic design together in a way that turns a great story into something sublime. Book making is also constantly evolving so there are new and exciting techniques to be used in book production in addition to the ever-changing electronic book market. Together the immense number of possibilities available for publishers and bookmakers makes the entire business exciting.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> It is too easily forgotten that printing is a technology \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I am not referring to the digital but that analogue printing which preceded it. In your experience would you agree with the first part of the last sentence?<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> In publishing you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape the fact that printing is technology. Whether digital or analogue, both forms of printing exist to produce texts in as quickly and as efficiently a manner as possible. Since the first printing press people have sought to refine and improve the printing process so that more books can be made for less expense. It may sometimes be easy to forget, especially in a perceived age of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153paperless\u00e2\u20ac\u009d publishing that the machines used to manufacture books are incredibly complex pieces of engineering and like all technologies they can be and have been improved upon.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> How much of analogue and\/or digital technologies do you apply in your production processes and what informs this decision?<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Almost all of our pre-press work is done digitally and most of our first run books are printed from plates. The printer we choose to produce our books typically uses a direct to plate technology where the image is digitally burned onto the plating surface. When we have a short print run on a conventional paperback, ie. no ragged paper, etc., we have begun using digital printing technology. I still believe that the highest quality books are those that have ink absorbed into the fibres of the paper as opposed to an electrostatic transfer of an image to the surface of a page. Saying that, the quality of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s digital printing equipment is certainly nearing that of offset printing and that is why we have started using it for our shorter print runs.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> What kind of printing press do you prefer for your presswork and is this decision affected by target print run?<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Most of our first run titles use an offset plate and ink press. Typically our paperbacks are printed on a web press and books requiring high detail colour will be run on a sheet-fed four colour offset press. As I explained before conventional format short run paperbacks are produced on digital printing technology.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> In this day of online bookstores do you still have to maintain warehouses, large or small? I am thinking of the mega virtual bookstore like Amazon, Barnes and Nobels and others.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Even the mega virtual bookstores require their suppliers to engage a reliable method of fulfilling the orders they receive. Most only carry limited stock of each book they sell and in the case of backlist titles they sometimes do not carry any inventory at all. It would simply be impossible for them to keep stock on hand for every book that is published each year, not to mention books published in prior years. This is usually the reason a book may not be available for 3-4 weeks from an online reseller. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re accounting for the time it takes them to make a request to a publisher or his\/her warehouse and how long the book will arrive at their own warehouse. I think that as long as there are physical books to sell, a publisher will need to have a way to supply them to a bookstore, whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s online or not.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> I want to be provocative and say that why do we need any kind of warehouse at all and why not simply consign book production to the Print on Demand model and have outlets like Amazon do the selling\/distributing.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> The concept of a warehouseless distribution system is certainly interesting and would definitely be of benefit to small publishers. Not only are warehousing expenses eliminated with a print-on-demand (POD) model but so are the production expenses. At least that is how it appears. Right now public-domain texts are the main market for this system. Because we are only at the beginning stages of this technology it is difficult to tell how it will impact modern, copyrighted texts. Saying that, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think a traditional distribution system will entirely disappear. First of all, not everyone has access to the digital distribution channel, be it through an online reseller of physical books, a local bricks-and-mortar reseller with digital capabilities, or through a purely digital transaction such as e-book sales. Secondly, I suspect that traditional publishers may use the savings from a POD system (if there are any) to invest in the art of the book, creating products that simply cannot be produced by a POD system. This will help satisfy bibliophiles who purchase a book as much for its physical qualities as for the story it contains. I think the most exciting aspect of the digital marketplace is the ability to reach foreign markets. For many small to medium publishers, the expense of having multiple warehouses and distributors is too high. Canadian books could gain a larger global marketshare by selling directly into overseas markets. US sales could also improve with greater availability.<\/p>\n

A.E.: <\/strong>The idea of a global Amazon could lead to monopoly, copyright problems, and or censorships when one or a few chains agree to strangle the life of a particular book.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> There is always the possibility of one company gaining control over an industry and abusing its position of control, especially when an industry is in transition. That is certainly the case with the digital side of publishing. Over the past few decades Canadian publishing has seen several book-retailers use their size and\/or a near monopoly position to set terms that clearly favoured their own businesses. This is especially true when an industry like ours is going through a transitional phase into the digital realm. Fortunately, the industry as a whole is more robust than some people might think. Authors and publishers have stood up to these organizations several times and typically have come out the victors. As publishing moves out of this transitional phase and digital publishing matures I think you are going to see some very interesting innovations from both publishers and booksellers alike.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> What do you think is the future of the book in an increasingly digitised world? The analogue process from reflection copy to paper to film and plate and then to the printing machine and bound book has been so much short-circuited by computer production. Is there the possibility that we might also have no need for plates at some point? I know the Expressso Book Machine symbolises a futuristic move towards total digitisation.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Digital technology has certainly had a profound impact on the publishing industry. In fact the ease and accessibility of desktop publishing solutions such as Indesign or Quark are one of the big reasons small press publishing in Canada has been able to flourish. In the future I think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see better crafted hard copies of books that stand alongside POD and ebooks. The future may well include plateless production as is the case with most POD solutions but I also think that traditional plate and ink printing will continue to innovate offer compelling solutions to compete with POD. Of course ebook and POD technology will improve as well and that is why publishing is so exciting.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> What genres do you concentrate on in your production apart from poetry and why? Market forces, other considerations \u00e2\u20ac\u201c aesthetic, national cultural considerations. For example Quatrro Press concentrates on the novella due to its historical contributions to global literature and because it is mostly ignored by most other Canadian publishers or small presses.<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> Aside from poetry Turnstone publishes literary fiction, non-fiction (typically cultural memoir, but we are stepping into the world of art books and regional non-fiction) and mystery\/thriller. Our mandate is to produce books that feature either Manitoba authorship or content in at least half of the books we produce. This vision was created by our founders and today it means that our primary consideration for publication is cultural. We feel we have an important role to play in bringing local stories to a wider audience and to that end we have been successful publishing first books by nationally renowned authors such as Miriam Toews, David Bergen, Sandra Birdsell, Lawrence Hill, Karen Connelly and many others. As a publisher I also feel it necessary to include short-fiction in our list because of the developmental role it plays for writers. For many first time authors short-fiction is their first step into publishing. Unfortunately, short fiction doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t receive the attention it should.<\/p>\n

A.E.: <\/strong>How important do you think the role of the small press is to Canadian culture vis-vis its cousins, the American or the British?<\/p>\n

J.P.:<\/strong> While I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak in any detail about foreign small press publishing I feel the Canadian small press plays a vital role in Canadian Culture. Small presses are less concerned with profit margins and more with the people and places they exist. Small presses specialize in discovering new voices from diverse communities and have found a great deal of success in doing so. The fact that large publishing houses have over time, taken greater notice of new authors is due, I believe, in part to the influence of small presses.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> On that note I will say thank you very much for taking time off your busy schedule to talk to us and give our readers insights into Canadian publishing,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Child is Father of the Pressman Amatoritsero Ede in Conversation with Jamis Paulson Amatoritsero Ede: Turnstone began operations in 1978 to publish works by poets. Did poets establish it; necessarily you have diversified. How do you or have you sustained your initial focus on poetry? Jamis Paulson: Robert Enright, John Beaver and Dennis Cooley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-148","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}