Publishing – Robin Houghton

Blog/ 06/10/202506/10/2025

Yo-yo: a handmade pamphlet!

Yo-Yo, a poetry mini pamphlet by Robin Houghton

This is exciting (well, for me anyway!): the first 25 copies of my second handmade limited edition pamphlet are done and ready to sell! Actually I’ve sold two already!

After the success of Foot Wear in 2017 (meaning, all fifty copies found homes – woop!) Yo-yo is my latest offering. I really enjoy the process of printing, stitching, designing a cover and everything it entails. We’re talking ‘coffee-break’ pamphlet here – 16 pages, nine poems and a few facsimile pages of diary entries and the like. And I’ve bound it with some lovely pink thread! At £5 (plus £1 postage) it’s about the price of a hot matcha latte at Caffe Nero! Get in!

Here’s the blurb:

In which the poet obsesses over Amal Clooney, boiled eggs and ancient Greek ideals of beauty in this pocket-sized kick at the quest for slimness. A lifelong slave to the scales wonders how it got this bad, taking aim at the NHS, Instagram influencers and herself. Illustrated with sad diary entries and bouncing with black humour, this little tale should resonate with anyone who ever went on a diet.

Roll up, roll up – you can buy a signed copy here, and they’re all numbered, so you get a gen-yoo-ine one-off, complete with the odd wonky edge or other charming detail.

To be honest I think I’ll probably sell most of them at readings, such as tomorrow’s Ouse Muse in Bedford where you’ll find me reading from both The Mayday Diaries and Yo-yo. It’s 7.45 for 8 at The Eagle Bookshop, and there’s an open mic too. Would be grand to see you there, please say hello!

Right, off now to go through my set.

Blog/ 25/02/2025

Coming soon!

It’s suddenly all happening.

The Mayday Diaries from Pindrop Press launches on 1st May (oh yeah!) and the countdown has begun!

Negative thoughts: I’m reminded that I should have started thinking about promoting the book ages ago. Probably need help.

Positive thoughts: The marketing cap is back on, I’m reviewing my websites and socials and preparing to dust things off and move up a gear. I’ve bought a domain name. I’m creating an action plan.

I’m proud of the collection, proud of the testimonials for the book and ridiculously proud of the cover. All will be revealed in due course – yes! It’s one those annoying cover-reveal-teasers. Who knows, maybe there’ll be a live unboxing too, he he.

Blog/ 28/02/2023

Been reading and about to read…

I recently took advantage of a World of Books Buy 3 Get One Free offer on books under a fiver, and today they arrived – Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, which sounded intriguing, two books by historical fiction writers (research for the blockbuster I’m writing!) and The Beauty, a poetry collection by Jane Hirshfield. Although I’d heard of her, I confess I’d never read anything by her. So when Peter Kenny talked about her work on Planet Poetry it prompted me to find out more. Just looking at the poem titles I’m already sold (eg “A Well Runs Out Of Thirst”).

In fact I had a bit of a buying spree, as I felt I was in need of new poetry So now on my to-be-read pile are the very attractive-looking New & Selected Poems by Ian Duhig, Dalhit Nagra British Museum and Helen Mort The Illustrated Woman.

One book I read recently and enjoyed immensely was Liz Berry’s The Home Child, a ‘novel in verse’, which is actually launched in two days’ time. I got hold of an early copy in order to prepare for interviewing Liz on Planet Poetry. We had a lovely chat about it yesterday, and the episode will go out some time in late March or early April.

I sometimes wonder if listeners think that Peter and I are awash with complimentary copies of poetry books thanks to all the poets we’ve interviewed. Well I’d like to crush that idea once and for all – I think this is the first book I’ve been sent from the publisher. I generally go out and buy a poet’s books, if I can’t get them in the local library.

