By Damien Seaman
Five Leaves Publications is the small Nottingham, UK-based publisher whose Crime Express series of novellas launched in summer 2008, featuring books by Britcrime big beasts John Harvey and Stephen Booth as well as Lawrence Block and cult favourites Allan Guthrie and Ray Banks.
As if that weren’t enough, the company introduced its Five Leaves Crime imprint of full-length novels last October with Scot Russel McLean’s debut PI novel The Good Son.
Damien Seaman caught up with general editor Ross Bradshaw to discuss his conversion to crime, and the day-to-day challenges of running an independent publisher in today’s chainstore UK.
Damien Seaman: Five Leaves is a small regional press with some esoteric specialisations. Can you tell me how you got into publishing and why you recently decided to publish crime fiction?
Ross Bradshaw: I started publishing in ’94, my last year working out a 17 year sentence in a radical bookshop. Except that is not true, I’d previously done some political publishing with Peace News magazine and with a micro-press called Old Hammond so I’d been nibbling away at publishing for some years. I started publishing to enliven my days at the bookshop, then when I left I took the press with me, changed its name and what it did, in order to keep my toes in the book trade, always expecting to return full time. I’ve read crime off and on, in some ways crime and politics are my first love – not surprisingly then I had an early passion for American crime fiction where politics and crime coincide more than they do here. So in publishing crime I’m returning to an early love. Do I have esoteric specialisms? You mean that you’re not interested in plays by Catalan women? Shame on you.
Your new Crime Express imprint bucks the trend in crime publishing by releasing novellas of fewer than 100 pages. Why have you gone for such a non-commercial format?
Oh, my God. I thought that was a commercial format. The series is A6, all flapped paperbacks – really just jumped up short stories, but 15,000-20,000 word short stories. I hope they catch on – that length is quite an intellectual challenge for writers – given normal short stories might be 3,000 words and novels 80,000.
The list of Crime Express authors is an intriguing mix of big names and up and comers. Why such an eclectic line up?
The first five authors – Stephen Booth, John Harvey, Rod Duncan, Clare Littleford, Nicola Monaghan – are all people I know and could persuade. Lawrence Block, Ray Banks came next. I have someone who helps on the series – David Belbin – and he met Block in the States, Ray Banks came via Allan Guthrie I think. I guess it is who I know. Later I’ve got some non-fiction Crime Express too.
Your line of crime novels launched in October with Russel McLean’s debut novel The Good Son. What attracted you to his work?
This is the full length crime fiction series – Five Leaves Crime – I’m just putting a toe in the water with full length crime. I like McLean and this is the great Dundee crime novel. There is something of a genre developing, Scottish hard-boiled. It feels fresher that some crime around.
What sort of interest in Russel’s novel have you had from reviewers and retailers?
A bit early to say but I think I’m on a winner. We’ve sold the best part of a couple of thousand – half in Dundee – since the book came out, which is a lot for a small press. Reviewers? Great review on Tangled Web, but little else so far.
You also have a more established line of crime novels aimed at young adults, including books by Berlie Doherty and John Harvey. How is this market different from publishing for an adult readership?
I have done a few young adult crime novels with David Belbin, and they have done very well. Unfortunately mostly they are out of print. I’m starting to get into young adult fiction more as a reader. I like what writers can do with young adult books. But – despite Philip Pullman and a couple of others – most adults (apart from teachers and school librarians) won’t read young adult fiction, so it is a very narrow band of readers. But the good news is that there is another generation of them coming past in a year as the last lot grow into adult writing. What is interesting though is how little rubs off – Harvey sells his adult stuff by the bucket-load; with his young adult it seems, in trying to get the book into shops, as if he is a first time writer. A good bookshop will put his young adult fiction in with his mainstream stuff but (outside of Nottingham, where Harvey mostly sets his books) I have yet to meet that good bookshop.
With ever more consolidation in publishing and book retailing, how do you get shops to stock your books?
It ain’t easy. Our reps go in, they sell a couple of books and four months later they wing their way back. I always hope this will change – but what is exciting is the new growth of indie bookshops as the mainstream gets more samey. If I were younger I’d open a shop for sure. Nottingham has one – one – bookshop. Any indie starting would do well.
Do you have any sales in foreign markets outside the UK?
Difficult to say since the main UK wholesaler Gardners sells worldwide, and I know that some shops abroad import from them. Certainly some mystery shops in America are stocking some of our books, especially since Mystery Scene gave them a push. I am pretty sure they are ordering from Gardners.
What do you think the future holds for small, independent publishers such as yours?
It has never – technically – been so easy to publish books. There are new formats, digital printing, print on demand, and print prices have fallen anyway. I think some publishers will decide they will never achieve big sales and go for smaller print runs and still get the stuff out there while we wait on better weather in the bookselling side. So I’m quite positive, as long as writers are realistic – I know some writers never quite get that you can’t get into a chain window or three for two unless you pay megabucks. Certainly we’re selling more on the net but the percentage is still small and I’d prefer to see our books in shops, in good shops.
You get financial support from the Arts Council of England. How do you go about getting grants?
I’m in the second year of a pretty substantial Grants for the Arts bid. A lot of what I do would not be possible without the Arts Council. Without their support poetry publishing, literary publishing, small press publishing in general would be much worse off. But I’d prefer if it was not project funding – less money, but guaranteed for longer. How to get it? Fill in the forms – google them under Grants for the Arts – and start praying. It is a lot harder since the hateful 2012 Olympics soaked away money. But don’t let me talk about the Olympics. No, I’ll just mention the allotment land that was destroyed, the Travellers who were evicted… the things that will never now happen because of grandiosity. I’ll stop now.
What sort of critical reaction have you had to your Crime Express series?
On the negative side a few people have complained about the price. OK, you can buy the latest Ian Rankin in ASDA for the price of a pint of beer. I’d like to sell Crime Express cheaper than the current £4.99, but take off trade discount, distributor’s cut, the sales reps cut, the author royalty… and £4.99 they have to be. It is to do with the size of the print run of course. On the positive side people like the length and as the series grows I hope there will be renewed interest in the long short story, the short novella. They can be read on a train journey, in a bath, slipped into your pocket or purse. And they are numbered so people will want to collect the set and I’ll get rich and famous….
For more information on Five Leaves Crime and Crime Express, go to www.fiveleaves.co.uk
Crime Express titles available:
Nicola Monaghan
THE OKINAWA DRAGON
80pp. £4.99
Clare Littleford
THE QUARRY
112pp. £4.99
Stephen Booth
CLAWS
96pp. £4.99
Rod Duncan
THE MENTALIST
96pp. £4.99
John Harvey
TROUBLE IN MIND
80pp. £4.99
Ray Banks
c. 96pp. £4.99
Lawrence Block
SPEAKING OF LUST
c. 96pp. £4.99
Damien Seaman’s crime-related tosh has graced the web pages of Pulp Pusher, Noir Originals, Spinetingler Magazine, Crime Always Pays and Shots. He has lived in Libya, Germany, Belgium and England, though not necessarily in that order, and not always of his own free will. Since you’re already wasting time reading this when you should be working, why not fire off an email: damienDOTseamanATgmailDOTcom
I think it’s great what Five leaves Press and Pulp Press are doing with novellas. I think there is a big space in the market for them