Construction Finished - For Now

With the help of my esteemed friend Dr. Z, I have finally been able to get this blog working properly again. The problem with this webpage XTML language or whatever it is called is that sometimes the whole thing doesn't seem to work because you missed some tiny quotation mark or other annoying symbol like <>. Either way, it is pretty much where it should be now and closely resembles what it was before.

The only new bit really is the "Indie Publishers", which of course stands for Independent Publishers. In my opinion they are definitely amongst the best, but some other good ones, unfortunately don't have a homepage that is working properly (like Atlantic and Serpent's Tail). Why exactly that is the case I don't know because I can't think of much better, cheaper and effective advertising than that. But there are many people that know a lot better than me.

New to the list are Faber & Faber who are by far the culturally and historically richest out of the entire list, with the only possible exception of Granta perhaps. One of Faber's first editors was T.S. Eliot who helped them establish their amazing poetry portfolio, which is still one of their strengths today. The amount of quality books they have published is impossible to list but they include 2004 Booker Prize winner D.B.C. Pierre, another Booker Prize winner and multiple nominee Kazuo Ishiguro and one of my all-time favourites Paul Auster. Those are just some of the contemporary ones, for a general overview check out their homepage.

The Friday Project was on my links before. They are one of the newest and most exciting commercial publishing ventures out there at the moment. Run primarily by a former newspaper correspondant Paul Carr and multiple conglomerate experienced publisher Clare Christian. Recent developments have revealed that Scott Pack, who had been voted by The Observer as the single most influential individual in the publishing industry, will be joining their venture and will inevitably lend some publishing expertise to their developing list. Pack is equally hated and loved in the industry, more hated I would say, as he single handedly seems to decide what books Waterstone's stock, promote, support, despise, etc. Just what he can do to the Friday Project remains to be seen.

Constable & Robinso publish mostly non-fiction such as The Corporation by Joel Bakal, which I recommend to anyone who gives a dirt about this rotten place called world and other political, current affairs and history titles. Having said that, their new Editor seems to have pinched Monica Ali from previous publisher Random House so her future books (not the one coming out this summer) should be published by Constable.

Finally there is Granta. They have a long standing reputation of attracting and finding young authors, some of whom have become household names for many people. Ian McEwan is just one such example. In their magazines they publish unheard of authors and a lot of short stories and also have multiple awards and competitions on a regular basis. If someone gets published in their magazine, you can be sure they will publish a book soon afterwards. Also, David Graham, who was M.D. Director of Canongate and played a big rule in their recent resurgence as one of the strongest Indies, has joined Granta in the same position to develop and improve their fiction list.

There you have it for Indie Publishers. A lot of things happening all the time and I will try to rotate them as much as possible or just keep adding to them.

Good sites features some friends whose art everybody should support, quite frankly because it is damn good. Subba-Cultcha is an online magazine where I write a few reviews, more or less on a weekly basis ranging from DVD to CDs and Computer Games. On the links below you can see my few first ones, one on the Velvet Underground another on some crap computer game and one on Jim Moray. Its a strong Indie site so support it when you can.

I should really be studying for exams that start tomorrow and can't be faced going through the blogs which are more or less self explanatory. If you are into publishing, I can say that regularly checking the Charkin Blog can be very rewarding. He is one of the most outspoken, eccentric and some even say charismatic publishing individuals. He oversees Macmillan UK and is undoubtedly one of the most respected and powerful men in the industry. More on the rest some other time.

For the computer game:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1793

For the Velvet Underground:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1843

For the Jim Moray:
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article.php?id=1871

M.M.