I love public libraries and support them as much as I can. But the poetry offering is always minimal, and don’t get me started on trying to find novels by subject matter. Everything is lumped together as ‘fiction’, and if you don’t have a name of an author or a particular book in mind, you’re just whistling in the wind. Publishers have a huge array of genres and subcategories for adult fiction such as historical thriller, psychological thriller, domestic noir, procedural, historical crime, cosy mystery (one I learned about recently!), chick lit, contemporary, etc etc. But how to search for a cosy mystery or a ‘domestic noir’ novel when the only shelf categories are ‘fiction’ or ‘crime’? Answers on an index card please. And another thing… when you do find an author of commercial fiction that you like, I don’t know, let’s say Lee Child… you find that although he’s written about 549 books, and the library has at least three copies of each, they are all permanently ‘on loan’ and not only that, when you try reserving one of them you find you’re 11th in the queue, and since people often hang on to library books for months, waiting to hear when your turn has come is rather like waiting for a rejection from one of our august poetry magazines. Anyway, I love the library service, honestly!

Angst/ 07/05/2021

Faith, hope and podcasting

The sun is shining and I’m going to be gardening this afternoon. The weather is becoming less glacial and I may even be able to plant out the tomatoes. Hurray! I feel my mood lifting. The diary for May and June promises much, it looks like Nick will be working again after 15 months of enforced layoff, and musical events are on the calendar again. Not before time. I was starting to find it hard to get out of bed and not succumb to dark thoughts. But at least the pool has reopened!

In fact, the last week or two have brought some brilliant moments – not least of which was Wednesday’s launch of Antony Mair‘s new Live Canon collection A Suitcase Filled with Hope. I was proud to be able to say a few words about Antony, in front of his friends and family and many, many fine poets in the audience. He is a very modest person, but with a big talent and a huge heart. I think this is his best book yet. Highly recommended.

Last week I met up with my Planet Poetry co-producer Peter Kenny and poet friend Charlotte Gann for a few beers in Lewes. A bit of rain didn’t put us off! This is the first time Peter and I have been able to meet properly since last November, and although we thought we might do some recording for the show, we ended up just socialising.

We’re really proud of Planet Poetry; we’ve learned as we’ve gone along, made mistakes and haven’t quite reached BBC standard yet but hey! This week I attended some sessions of a Podfest Masterclass, and although the things I heard about how to take a podcast ‘up a notch’, promote it to a wider audience, make it easier to subscribe to etc wasn’t anything I didn’t know, it was a fantastic kick up the backside. As a result Peter and I now have a domain name, plans for a website and lots of ideas for the future. We’re currently working on Episode 14, due out next week and it’s all about poetry publishing. Looking at the list of previous episodes I’m reminded how much wonderful new poetry we’ve encountered, and how many fascinating poets and editors we’ve spoken with – most recently the eminent American poet LeAnne Howe. Meanwhile here’s Peter and I in one of our recent recording sessions. Peter is ‘Proud Parsnip’ here…. don’t ask!

Robin Houghton and Peter Kenny on Planet Poetry podcast

Blog/ 16/11/2018

Small milestones

'The Other Foot' by Robin Houghton, from 'Foot Wear' (2017) At the end of October it was my birthday, and over a boozy supper my dear husband suggested we do a ‘dry November’. I couldn’t think of a reason why not – no social events planned, Christmas to look forward to, and I certainly couldn’t face giving up alcohol for January, the most depressing month of the year. So November seemed like a good time to try the Ultimate Detox. I wasn’t fantastically optimistic we’d manage it to be honest. But here we are, 16 days in and holding strong. Fingers crossed!

It may seem like a minor thing, and perhaps a bit sad, but if my willpower keeps going to the end of the month it will feel like a mighty achievement. Other things I’m celebrating other than half a month without a drink: two and a half years so far free of cancer (without having taken the drugs), and my ‘how to get published in UK poetry magazines’ booklet selling out in ten days. This was amazing to me – and I wish I’d had more copies printed in the first place because it would have been so much more cost-effective than having to do a second print run. On the plus side, I’ve tested the market and (so far) have had some wonderful feedback. If you’ve bought it, and if you’re one of the lovely people who’s shared it and endorsed it on social media, thank you so much!

