What is Circaidy Gregory?
Circaidy Gregory is an imprint I have set up this year to produce what I think of as a series of authors’ manifestos.
The books we intend to publish are all quite different. Some are short story collections, some poetry, and one or two will be novels but they have one thing in common. Each is, as well as being a good, original read, the mission statement of a relatively unknown author who we believe is coming into their own and deserves a higher profile than they are at present getting in a world dominated by celebrity-driven cross-Atlantic fastsellers.
The Circaidy Gregory website is up and running now. There is more about Jung’s People, and we have previews of a couple of the books that are in the pipeline.
Update, February 2008
Well, we have three books available now, and two more in the editorial process. Here is the launch announcement…
Circaidy Gregory Press
Independent Books for Independent Readers
What do we mean by independent? For readers, it means having the courage and imagination to find your own favourites, rather than reading whatever reviewers tell you is the number one this week. For writers, it means being given the chance to take a bit of responsibility for your own creation: To have a hand in the design, the marketing and the development of your books.
We are told that more books are being published than ever before. Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘published’. When you compare what’s in the mainstream bookshops up and down the country, or when you talk to the average reader, you get the feeling that just about everyone in the world is reading the same few books.
A book stored in an electronic file on the Internet by a company who plan to print a copy if and when someone stumbles across it and orders one is, I suppose, published: A few dozen copies printed, unedited, unreviewed, and sold to the author at cover price is another form of publication – but we at Circaidy Gregory Press are looking for something better than that – something smaller than mainstream publication, but a form that allows authors to produce a book of their own, to have it evaluated, edited and published without losing control of it, and to have a chance of benefiting from sales.
Working outside the mainstream book distribution industry, Circaidy Gregory Press, a small press with high editorial standards, aims to rasie the profile of worthy authors and bring something different to the adventurous reader. Not famous names, not high street best sellers, but carefully selected works by writers who have proved themselves through freelance work, small press anthologies, little magazines and Internet publications. Writers who live in the real world, have something to say, and the talent to say their piece in an entertaining and though provoking manner.
To Independent Readers
You probably won’t find our books reviewed in the Guardian. They may not be in the windows of the big chain bookstores (we can’t afford the fees they charge to put them there!) but you can find them in independent bookshops, on our website - www.circaidygregory.co.uk - and at a book fair near you. Where ever you find them, you will find something different from the top 100 fastsellers - but something well worth reading.
To Independent Writers and Illustrators
If you would like to get involved in our future publications, please come along and have a look at www.earlyworkspress.co.uk, the home of our Writers and Reviewers Cluband the workshop where our projects take shape. Our books are written, designed and illustrated by club members or competition winners discovered at Earlyworks Press.
Independent Books for Independent Readers
Promoting Independent Writers and Illustrators
