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It lives! (on publishing The Dust on the Moth, plus launch party news)

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Me oh my, what’s this?

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Okay, so I look like an overenthusiastic, spinsterish librarian, but never mind that. Look at what I’m clutching in my scrawny claw! Yep, it’s The Dust on the Moth. In the flesh! Isn’t she pretty?

To recap, The Dust on the Moth was a manuscript of mine that got picked up by Bees Make Honey, pimped up with photography and illustrations and then crowdfunded through an intense but successful Kickstarter campaign. And now, after months of editing, proofreading, laying out and polishing, the book has been printed and is real. As exhibited below.

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One of the fundraising campaign’s main angles was our commitment – in an age when almost everything is digitalised – to producing something lavishly tangible that could be held in the hands, probed by the fingers and treasured on shelves and coffee tables. At the time the statement felt partially like something said out of principle. But now, with the result of our efforts actually existing as a physical part of the world, I’m reminded of the joys of something as (deceptively) simple as a lovingly designed hardback.

I feel proud to have been a part of this, and am genuinely humbled by the superhuman effort Bees Make Honey put into making the book so special, and by the generosity of the backers who funded its production. Putting the book together involved an unbelievable amount of work (just ask Dan, the book’s designer and a faded husk of the man he once was), and there were giddy highs and queasy lows and late nights spent editing, bubble-wrapping and gnawing at fingernails. But it was a sweaty labour of love and gratitude, and I hope our backers are happy with the result. I know we are.

Many years ago, some unsung boffin calculated that a picture paints a thousand words. So, to save me from more writing and you from more reading, here are 6000 words’ worth of images from The Dust on the Moth.

More information on the book and on how to get hold of a copy is available here.

One last thing. We’re having a launch party for The Dust on the Moth at Nottingham’s Creative Occupations Bureau on the evening of 5 March. If you’re in the area, pop in and join us for booze and cake. Hope to see you there!

On editing a novel (plus some guff about Art Attack)

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Do you remember Art Attack? If you do, you might recall that there was a segment in each episode where Scouse da Vinci Neil Buchanan created a giant picture out of some random material – a unicorn out of paperclips, for example, or a robot out of lentils.

Imagine him getting to work on a giant school bus made of school uniforms. He scatters some trousers around to make the wheels, nods to himself and starts on the bus’s door. He prances around, tossing school ties here and red sweaters there, occasionally grinning at the camera while the bus in his mind takes shape at his feet. Then he steps back and opens his arms, and the camera pans out from above to reveal not a bus, but a hideous leering clown face that causes the kids at home to pee their pants and run to their mums.

How did this happen? I’ll tell you how. Neil forgot to get into his cherry picker crane every now and then. He just kept at it on the ground, lost in an enthusiastic flurry of school clothes, and neglected to take an occasional look from above to make sure his bus looked like a bus.

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When writing a book, the equivalent of getting into this cherry picker is editing. It’s wise to look at your work from a distance to make sure not only that it works, but that it works as well as it can. And it’s even wiser to have someone else in the cherry picker with you – someone more detached to look at the woods while you’re hopelessly lost in the trees. That’s what Kirsty Fox (Big Cheese at Bees Make Honey) and I are doing now for The Dust on the Moth (which, in case you missed it, recently got funded through a Kickstarter campaign). At this very moment, Kirsty is reading the manuscript for the umpteenth time to check that its bizarre little story holds together and gives the reader the ultimate Dust on the Moth experience.

That’s right. While you lounge comfortably on your sofa and read this, Kirsty’s hunched over a tattered manuscript and scouring it with her tired, beady eye. She hasn’t slept in days. She consumes nothing but bread and water; preparing anything else would cost precious editing time. She’s stranded high up on the cherry picker, checking the novel’s themes, its story arc, its character development, its internal logic and its self-contained worlds. Once satisfied she’ll lower the cherry picker to get a little closer. Would Mr Malarkey really say this to Anna? That gibbon wasn’t in the grotto before, was it? Did Cardinal Bilibin always have those long pink fingernails? Shouldn’t the pace be picked up for this chase scene in the desert?

Once Kirsty’s done, she’ll be sending me another pile of grumbles to be addressed, and I’ll get to work once again, chipping away here and there at near-imperceptible imperfections. This pile of grumbles gets smaller each time, so we’re getting there.