Having had my head down working on ‘the book’ my poetry writing has been a bit inconsistent lately. I received a rejection from Rattle – not entirely unexpected as it would be amazing to have a poem accepted there. Poems I sent to a couple of comps crashed and burned. Meanwhile the Poetry News theme of ‘the abstract space’ had left all of us in the Hastings Stanza a bit bemused. Having said that I did send a couple of poems in the end. I was quite pleased with one of them, so even if doesn’t work for P News I have hopes for it. I also sent three poems to Magma on the theme of ‘work’ – would be ridiculous if I did not, having banged on about my work-themed poems for so many years. An interesting thing: as I bundled these three together I realised there was another unifying theme, and something I’ve spotted elsewhere in my own poems. It’s starting to look hopeful for the much-talked-about first collection. Now that WOULD be a milestone. I almost daren’t say it!

Blog/ 05/11/2018

The new ‘How to’ guide is finally done…

Things have been a bit quiet on this blog for the last month, mainly because I’ve been full-on with the new booklet which arrived from the printers today – hurrah! More about that below… a quick zip through other news:

Workshops, readings etc

Last month I went up to London for a Coffee-House Poetry workshop with Anne-Marie Fyfe over two Sunday afternoons. The subject was ‘snow’ and all its freezing friends. We were asked to write a ‘lyric essay’ as homework, which resulted in my researching the myriad words for snow according to (no, not Inuit – that’s a myth) SKIERS. It took me back to my snowboarding days (sigh) and phrases like ‘crud’, ‘corduroy’ and ‘mash potato’. There were a number of new ones on me too. ‘Sierra Cement’ for starters. Great fun. Did I write anything that could be worked up into anything? Not sure really but at least it got me writing.

I’ve been to some lovely readings this month: at Needlewriters the very talented Liz Bahs read from her pamphlet Greyhound Night Service (Maquette) (which is on my pile to read, together with about ten other books) and announced that very day she’d just heard that Pindrop Press are to publish her first full collection next year. Great news and long-deserved. Then a triple launch for Lewes writers Jeremy Page (London Calling published by Cultured Llama is a book of short and flash fiction and what I’ve read so far has been very funny), Kay Syrad (Inland – Cinnamon Press – and another on my to read list!) and Clare Best. Clare’s memoir, The Missing List (Linen Press), has been many years in the writing. Clare’s beautiful prose, her presentation of the narrative through fragments, lists, descriptions of cine films and the melding of the distant and near-pasts is mesmeric. The slow revealing of the truth painfully mirrors the process of the author as she tries to recall conversations and make sense of what happened. Extraordinary.

On 29th October I read a poem at the Troubadour in London – we’d been asked to write something especially for the evening so since it was my birthday I went with a little ‘found’ poem gleaned from the Hallmark.com website. I was inspired by knowing that Zaffar Kunial used to work as a copywriter for Hallmark. Anyway, DESPITE my having stumbled on the last line (I believe it was the poetry reading equivalent of ‘stacking it’) I had at least half a dozen people come up to me during the evening to say they enjoyed it. Unprecedented! Maybe my stumble was still on my mind last Friday when I read alongside Jeremy Page and Peter Philips at Camden Poetry, a regular poetry event to raise money for the London homeless. It was a small audience, and rather quiet – I felt my confidence wavering somewhat, and didn’t sell any books. Perhaps I chose the wrong poems to read. Later this month I’m off to Chichester Open Mic hosted by Barry Smith, which I’ve been told attracts a warm and full crowd, so I shall look forward to it.

Declined … again

So my carefully (I thought) composed ‘Develop your creative practice’ application to the Arts Council was rejected. I was asking for a modest contribution towards the costs of mentoring, to help me put together a first collection. The judgement was that they ‘preferred other projects’. Poor old page poetry just isn’t exciting enough I guess. It’s a minor setback but of course a bit annoying. Meanwhile I’ve had work rejected from The Poetry Review (am still trying!) and there are poems still on the slush pile at three other journals – one since February. Ho hum!

The Booklet!

