If you like what we do, you only have to buy one book to keep it all going …
Sadly, on 30th March 2011 Salt was informed it had been unsuccessful in securing regular funding from the Arts Council of England for its core publishing programme — our adult poetry lists, our translations, our children’s poetry publishing, our work with communities and writers would all have benefitted from sustained financial support. However, we respect the Arts Council’s decision and will continue to publish what we can financed from our own sales and your continued support. If you’d prefer to donate, rather than buy our books, you can do that here — this money will go specifically into developing our publishing programme and working with our writers around the world:
Salt has been running
its small family publishing business
for a decade now, during that time, we’ve
become one of the most celebrated poetry
and short story publishers in the world,
working with writers from Alaska to Victoria,
from Norfolk to Oregon, and a fair few places
in between. At times it’s been a nail-biting
journey. In independent literary publishing
the terrain is always mountainous, the weather
changeable and at times severe. We’ve
lost some good friends along the way — publishers,
booksellers, writers. We’ve found many
great friends on our travels, too. We’ve
also helped launch writing careers and we’ve
relaunched some that had been almost forgotten.
Great books, great writers, great booksellers,
great readers: Salt is dependent on them
all.
Today, Salt works with
over 400 authors and contributors and is
now close to publishing its 1,000th ISBN.
Our books are stocked in over 1,000 bookshops
around the world. We break new talent every
year, we publish translations and now we’re
moving into publishing poetry for children,
taking new writing into schools to help revivify
the art for future generations. You could
say we’re on a mission. A mission to
let poetry and short stories thrive in the
communities that love them. Writing, publishing,
needs those communities to survive. Communities
matter. This year we’re starting our
Salt Cellars campaign to reach out into those
communities, first in the UK, but we’ll
roll it out as fast as we can. Salt Cellars
are part of our future.
Big problems sometimes need small solutions
Like all small family businesses,
we find the commercial world is a tough place
to operate in, but we’re tenacious.
We face powerful competitors and we respect
them. We also face significant changes in
the world of reading: of course, we love
change and we love new challenges.
Here’s where you
come in. Salt is about readers. We love our
readers. Everything comes down to readers.
Nothing is more important and everything
is dependent on communities of readers around
the world. Dependent on you. You’re
the lifeblood of independent publishing.
Without readers it all stops. Without you
it all ends.
Salt does not receive
any regular funding, everything we do is
dependent on book sales; dependent on you.
For all its complexities and technical challenges,
all the repping and distribution, all the
designing, editing, nurturing, it all comes
down to selling one book to one reader. That’s
you. It all comes down to the simple economics
of just one book.
Help Salt survive and thrive
Last year we launched a
campaign to save us from ruin — you
saved us. We still need your custom us survive and thrive.
Last year, 2010, was our double anniversary:
ten years of publishing and twenty years
of Salt Magazine, to continue what we do
we need you to continue supporting our efforts
to publish the best poetry and short stories, great literary fiction and more.
We need you to buy one book, and to pass
that message on to everyone you know. Everyone
you know who might care about poetry and
short stories. We need your help right now.
Just buy one book and pass it on.
You can buy that book
from your local bookstore, for they need
your help, too. You can buy it from your
favourite online store: the Book Depository
will ship, right now, to anyone worldwide
for free. Or you can buy it direct from us,
we love that, we’re here ready for
your order right now. Just one book will
keep us going — and just one book will
lead us into our second decade of publishing
vital, beautiful, important, literary works.
It’s true to say that the future of
Salt is the future of just one book.
Why not Tweet about it?
The hash tag #JustOneBook can
keep everyone up to date with the campaign.
Or blog about it — you can link
to this page? Set your Facebook
status to point to this note. Anything you
can do to spread the word will help us continue
to thrive.
“Support
the good work here. Don’t
let Salt fall. If the recession is going to take things down,
let it be motor manufacturers, let it be bad banks, let it be
chains of fast food restaurants. We can lose a few of them, but
we don't have enough small independent and daring publishers
like Salt. I think I can be a little more forthright than Chris
and say ‘Just six books’. Buy dozens why don’t
you? It’s a great list. And apparently you will help the
economy in many subtle ways too complicated for studious folk
like us.” — Gryff Rhys Jones
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us