Chapter 2.11 The Handheld Diaries

Jun 19, 2025

1 June 2018: Asked the Imperial War Museum about their fee for the Holden cover image.

Invoices arrive as it’s the first of the month, and The CO’s Wife is printed.

4 June: Paying bills and doing my own invoicing.

Packed and posted CO’s Wife review copies.

Victor sent three books for reading from Dutch literature.

Emailed Devon about the So Lucky contract, again. If I hadn’t met him in person I would be thinking that he is an invention of FSG and doesn’t actually exist.

5 June: Signature sent their agreement to sign.

Trevor sent me a very brief account of everything he’s done in repping our books, forwarded that to Jim.

6 June: Asked the Quaker bookshop about launch numbers for CO’s Wife.

Signed the Signature agreement and posted it.

Yet more corrections to be made to the revised ebook for CO’s Wife.

Three sample books arrive as pdf files, to read.

Asked TJ for quotes for Kingdoms, Zelda, Holden & What Not.

Doing costings with David’s new template: so much easier.

7 June: Wrote to organisers of a conference on early 20thC women writers at Canterbury about a leaflet. They say yes.

Contacted Nadja’s accountant contact who seems very on the ball. Waiting to also hear from Monica, Charlotte’s contact.

Signature sent me their New Publisher pack. Amended the published AI sheets with their details and sent them to Louise and Judith.

Proquest counter-signed contract returned.

8 June: Peter sent his invoice for CO’s Wife ebooks, and asked him for the final files. Turns out missing footnotes had also been missed out in print proof! At least now they’re in the ebook.

Sarah L sent me the Currey novel, to read.

Much discussion with Signature about actually reading my emails and also telling me exactly what they need from me.

Chased Danes re their Keldberg corrections: they have no changes to make.

10 June: Quotes from TJ for the four Classics. Did unit cost analysis and find that they’re cheaper for me than they used to be. Why?

11 June: Keldberg could sell at £13.99, but David thinks this too high. We’ll set it at £12.99.

Kingdoms will be £12.99, but will have a very low profit due to its high royalties. It had better sell.

The quotation from Short Run for So Lucky is a lot cheaper than TJ’s, so they will print it.

Zelda will retail at £12.99. She’s out of copyright so should make the most profit for us, if she sells, and if no-one else brings out a competing edition.

What Not will be £12.99 but will only make a profit if we print at least 600. To consider printing more of other titles too.

Holden will be £12.99, but I need a cheaper cover image if I’m to pay Kristin a fee. I email her to ask about a different cover image as the IWM search system is not getting me anywhere.

I send the AI sheets for all the new titles to Signature, Judith, BDS, CBS, Neilsen’s, and Johnny at John Sandoe Books in Chelsea because he is interested.

Send Zelda, Kingdoms and What Not AI sheets to the Bookseller paperback previews page.

Finally the Beerbohm agent is speaking to me. I am to send her a draft contract for Zuleika. Told Blackwells.

I chase Devon again about the non-arriving So Lucky contract, threatening to pull out. I get an immediate response, plus the head of contracts’ email address. What a messy way of doing business.

Finished new catalogue leaflet.

12 June: Very good conversation with Charlotte’s contact Monica about doing our accounts, asked her to take us on.

Asked David when our Blackwells display will be up.

Sent Ariane the Holden contract.

Paid the takings from the Arnold Bennett Society day in Stoke into the bank.

Paid bills, uploaded ebooks.

Started a new Bertrams form for Signature, asked CBS for address clarification as four seem to be needed.

Received the FSG contract, found errors in it, sent to Charlotte.

13 June: Need to correct the Keldberg spine width.

More uploading of ebooks, and adding the links to the website.

Collected the new catalogue leaflets from the printer.

Thinking about selling books at BristolCon.

14 June: Nadja sent Keldberg print files, I discovered we’d missed out the printer’s name.

Started costing Zuleika and the template won’t work. Sent Beerbohm agent the contract.

Packed and posted leaflets for Canterbury Christchurch conference.

(part of) The Handheld Newsletter

June 2018

Scottish faeries

Scottish Field did a wee interview with us last month, and featured it on their website. This came about from a conversation about the unexpected Scottishness of some of the stories in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin (31 October). For a writer who lived in Dorset for most of her life, Warner had a remarkable grasp of Scottish cultural traditions, as seen in these stories. We may be publishing one of these in Scottish Field as we approach Hallowe’en.

Bath & Bristol Small Publishers’ Gathering

With Dr Sam Walton of Bath Spa University (also the proprietor of Sad Press), Handheld Press is organising the Bath & Bristol Small Publishers’ Gathering, on Saturday 3 November, at the Friends’ Meeting House, Bath. The morning will be a trade event, with speakers and much networking; the afternoon will open the Gathering to the public, to buy and sell books. We’re working on the poster design, website and email address, and we’re collecting sponsorship. If you’d like to support this event by buying a half or a full page in our A5 catalogue, we’d be very grateful. Please contact me for the numbers, and to discuss other ways to get involved.

Bird buys Desire

Handheld attended the Arnold Bennett Society conference in Stoke this month, and managed to sell a few books as well as give a talk. One of the buyers of Una Silberrad’s Desire (a novel of the Potteries) looked familiar: it was that chap Lord Bird from The Big Issue.

Chapter 2.11 The Handheld Diaries

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