Interview with Nicola Beauman: The future of Persephone

There is some rather worrying content in this interview earlier this month with Nicola Beauman, in which she indicates that the plan is to stop at 100-125 books....

http://forbookssake.net/2010/09/21/nicola-beauman-from-persephone-books-at-sw11-...

Also discussion about her views on feminism.

Thanks for posting this, elkiedee. Yes, it is very worrying. I can only hope that if Nicola Beauman throws in the towel, perhaps someone else will step in.

Hm - will they stop the shop, the reprints etc, or just stop everything?

I think we just have to wait and hope it doesn't happen, or that someone can take over if Beauman steps out, and will let it go. They won't get to 100 books until 2012, anyway - they're only doing 4 this year plus a diary I think. Just hope they go on to 125 books not 100.

Interesting write-up. I agree completely with this statement made by the author of the article:

"Maybe it says more about my own naiveté than Nicola’s stance on women’s issues, but I’d always assumed that a publishing house like Persephone, which has for the last ten years been seen as synonymous with promoting women’s writing, would have more of a clear and passionate position on on this topic. To instead have an apologetic tone, clichés about feminists being men-haters, and the insinuation that feminism isn’t compatible with having a husband and family was a disappointment."

#5> I agree with it too. Quite disappointing to realize she thinks that way.

I read the article and wondered if she just doesn't want to categorize herself for marketing reasons. Let's face it, the Persephone books are not feminist in the way Viragos are and she deprives herself of a sizeable group of women readers if she markets them as purely feminist. I have to accept that there are millions of young women out there in their Jimmy Choo shoes etc, who have no clue what it used to be like and don't care. These are the young women who will pick up a nice book in the railway station bookstore - but won't touch anything heavy or political. The same young women who read the book reviews in the glossy women's magazines and yes... the Daily Mail.

Whatever her thinking, I approve of her books and I hope she keeps publishing them.

The company needs to rethink its business model (if it has one?). For example, this month's book for discussion on their Forum is An Interrupted Life and they announced on Facebook that they have no stock and are reprinting it now, to be available later this year. You'd think they could at least align reprints with the discussion schedule. Hopeless!!

Wow, that's a bit silly! I meant to try and join in those discussions but forgot, perhaps it's just as well, as that's one I'd like to read but haven't yet bought.

So does this mean everyone should start snapping up Persephone's as fast as possible before they become prohibitively expensive collector's items?

#10,

I don't know, Mary but maybe we should buy lots just in case! I'll tell my husband they're an investment.

I have been slowly buying Persephone's with the dove grey covers for this exact reason :)

As for the article - “I am a feminist, but not maybe not in the same way that you would understand it ... We’re a feminist publishers, but not the kind that hates men ... Domestic fiction is about the ordinary and the everyday, and domesticity isn’t always compatible with feminism.”

Yeesh. I think that she is doing hard by women, feminism and domesticity if these words are anything to go by.

Domesticity and a family is, I feel, for a great number of people, compatible with feminism. She seems assuming that the people attending the Q&A have the idea that a feminist is a militant, hairy-legged, childless man-hater, which is never what 2nd-wave feminism was about in any case.

She assumes a lack of intelligence on the part of potential customers that I find rather galling, and if this is a marketing issue then that is no less patronising to Jimmy Choo collectors and Converse fans alike.

#12> Femme, I totally totally totally agree with you.

"We don’t publish books which empower women; we publish books which explain the human condition. Domestic fiction is about the ordinary and the everyday, and domesticity isn’t always compatible with feminism."

This is a fair and straightforward description of Persephone's identity and aesthetic ideals, which I admire, and I don't find it patronising. If one wants to read works featuring consciously feminist characters there are certainly plenty out there.

I'm glad Persephone exists, and understand the difficulties of running a publishing company and selling books these days. Nicola Beauman has a talent for finding these obscure pearls and bringing them back to life. I won't mourn them yet.

http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/letter/index.asp?LetterID=162

The latest Persephone letter is more substantial than usual and makes a fine case for the kind of domestic fiction they publish.

Ortolan, I think the concerns expressed are not about books about domesticity, most of the people who like reading these books and who post here like those. It's the idea that feminism is something else, that feminism has to involve a rejection of domestic concerns. Well, that's my problem with what NB says anyway.

#16 - elkiedee, you said it perfectly.

In fact, consider that NB's beloved Elizabeth Taylor has been championed by the self-proclaimed feminist press Virago for decades, as have many other female writers who focus on the domestic spheres and the minutiae of the personal and the everyday. Surely this indicates that a great proportion of modern, thoughtful, literary-inclined women do not consider feminism and "ordinary life" mutually exclusive.

NB doesn't seem to, which is why I found her response that “I am a feminist, but not maybe not in the same way that you would understand it ... We’re a feminist publishers, but not the kind that hates men ... ” patronising to her questioner and puzzlingly passive-agressive. One would expect a woman who attended the event to be a fan of the Persephone catalogue and POV. Maybe the questioner was a punk-rocker and had a shaved head? Who knows! ;)

In any case, amazon.co.uk is offering free shipping to Australia until May, so I'm off to buy more Persephones! :D