Getting People Reading Again - Guest Post by Anthony Howcroft [23.04.2010]

InkTears has a simple tag line - we aim to bring readers and writers together. We want to get people reading again, and with broader tastes. Given that you're looking at this blog entry you're probably a writer, publisher, voracious reader. In my work I meet many intelligent, educated people and the majority have an exclusive diet of email, while snacking on magazines at the weekend. I have one friend who still buys books regularly but never gets to read them. Like many people, he claims to be too busy.

My name's Anthony Howcroft and I'm a part-time writer. The rest of the time I try to earn money, mainly in software. Twelve years ago, while between technology start-ups, I wrote a terrible novel and luckily nobody published it. Then I wrote another, which was much worse. At this point I sought help via a two-year diploma in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Most assignments were based around short fiction. I'm convinced that the resurgence in the short story form is partially linked to the growth in the Creative Writing industry, and certainly it got me into short stories as both a writer (first) and then a reader.

Six years later I had built up a good track record with various stories published in anthologies and literary magazines, winning smaller prizes and being commended or shortlisted for the bigger competitions. I started approaching independent publishers that specialised in short story collections, and got some luke-warm interest. Then the worldwide financial markets crashed and people stopped buying books. Or at least, the publishers feared that would happen so they stopped publishing books - especially those by new authors and short story collections in particular. I didn't want to wait until the world economy recovered so I decided to self-publish. Once I got over my own ego issues, I found it surprisingly easy to commit to – and it gave me more control. I released half of my collection online at a low price (4.50 GBP) and attempted to build a readership before self-publishing a high-quality hardback.

I had a website developed, published the first stories and threw open the URL to friends, family and linked-in colleagues. A month later I called my brother to persuade him that it would cost less than the price of a beer to join the twenty paid-up subscribers, and realised the model was never going to work. People expect the Internet to be free. At this point I was also noticing the same writers turning up frequently in competition, and I discovered there was a large community of people with a good track record of short story success but no publisher. Coincidentally, I found that when I asked my colleagues the last book they read, faces would go blank and they would stare into the distant as though trying to recall a childhood memory. Eventually these pieces came together and a new model emerged: InkTears.

InkTears is free for all readers. We publish one story a month via email, so that people can read it in a few minutes over lunch, or print and enjoy at their leisure. We welcome all readers and put up no barriers to joining. There's no spamming or overt sales emails. If our readers like a story we hope they might consider buying a collection from the author, and we will soon make it easy for people to do that. The more readers we build, the more chance we have of writers finding a target audience. We're also trying to do more to bring readers and writers together: for example, readers can provide feedback on any story they read with a star system and free-form comments, which go straight back to the writer.

I initially used ten of my own stories to seed InkTears. Each year will now see a blend of new and established writers and we expect to have some well-known authors making guest appearances. To identify the new writers we hold an annual competition and invite everyone to put their best stories forward – either brand new or those that have done well in competitions and already been published in magazines. We also offer to publish their collections or include them in anthologies if they do not have the volume of published work.

The first collections are in progress now. They will be simultaneous high quality hardback, paperback, and ebooks with the look and feel that I would want as both a reader and writer - not the cheap rubbish that too many self-publishing sites promote. The goal for each book is to break even. InkTears is not a non-profit organisation but we don't believe there's a lot of money in traditional publishing. We have wider horizons and see the short story collection as an advanced form of business card.

I genuinely believe the publishing industry is going through a revolution. The transition to ebooks and ereaders will take some time (we’ve all heard about the death of the printed book far too often), but it is happening. Devices like the iPad and the next generation of Kindle will have a huge impact although they are only one small part of the changes taking place. We also have to look at the death of the bookstore - not because of an evil internet retailer, but because the majority of readers are choosing to browse in shops but purchase online. ePublishing is a fantastic opportunity for authors, but potentially a terrifying one for readers searching for quality.

I believe one of the key roles for the new generation of publishers will be to create media-crossing brands based on quality, and to do this by building and listening to a community. You can argue that many publishers already do this, and there are certainly some good examples. Unfortunately there are also organizations that are set in concrete, with values, technology, and a conservative outlook from a previous era.

When I look at what I wanted as a publisher for my own book, I didn’t see it in the market. That’s why I created InkTears. Sometimes, it’s easier to start something new rather than try to change what’s already there.

Anthony Howcroft is a writer, technology entrepreneur and the creator of InkTears and is based in Oxford, England. Most recently he was one of the co-founders of a software company sold to Microsoft in 2008. Much of his writing is done on planes, in cafe’s or late at night. He has a Creative Writing Diploma from Oxford University and is married with one daughter and a weimaraner dog that won’t let strangers touch her ears.

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