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Editing The Dust on the Moth has been interesting. It’s the first time I’ve been edited by someone else. There was a time when I naively didn’t see the point in having an editor. Why let someone dilute your work? Why not keep your vision pure? What I forgot to consider back then is that writers – well, most writers – write not for themselves, but for others. And that’s why you need a savvy set of eyes to give you an outsider’s perspective and ensure your school bus isn’t in fact a scary clown.

Your editor doesn’t just need to be savvy, of course. If a book is to remain true to itself, the relationship between writer and editor needs to be an enthusiastic and sympathetic one. Fortunately for all of us, Kirsty is very passionate about The Dust on the Moth – she’s publishing the damn thing – and it’s been clear since we first discussed the novel that she “gets” it. It also helps that she’s a very talented writer herself. Which all means that I trust her and value her editing suggestions. Sometimes there’s a little negotiation, but 95% of the time we see eye to eye.

Editing the novel has been good for me as a writer too. I’ve learned a lot and have become more audience-aware and critical of my writing. I now know about the pitfalls of “info dumps”, dialogue tags and a plethora of other no-nos. There are “rules” for how a novel should best be presented to the reader, most of which make sense to me (every bit of the novel must serve a purpose, for example), but some which I take with a pinch of salt. If every writer followed every rule, books would start to get a bit samey. In fact, since learning about editing, I’ve already started to spot certain patterns in contemporary novels. At times there’s almost a sense of going through the motions.

This won’t be happening to The Dust on the Moth. We’re going to be careful and sensitive. We’re going to make it as polished as we can, without compromising any of its uniqueness or spirit. And when we’re done we’ll be another step closer to making The Dust on the Moth a beautiful reality.

It’s going to be sweeeeet. Look out for it from November 2015.

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Update on The Dust on the Moth Kickstarter campaign

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Hi all,

In case you’re curious, here’s a quick update on Bees Make Honey’s Kickstarter campaign to publish The Dust on the Moth as a “multi-dimensional hardback”.

Actually, it’s not so much an update as a shameless copy-and-paste from an interview Kirsty Fox and I did for Nottingham’s Left Lion. I know – it’s lazy and I should try harder. But we all need to recycle wherever we can. Plus things are busy-busy-busy, time is short and time is money and money makes the world go round et cetera et cetera.

So here it is. Please have a look at the campaign page, share it with your chums and – if you like the look of this very unusual book – treat yourself and chip in! Only seven days to go and me oh my, doesn’t time fly.

The original interview is available here. Gratitude goes to Robin Lewis of Left Lion for doing the interview, and sincere thanks to everyone who’s helped out so far. Feel the love.

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Why choose to crowdfund a book in this way?

Kirsty: I’ve been wanting to try out crowdfunding for a while. Part of what I do with Bees Make Honey is advise people on things like funding options and it’s much easier to advise someone if you have cold hard experience to go on. I choose book publishing because it’s one of my passions and because publishing is big upfront costs with uncertain return.

I learned this the hard way with the first book I published – I still have a hundred odd copies with no loving home to go to. The appeal of this is working out demand before you supply. If we’re successful Darren’s book will be in people’s hands being read and loved, not sat in my attic gathering poetic dust.

Darren: And there’ll be a lot to love – it’s going to be quite a lavish book. The decision to produce a hardback with colour artwork was partly guided by the desire to produce something physical and beautiful for people to own and treasure. In some ways it’s a reaction to the pervasiveness of digital content – which is great in many ways, but right now there’s a growing, almost fetishistic appreciation of more tangible objects. You only have to look towards the return of vinyl to see this.

But producing physical colour hardbacks isn’t cheap. Hence crowdfunding seemed to be the way to go. We’re hoping that people will be interested in being part of and investing in the production of something special.

Why this book?

Darren: The Dust on the Moth seems to fit in so well with Bee’s Make Honey’s mission. The novel actually had a tricky time in finding a home. Several literary agents and indie publishers really liked it but felt unable to handle the fact that it doesn’t fit neatly into a specific genre. But this happened to be exactly what Bees Make Honey were looking for: fiction that defies categorisation and gives two fingers to pigeonholes. So they had a gander and took it on, and now we’ve ended up with this hugely ambitious campaign.