Yes I’m calling it that, rather than ‘book’, so as not to raise expectations unreasonably. Although I’m rather proud of its 32 pages. A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines is now published on the Telltale Press imprint and orders are being taken as I type, thanks to some lovely people retweeting it (thanks chaps!). I had a lot of fun compiling it. Asking magazine editors for their thoughts on various things and reading the replies was one of the funnest things. Wrestling with the layout, edits and other tech issues was less fun, BUT I had the eagle-eyed and massively supportive Sarah Barnsley on my side, finding stray spaces and querying dodgy grammar in her thorough but very polite fashion. I hope you like the result!! I’ve got a landing page up here where you can buy it. Please forgive all the ‘about the author’ puffery, but I felt the need to parade my creds, as it were, in order to sell the darn book.

If you’re on my list for the quarterly submissions windows updates, you’ll get an email about it this week. Now for the really tricky bit: selling the bejesus out of it. It’s a groovy stocking filler! Tell your poetry writing friends!

Blog/ 20/04/2018

Poems coming out, new anthology, currently reading etc

Intro/bit of a rant etc (skip this if you’d rather go straight to The Poetry stuff)

Where has the month gone? (Rhetorical question.) Why am I being besieged by companies/organisations telling me I must re-subscribe to their emails? (Non-rhetorical question, although I think I know the answer – *some people* are spreading panic about new legislation and the country is alive with the sound of knees jerking.) A small rant: there used to be an acronym in Ye Olde Internet Dayes: RTFM. I’m too polite to say what that stands for but you can always Google it. My point is, if you read the ICO website and the text of the new GDPR then you will know IF you need to ask for re-confirmation of consent. Or NOT. Meanwhile I’m almost looking forward to not getting all those emails I used to enjoy getting.

In the last few weeks I’ve been suffering with back and arm problems which meant I had to limit my time on the computer. It’s all to do with posture, and related to the RSI I’ve had for nearly two decades. Nothing life-threatening, just annoying, and coinciding with the painstaking job of typesetting and formatting TRUTHS, the new Telltale Press Anthology (see below) not to mention endless need for posters and programmes for various concerts, workshops, recitals and assorted music-related ephemera. And five weeks of having work done on our garden. But HEY I am back on the comp (taking lots of breaks), the garden is finished, we have a new granddaughter (who I think is going to be a fine poetry critic), everyone is well and life is good!

bad poem, good poem

Needlewriters

I had a blast reading at Needlewriters earlier in the month, and we’re currently planning our June 14th event which will be a South Downs Poetry Festival Special. That means that as well as our regular evening of readings, there’ll be an open mic to kick off the evening, and in the afternoon five of us will be offering poetry ‘surgeries’ (not as queasy as it sounds) to which we hope lots of lovely poets and aspiring poets will flock. More on that another time.

Launch of TRUTHS: a Telltale Press Anthology

Yes, it’s finally here – or it will be – (long story) – next Wednesday 25th April, 7.30pm, upstairs at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes… a dozen or so of the contributors will be reading their poems on the theme of truth/truths, and much over-excitement will be had by all, especially those of us mad enough to have a) suggested it and b) put it together. Once more the excellent Hannah Clare has created a cracking cover. It’s a stonker of a collection, but of course I would say that. You’ll just have to buy a copy to find out! The technicalities of producing TRUTHS has revealed to me another truth: I have so much to learn about print publishing. There were issues. But I am confident it will be good. Come and see! Free entry. Here’s the Facebook event page.

Coupla poems coming out here and there, plus pamphlet reviews

A few months ago I was wondering why I had nothing ‘forthcoming’ until it occurred to me I just wasn’t sending poems out. Duh. For some reason I’ve had a spate of sending to competitions rather than magazines, and being met with the sound of silence. But I’m slowly getting back on track. There’s one poem coming out in the next Interpreter’s House, which will be Martin Malone‘s last as editor, so I’m hoping there’ll be a launch somewhere that I can get to. Rumour has it that Martin is currently residing in a lighthouse on Shetland, clearly on a mission to move as far north as possible. So we’ll see.

Then a welcome surprise yesterday – a letter from Ann Sansom to say they’d like two of the poems I sent them for The North. I’ve only ever had one poem in The North and it’s been years since I’ve sent anything there as I’d convinced myself my stuff wasn’t for them. So I guess it’s always worth trying again.

