Coming soon.
The Vignette Podcast is about everything publishing and books. Because that’s what we live and breathe, and what gets us VERY excited.
As it does a lot of you.
It follows the exciting journey of Vignette Editions, from the grain of an idea to its formation and development, through its very first steps into commissioning, branding and cover designs, right up to the publication of its very first books.
Throwing the doors open on an industry whose products are loved by millions but whose actual workings and ways remain hidden behind dusty old doors, it charts the eye-wateringly steep, occasionally terrifying but always exciting learning curve of a tiny company run by one person venturing out into the world of international book publishing, and learning how it all WORKS.
It’s a helluva a ride!
Throughout the series, and while drinking a LOT of good coffee, we will address such questions as:
- How exactly does a book get from a Word document on an author’s laptop onto paper, then onto a bookshelf and finally into a reader’s hand?
- What actually IS an ISBN? Can you buy them in Tesco?
- How do meta data work, what the heck are category codes and why are they so vitally important to a book’s success - or failure?
- How does distribution work? Will I need to hire a transit van and lug boxes around, or is there maybe an easier way*?
- Do I need to produce physical books at all, or are print-on-demand or ebooks the only sensible way forward?
- How far ahead does a book need to be available to pre-order? Why? And what if it’s not?
- Am I allowed to obsess over paper weight and fonts before I’ve commissioned a single title or written anything myself?
- Do I need a typesetter? A designer? A publicist? A therapist?!
- How do you sell Rights to Netflix? (The question we ALL want an answer to, let’s face it.)
- Why would anyone want to take the self-publishing route, instead of ‘trad’ publishing with advances and agents to hold your hand?
- Am I insane to even THINK about taking on a project as huge as this, with absolutely no idea what I’m doing?
*there is. We’ll come to that
As well as charting our own ink-splatted, first-draft journey into publishing, we’ll talk to industry insiders and other publishers, from the smallest indies to the Big Four to get their stories, advice and tips on how to make it in publishing and writing today - both in the UK and abroad, on paper and online, in all types of publishing from commercial to academic, and from giant international firms to micro-publishers like us.
We’ll visit international book fairs from London to Frankfurt, literary festivals and book events, we’ll talk to authors and publicists, typesetters and designers, editors and book sellers, and delve deep into the well-thumbed but curiously still secretive pages of an industry that’s as old as paper itself, makes our bookish hearts sing and is going through an extraordinary and essential period of change, re-invention and revival.
We will drink coffee, read, talk to people just like you and me, and hopefully learn a lot and be hugely inspired and encouraged to keep falling in love with books forever, along the way.
We hope you will enjoy it, and learn as much along the way as we do.
You can follow @vignetteeditions on Ig for latest episodes, sign up to our newsletter, or watch us on YouTube when we make it that far.