Kirsty: I like Darren’s writing because he’s not afraid to take risks and have fun. There’s a rawness which traditionally published books tend to lack because they’re edited differently and are too self-conscious of their market. It’s like when you get a really good piece of music that’s overproduced. The Dust on the Moth takes an idea and runs away with it in ways that are both incredibly silly yet also still profound. It makes you laugh while also potentially giving you an existential crisis. I think that might be my favourite kind of art when it’s done well. Also, as a person to work with, Darren is very self-motivated. When I first met him, he was putting out illustrated short stories as Panspermia Press with illustrations from his friend Chris Baldwin. He was already collaborating and experimenting in order to get his work out there.

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The Kickstarter is over halfway done: how are things going with it?

Darren: We had an amazing start in which we got over a grand in just two days. But things have slowed down and we still have a way to go before meeting our £5000 target; failure to meet the target means we get none of the money pledged at all.  This doesn’t seem to bode well, but actually represents a pretty common course for Kickstarter campaigns. A lot of campaigns get a depressing dip in the middle and then shoot up at the end to meet their target. So we’re hoping to start seeing that soon, especially with people’s impending paydays and the growing jeopardy factor. It’s playing out a little like an indie underdog story – I think that’s one of the things people like about crowdfunding projects like this.

Kirsty: It’s just like The Mighty Ducks. Except we can’t express our frustration with hockey sticks.

Darren: Beyond the financial side of things, the response from people has been fantastic. It’s humbling and wonderful to discover how supportive your friends and family are, and alongside this you get the backing and enthusiasm of total strangers, which is particularly rewarding.

What’s involved in the day to day running of a Kickstarter? Is it just a case of launching one and then keeping your fingers crossed?

Kirsty: Absolutely not. Anyone who uses that technique is likely to fail hard. You can’t expect the world to magically find your campaign amidst hundreds of others. There are people who browse Kickstarter looking for interesting things, but they’re not likely to see your campaign unless you’ve got off to a good start. You have to be on social media every day, trying to shout about it without repeating yourself too much and pissing people off! It’s hard work and tough on the ego too. It’s a huge benefit to do it as part of a team of four because you can keep each other’s spirits up, but I still feel the most responsible.

Darren: I mostly do what I’m told. This means distributing flyers, regularly promoting the campaign on Twitter (look out for #KICKSTARTMOTH) and guilt-tripping my friends and family into having a look, spreading the word and maybe even chipping in. At the more strategic level I get together with the Bees Make Honey team to discuss tactics and leave biscuit crumbs on Kirsty’s sofa. Recent tactics include a free prize draw for all pledgers and two new reward options: Bees Make Honey lucky dip bags crammed with goodies and personalised short stories on the subject of the pledger’s choice.

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Tell me about The Dust on the Moth. It seems to be a lot more than just a book.

Kirsty: We’re very aware of the decline in print publishing and the reasons why that is happening. We were also keen to do something collaborative and experimental because we’re the kind of people who lay awake at night with too many fantastic ideas buzzing around. The Dust on the Moth lends itself to experiment, so it just felt right to elaborate on the worlds Darren had created by giving the book extra dimensions. So we have illustrations by Dan and photographs by Phil, and they’re ‘world-building’ rather than taking things literally. They pick up on abstractions and less tangible aspects. There’s also a ‘soundtrack’ written by Dan in collaboration with Graham Langley of Savoy Grand.

We are also interested in digital experimentation and we’d love to make The ‘Moth into an even more multi-media project with moving image and an interesting platform – something much more than a bog standard e-book. But there are currently not enough hours in the day, nor money in the bank for this. So for this episode we’re mainly expressing our love of the printed book.

Darren: You could even say it’s more than a book at the narrative level. It’s two books in a way: two very different stories that become progressively tangled as you go along. Overall, I really hope the campaign is successful so that readers and art fans will have the opportunity to discover a unique book that goes way beyond the sum of its parts.

Kirsty: Many thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. If you like the sound of the project please help us out towards getting it funded. Even just sharing it and helping get the word out is much appreciated! Follow the hashtag #KickStartMoth.

Kirsty Fox is a social entrepreneur, writer and creative producer with Bees Make Honey Creative Community. Darren Simpson is the author of The Dust on the Moth. The Dust on the Moth is a collaborative project with an illustrator, Dan Layton and a photographer, Phil Formby. 

The Dust On The Moth on Kickstarter
Bees Make Honey website