A.B.C. Editions

Artists Bistro Café (A.B.C. for short) got its start some 15 years ago. I had one author to publish: myself. Having come to accept that my humour and interests were evidently too far removed from the well-trodden paths of commercial appeal to merit any established publisher’s time and investment, I decided to take things into my own hands. 

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I was right to do so. After all, acquiring editors aren’t looking for outliers; they’re looking for guaranteed bestsellers. Poor souls, it keeps them up at night, the woe that so few books become chart-topping sensations, overnight darlings and household names - those prized, once-in-a-blue-moon godsends so vital to keeping big-time editing houses in the black and (more importantly still) to underwriting year-end bonuses for (should they be so lucky) acquiring editors. 
 

The hard truth is this: in the real world, few books reach the stratospheres; a good many struggle to break even; some bomb completely. 

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But that’s publishing. At best, the majority of books published today will be limited to small print-runs, find but a small readership, and remain in the shadows of relative anonymity... unless by some off-the-cuff fluke their innate, quirky qualities get miraculously discovered and earn their authors a wider audience. 

 

(Whenever my perennial optimism starts to flag, I shore it up with the story of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ;-)​

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Which brings us to today. For years, I’ve cheerfully entertained myself with daydreams of eventually enlarging the scope of A.B.C. to publish other obscure authors like myself. Wouldn’t that be fun, I’ve mused, to work with likeminded souls eager to bring their unique vision to book-bound pages! 

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Today, though, I am older and wiser - wary of headaches, legal wrangles and burdensome disputes (vexations I can do without), and unhappily forced to debate whether what I am reading was surreptitiously authored by A.I.  No longer easy-going affiliations couched in plain-spoken trust and straightforward handshakes, business relationships are now governed by Byzantine, clause-ridden, lawyer-drawn contracts; our world’s creative waters are muddied; things have been changing...

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For those reasons, insofar as publishing goes, A.B.C. Editions is happily set to remain a one-author-show. I owe it to myself to preserve my peace of mind and content myself with writing. But I am always open to speaking with likeminded souls who are eager to bring their unique vision to book-bound pages. If you resonate with that, and you would like to talk about your work with someone who genuinely cares about books, please feel free to contact me. 

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