Meanwhile I’d like to thank both Emma Lee writing on her blog, and Pam Thompson in London Grip for their thoughtful reviews of All the Relevant Gods, and Abegail Morley for this super mention at The Poetry Shed.

Currently / recently reading

A random selection… the March edition of Poetry and the Spring edition of The Poetry Review, in which I particularly enjoyed poems by Hannah Lowe, Ruth McIlroy and Rebecca Goss. Still to read the essays and reviews. Mary Ruefle’s The Most of It, a prose collection, although the stories (stories? somewhere between short stories and flash fiction) feel more like poems. I’m getting a lot of inspiration from this book. Also the Spring edition of Rattle, in which I thought I’d read two poems by Sharon Olds, which I loved, but they’re not there. So where did I see these two poems? I thought it was in a recently-arrived mag. But can’t track them down. Do you know?

Stephen Bone‘s Plainsong (Indigo Dreams) is still on the ‘current’ pile – meaning I can’t resist dipping back into it (double-dipping?) before putting it on the shelf, and after a mention by Abigail Morley recently of Robin Robertson I’ve also got out my copy of Hill of Doors for a re-read and it’s paying off.

Peter Raynard is currently on tour promoting his collection Precarious, and it’s one of those books I hesitate to use the word ‘enjoyed’ about as I rather felt I’d been pulled along by my hair to arrive slightly scathed at the end. It’s breathless stuff – the language comes at you with force, a fire hydrant of feelings. There’s a great deal of humour, especially in the poems towards the end, but the overall effect on me was unsettling – ‘exposing us all to unending rounds of worry’ (‘They always come out fighting’).

Look what Ann Perrin pressed into my hand the other day – a copy of her lovely illustrated booklet The hole in the wall, produced by none other than the Dry Stone Walling Association, completely charming and one I will look forward to reading to the granddaughters when they’re a little older.

ann perrin - the hole in the wall

I also recently enjoyed Finishing Lines (Rack Press) by Ian Harrow, a very short pamphlet about illness, with a happy ending; ‘Come, Spring, make the difference.’ (‘Entreaty’). Yes indeed. I’m about to step outside and see for myself.

Blog/ 25/03/2018

Readings, and a Garsdale (re)treat booked

Well the submissions list was popular… I hope you managed to get some poems out before some of the deadlines. I’ve got a few things out now. Although sorry to report that YET AGAIN I didn’t win the National. Oh well! I’m hoping to be at the award ceremony on Wednesday (if my RSVP wasn’t too late) so at least I’ll experience the vicarious excitement of it all.

Off the back of my pamphlet launch I’ve got a few readings sorted. The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society had a last minute cancellation so they slotted me in to read last week alongside Canadian poet Miranda Pearson. I really enjoyed the evening – good venue, good vibe, good size audience and wonderfully attentive – and I got the biggest laugh I’ve ever had for the pamphlet’s title poem. I know that shouldn’t be the criterion for a successful poetry reading, but it’s always fun when people laugh – maybe I should have set my sights on standup. Er, but then again, probably not!

Robin Houghton with Miranda Pearson at the Kent & Sussex march 18 — With Miranda Pearson at the Kent & Sussex in Tunbridge Wells

After Easter I’ll be reading in Lewes at the Needlewriters, alongside Nicholas Royle and Jonathan Totman. I’m a member of the Needlewriters collective so it’s home turf for me – which actually makes it a bit nerve-wracking. Not to mention my worrying about a number of poets in the audience having heard all my stuff before. I just have to remind myself that people are unlikely to remember, so I must treat it all as fresh. Never apologise!

Guess who’s going to Garsdale

Now for the big treat – I’ve booked in to a residential week at the Garsdale Retreat in June, with Ian Duhig and Hannah Lowe as the visiting guest. I’m a big admirer of Ian’s work and just know it’s going to be a fab week. I know after my experience at Ty Newydd a few years ago I wondered if I’d ever do another residential. Although that particular experience was amazing and a real boost for my writing, nonetheless I found it exhausting – there just weren’t enough hours in the day to do all the homework, no time to go out and take a walk, so many participants and quite a combative atmosphere, and the dreaded cooking/washing up duties. I’m someone who needs time and space to think, and lots of sleep. So having to get up at 6 to get work done in time for a morning seminar, after a late night the night before (compulsory activities every evening), was a bit much for me.

