Phoenix Ark's Blog

Well, we are now reading the bestselling eBook author John Locke, at Phoenix Ark, and it is bringing up many things, and not in fact our breakfast! Written in that ‘can-do’ American style, unashamedly sales orientated and brash, it does make some vital points. firstly it is completely in favour of eBooks and ‘self-published’ authors, in the face of a huge Publishing hypocrisy out there, and frankly, how can you do the thing at all if you’re not? So while Phoenix Ark has shared some authorial pain and indignation, perhaps that needs to stay inside book covers now, because what we really want to share is the success and the quality of our eBooks.

Secondly, it always reminds the writer of the reader and what they and you want to see and read. It is why the founder David Clement-Davies is announcing that as a writer he is turning back to what he does best, his ‘brand’ if you like, and that is fantasy epic and vivid animal stories. It is why Phoenix Ark have just published Michelangelo’s Mouse, which really contains the spirit of the whole big adventure and why we will publish Scream of The White Bear this year.

But Phoenix Ark Press itself has a brand. That brand is always GREAT STORY, and why we call ourselves the Storyteller’s Publisher. It really is built by artists and writers, for artists and writers. As a result what we are selling is hugely readable, page turning fiction like The Blood Garden and Ice, both very adult novels, but with a highly imaginative, even literary edge. That word ‘literature’ can put so many people off and yet it is only the life blood and tradition of great storytelling, and if the story does not work then the book will not work. Do check them out, under our Thumbmarks label, because you can’t know until you try and we always want to hear what you think.

The final thing is we love your engagement and very much want to hear from you. So please press those Like buttons, but also just contact us directly at the blog with thoughts, comments and reviews. Our writers are nothing without their readers. More John Locke thoughts to follow, positive and negative.

Phoenix have worked out the current issue, where’s the fun in it all? The joy, triumph and laughter. Whether a book contains dark or light, sorrow or joy, or the texture of all those things, writing must be fun and that’s the essential pact with readers too, who share imaginative vision, writer to reader, but very much at one remove, because a book is a thing in itself. So Phoenix Ark are all going to have much more fun, come what may! The burst of fun started with Michelangelo’s Mouse and is currently on it’s way with The Pimple Club and a French Revolutionary spy story.

We’ve just downloaded kindle for pc, instead of racing out to spend £150, which again underlines that ‘readers’ are nothing at all but little platforms, though the success of actual kindles is because people like to have a ‘thing’, just like a book. But access to the story could be from anywhere, laptop, pc, mac, home computer or physical, portable readers like a kindle, nook, Ipad, etc.

It is a complete nightmare for ‘professional’ writers and for publishers too, because it has thrown open the doors to so much product, how does anyone choose? But it underlines what professional publishing is, so much about design and marketing now, most vitally getting books known and talked about. But with readers leading the field in America, publishers are in turmoil, wondering what to do.

What they should always do, as Macmillan did in fighting Amazon’s attack on pricing, is hold their own and their ground, and keep on believing in great story and writers and artists too. Because in the end it is the powerful stories that readers will turn back to, however they get to them and feel most comfortable enjoying them.

The BBC’s documentary Fake or Fortune was another telling case of the worst side of Culture, not this time in publishing, but in the Art world. Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce took up the case of a reputed Monet, which for years the owner has been trying to prove is authentic. In the end the evidence was almost incontrovertible, backed by several international experts, yet when represented to the all important Wildenstein Institute it was rejected almost out of hand, because, it was claimed, Wildenstein’s father had seen the painting and dismissed it as a Monet, so there could be no argument. As the ironic poem has it ‘and what my father used to say, and what my father used to say, and what my father used to say, is good enough for me!‘ As if anyone was infallible, except naturally The Pope, the shock of it is that even in the face of such clear and public evidence, the ‘powers that be’ seem to hold the field, without any embarrassment, underlying it seems to us it is not about truth, nor the deeper spirit of art, but the Establishment, which in their day the greats were usually at war with, and most clearly dominance, power and money. We wonder how the fight can go on, because it certainly should do, and the BBC should back it. Philip Mould, always a deeply sensitive commentator, was quite right to confess his shame at that side of the business, and Phoenix Ark wonder where the real commentators are, although books and stories are far more personally judged, and where the scandal-exposers are too on what is continuing to happen in modern book publishing as well. Oh yes, at Phoenix Ark Press, we hope.

There were two important programmes broadcast last week, that showed some rather extraordinary and very worrying things. The first was the shocking John Snow documentary on the civil war in Sri Lanka, that ended in 2009, and cases filmed on mobile phones of clear murder and atrocity. Terrible enough in itself, and in support of the enquiry blocked at the UN, what was also extraordinary was that such an important programme was broadcast so late. Twenty years ago such a vital report would not have found such bizarre scheduling, but would have led mainstream broadcasting. Perhaps everything is being sacrificed to entertainment.

The second programme was Jammie Oliver’s Food Revolution in America. We know Phoenix has a gripe against American bullying, out of an individual publishing battle, in no small part because it is so out of step with those great ideals America claims to represent, like freedom and especially freedom of speech. However, Jamie Oliver’s battle with the LA school system was deeply worrying, and especially their complete lock down on his own freedom of speech, linked to the revoking of filming permits. The rest of the world knows about the health problems related to American over consumption, especially in fast food, and the programme may have been trying to play that paradoxical game of coverage and even celebrity, but it was committed and sincere.

How exciting, within just five days Michelangelo’s Mouse by David Clement-Davies has jumped to 22,000 in Amazon Kindle and number 7 in Music and Arts. It’s publication in this format has not been ideal for the author, fans or in fact business either, but perhaps something can happen, writer power to reader power, to shake up the utterly cynical system and remind the giants what it’s about, great stories. It’s certainly taken the kind of determination that Jotto, the little mouse with the leather waist-coat and sea-blue eyes, shows in Michelangelo’s Mouse! We’ll keep you posted, and maybe we can save a few careers…