So… when I found the Garsdale Retreat (I think it was after I’d done a search on Ian Duhig, who I was hoping to ask for a blurb for the Telltale anthology – more on that in a minute) – two things in particular jumped off the screen at me: NO cooking or washing up (in fact the food all sounds excellent) and HALF the number of participants you get on a typical residential. Not only that, but the schedule looks about right in terms of group activity and tutor contact, with a good balance of free time. And it’s in a beautiful part of the country. So now I’m planning with military precision to get hold of Advance train tickets. It’s all very exciting and I feel very lucky to be able to go.

Coming soon! TRUTHS: A Telltale Press Anthology

Something that’s been taking up a lot of my time lately has been the forthcoming Telltale anthology, Truths – it’s been a labour of love though, so I’m not complaining. And working with Sarah Barnsley on editing has made me realise how mediocre I am at proofing – I can’t believe how many ‘straight vs curly’ quote marks and ‘hyphens vs en-dashes’ she spotted and I missed – ha ha! Seriously, Sarah is the queen of all this, and that’s on top of being an insightful and sensitive editor. My job has mostly been to fiddle around in Affinity Designer and stress about fonts and gutters.

A brief aside here – I’d like to offer an (unpaid) endorsement for this Affinity software. When I bought a new computer I needed to replace my Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but they’re now only available on subscription (each costs more than £200 a year!) So I did some research and found Affinity, who make alternative software called Photo and Designer, with a third, Publisher, due out soon. Each program costs under £50 to buy outright, there are tons of tutorials on the website and the company is British. I’ve been using both programs very successfully and have even found Designer to be more intuitive than Illustrator. It has been a learning curve with Photo, but I’m SO pleased with the results and certainly for my needs I don’t feel the software is an any way inferior to the Adobe equivalents. End of advert!

So the Telltale Press anthology will be going to print this coming week, and the launch is on April 25 in Lewes. Do come if you’re able – there will be a stellar list of readers. Contributors to the anthology are poets who have read with us at ‘Telltale Press & Friends’ since 2014, as well as a number of others who have supported us in the project. It feels to me like a really strong collection (OK, I would say that, wouldn’t I), and with its theme of ‘truth’, rather timely – it’s been fascinating to see how poets have interpreted the theme.

Editing the Telltale Press anthology — Typesetting hell?

Blog/ 20/02/2018

Busy busy… pamphlet launch, Telltale Anthology latest

It seems to be a busy time of year, both for poetry and for music. I’ve been busy promoting our Lewes Singers concerts this coming weekend in Eastbourne and Ringmer, as well as learning the music of course… it took an hour this morning to sort out the seating plans, making sure tall people weren’t in front of short people and no singer was next to anyone singing the same voice part – ugh!

This afternoon I was happy to spend four hours making up ten more copies of Foot Wear. The first 20 copies are sold so now I have another ten. I’m making no more than 50 in all. Based on today, it takes 24 minutes to make each pamphlet – printing, folding, trimming and binding. (Of course that’s after the actual writing of the poems, finding/choosing the illustrations, doing the layout and typesetting… oh well, it’s a labour of love!) Then I put them under some heavy books overnight to flatten them, before numbering each one ready for selling – in this case at my pamphlet launch on Thursday – oh! Haven’t I mentioned that??

With two days to go I’m a bit nervous, not having decided for certain what to read, or my introductions. When I’ve finished writing this post I’ll be onto it, I promise. And practising tomorrow. Stephen Bone is my lovely co-host and co-launchee. Stephen’s Indigo Dreams pamphlet ‘Plainsong’ is fabulous, and it’s his poem about a Titan Arum that gave the launch flyer its phallic illustration – currently blown up (sorry!) to A3 and proudly sitting in the window of the Eastbourne Tourist Information Centre – I’m expecting letters of disgust next week in the Herald.

Our guest readers are Antony Mair, a fine poet teetering on the edge of some well-deserved recognition, and fellow Telltaler Sarah Barnsley, also frighteningly talented and due some serious poetry success. It’s going to be a fantastic night. I just need to decide what to read and what to wear!

Other things taking me away from blogging lately: a wedding anniversary trip to Stratford to see ‘Twelfth Night’ (in the presence of HRH Prince Charles, although he was accommodated very discreetly – a future king has to go the theatre now and then, y’know) and ‘Imperium’ at the Swan (photo above). Great fun but lessons learned about what seats to book in the future. Anticipation of Spring (please, are we nearly there yet?) and plans for the garden. Other writing and work-related stuff.

Meanwhile Hastings Stanza has been a boon as regards workshopping and poet camaraderie and I’ve got quite a few new poems on the go at the moment. So once this week’s events are over I’ll be back to the editing. Which reminds me, our Telltale Anthology is well under way, I have the first round of amends to do on the proofs, but we’re on track for a late April launch. This is shaping up into an amazing collection with some first class contributions. More about it soon.

Blog/ 15/11/201715/11/2017

Foot Wear – a handmade mini-pamphlet

So there I was with a handful of poems from my ill-fated ‘Business Class’ collection that couldn’t find a home. What to do? I started thinking about the themes: workplace tensions, multicultural office environments, illicit relationships, anomie…and shoes! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I was working in the sports shoe industry. And I realised shoes have been a theme in my life – from doodling enormous platform boots all over my rough book at school, to my first job in a shoe shop, to persuading my bosses at Nike that netball was a viable sport and players needed netball shoes.

I picked over what I had, chose a few unpublished poems and adapted a couple that had been published, added in a few new shoe-themed poems, and the little collection made a good narrative arc.

Shoes are made by hand, so why not the pamphlet?

I wanted this to be a small collection of poem ‘vignettes’, semi-autobiographical, related to my life in shoes, in limited edition. I wanted each poem to be accompanied by a photo. I also wanted to make the pamphlets by hand, as much as possible – not hand written and not handmade paper (would be nice, but very expensive) – but hand-bound and finished. The point is that the trainers we wear are by and large handmade – from the pattern cutting to the stitching, dyeing, glueing and finishing – by hundreds of assembly-line workers in the far east, and it’s skilled work. The least I could do, to pay homage to that process, was to make the pamphlets myself.

A bit of info for stationery geeks

My plan was to print the inner pages on my office printer. I was excited to find A5 paper for sale online, and I ordered it in 170gsm, a bit heavier than normal printer paper. I thought perhaps there’d be less chance of a printer jam and the heavier weight would look classier. I hadn’t really considered the thickness of the finished article. But with only twenty pages it turned out fine in the end. Similarly, I had the covers printed in 380 mic pulp, which turned out quite thick – but I don’t regret it. I had no trouble folding the pages in the end because I had a lovely bit of kit called a bone folder.

A noob at numbering

The first challenge was to print the pages in the right order, with the correct back-to-back pagination. This proved harder than I thought and I wasted quite a few sheets of paper in my frustration!

Anyway I succeeded in making a mockup, glued together, which became my blueprint. There then followed the sloooow process of printing the pages. Ten at a time invariably meant a misfeed of the paper, which when it was side two being printed meant reprinting all over again both sides. Ugh.

Meanwhile I created a cover design using a photo of the tongue label from my trainers and a background image suggesting a cardboard box. This I had printed at an online printers.

Adventures in book binding

I was looking forward to binding the pamphlets. I bought a ‘bookbinding starter pack’ from a wonderful shop based in the Orkneys called the Vintage Paper Company, and followed their instructions for how to make the simplest of bindings.

That was it! Or so I thought… I realised then that the pages protruded outside the cover. They would need trimming. After trying unsuccessfully to trim a thickness of 5 sheets using a blade, I realised I’d have to do it singly.

In the end I got quite good at it, although there were a few rough edges I thought that was fine – all part of the quirkiness/individuality of each pamphlet.

Ta da!

The final product is lovely, if I say so myself! I’ve only made ten so far, and there’s going to be a limit of fifty. My plan is to sell them at readings.

In fact I made my first sales on Monday evening in Winchester – more about that in the next post!

Category: Publishing