Martin Goodman’s Ectopia, originally published in 2013, has been republished as an audiobook that’s available on Spotify! It’s now massively accessible with powerful, dramatic narration that enriches already brilliant source material. Listen to the greatness in just a click – right here.

Pru, how are you? Introduce yourself!

Coming out of a post graduate degree in an uncertain industry has certainly been a little stressful but the determination I had during this production still remains the same. I’m a 23-year-old Northerner looking for ways to have the adventure of a lifetime doing great things!

Describe Ectopia to us in your words:

Ectopia is a reflection of what the world could come to in under 300 pages. Homophobia, hate crimes, sexual violence and nasty experiments. It also manages to pull through with an escapist romance in a post-apocalyptic world where science struggles to define humanity.

How does Ectopia benefit from an audiobook?

Ectopia is a very vocal, visceral book. Originally a movie idea, as I recall Martin saying. It makes sense to hear the emotions and feel what the characters are going through. It really makes you curl your toes and leaves you with a gaping mouth.

What’s a particular (spoiler free!) moment that benefited from being adapted into an audiobook and why?

There are many… ones that make you gag, and smirk and ones that shock you unexpectedly. In some ways, Ectopia reflects the unexpected reality of our present. The brother and father’s volatile relationship leads to a dramatic change in the book. I think that’s the moment that best benefited from being audio.

Could you tell us about the actors involved?

Emma and Dan brought everything an actor should especially with their own individual talents. Emma’s ability to bring such a natural delivery with the smaller part of Karen was great to record on the final day. She was really easy to get along with and communicate with which made my job easier. I’m glad I could give her a relaxing environment too.

Dan’s versatility and ability to evoke heavy emotions was stunning and I loved watching him from behind the studio. He was juggling both rehearsals for his showcase and this long production of Ectopia – so kudos to him!

How did working on Ectopia come about, and what drew you to the project?

This project was a key part of my MA Publishing Dissertation at Manchester Metropolitan University. There were editorial options and things relating to social media, but the fact there was an option to produce a full audiobook struck my eyes. I love production and it is a growing industry… I knew I would get the most out of it as well as get leadership and team working opportunities.

What was working on the project like and what was the process?

It was fun and exciting as I was bringing it all together and overseeing the flow of it which was satisfying. Like any other production, there was a lot of planning. Meetings with Martin on Zoom, talking about what we feel will do the book justice and how we can make it happen.

Being a student and a former user of a studio during my Bachelors, I contacted Raz our engineer immediately and was able to get the studio booked. From then it was a matter of auditions over a dozen actors from the North, all so amazing that I could actually give them feedback and keep them in my books!

Emma wasn’t needed until the end but we had our own little meetings. For me, Martin and Dan, we were able to meet for lunch and have a tour of the studio and begin production for 3 long days the day after.

Wrap up was kind of emotional but very relieving. I just wanted to sleep by then! It was making notes for the dissertation and keeping the social energy constant that tired me out the most… as well as the early mornings!

Dan had to shoot off to his showcase but we all got a nice picture together in the studio and then the rest of us went out for drinks… from then it was a matter of still checking up on the edits and proofs.

What was your favourite part of the project?

My favourite part must have been the auditions and letting the two know they got the part… its always those moments that get you excited for it all.

What was the most surprising part of the project?

Can’t really say… I wasn’t surprised we went over studio time and I wasn’t surprised it was a stressful process when things didn’t work out. It’s all a part of production and it was a matter of being calm and persistent.

What advice do you have for anyone looking to do audiobook production at a small publishing company?

Be ready to make things happen on your own. Unlike big publishing houses where money and space is more available, you have to make do with what you’ve got. More importantly, you can’t always guarantee yourself another gig so it’s always good to keep looking for other projects or even pitching your own to the publishing house!

Terrific early models of LGBT+ publishing came from the likes of Gay Men’s Press  and Naiad Press. Other houses, such as Peter Owen who brought James Purdy and Paul and Jane Bowles to the UK, or St Martin’s Press in the States, folded powerful LGBT+ writing into wider lists.

Barbican Press takes on that model. Here’s a look at our LGBT+ titles.

Two Polari Prize books first. Sarah Walton’s Rufius was longlisted for that prize. Rufius is a powerful Roman exiled to run the library of Alexandria. His penchant is taking a passive role with boys found on the street. Steven Saylor loved the book, but said it could not have been published in the USA. It breaks so many bounds. And it’s wonderful and ultimately very moving.

We first heard of Paul Harfleet’s gorgeous Pansy Boy when it was in draft. The Guardian featured it, a work of beauty looking for a home. It tells of a boy tackling homophobia by planting pansies, and includes lovingly drawn field guides to flowers and birds. One for children, but a beauteous book for adults too.

Maggie Hamand’s Virgin & Child, a wild and bold story of the first Irish Pope, explores a unique trans world. To say more is to give you spoilers. Colin W. Sargent’s The Boston Castrato gives a unique trans perspective too, looking at the life of the last castrato. Set in 1920s Boston this also takes us deep inside the lesbian world and circle of the poet Amy Howell.

For gay poetry, explore James Thornton’s Notes from a Mountain Village. A Pyrenean village gave shelter when James was forced from his country to be the way he loved, and the collection reflects this. You’ll find striking gay poetry from among the writing of ex-offenders too, Hope Walks By Me.

In Martin Goodman’s Ectopia, Steve is gay, sixteen, nicknamed Bender, and the twin of the last girl born on Earth. The world of that book is a London dystopia. High up in Andes, in a variant SF realm, the lead character of Martin Vopenka’s The Fifth Dimension explores his bisexual nature.

Coming up is Richard Zimler’s The Lost Gospel of Lazarus, which depicts the intimate bons between Lazarus and Jesus.

The Polari Prize shortlists used to be dominated by independent presses. Last year mainstream houses led the way – a cause for celebration, as it’s always good to have the mainstream behind you. We stay glad to be an independent home, a barbican, for LGBT+ work with an extra edge.

Nicola Solomon, who heads the Society of Authors, laments that well over 90% of the cover price for a physical or ebook doesn’t go to the writer (in an article by Alison Flood in the Guardian). The implication is that the publishers are at fault.

Having crossed sides recently, to add publishing to writing, I’d say she needs to shift her focus. To have any chance of widespread distribution for books in the UK you need to go through one of two wholesalers, Bertrams or Gardners. The big boys doubtless get deals, but the wholesalers’ standard discount is 60%, some portion of which is passed on to booksellers. You still need a distributor, so there goes an extra 10%. Out of a cover price of £12.99, that leaves around £3.90. Out of that, you need to pay for design, typesetting, printing, postage and packing, review copies, competition copies (and entry fees … £180 to enter the Guardian First Book Award, for example), and in my case I throw in my editorial and everything else services for free. You get to see where that 90%+ goes … and it’s not to the publisher.

The only way a publisher can possibly make this pay is by achieving economies of scale. Printing costs take a dive when you print 500 copies, so that’s the goal for a small publisher like ourselves to head for. It’s puny – but our whole financial planning is based on the fact that most Man Booker shortlisted titles have barely broken that 500 sales barrier when the shortlists are first announced. Committing to printed copies is also tougher since it’s hard to estimate the proportion of sales that will be derived from ebooks. Print in the 1000s and you get deeper discounts from printers and wholesalers. It becomes still more economically viable if you severely reduce the font size and so print fewer pages on poorer quality paper.

I was in Waterstones last week, browsing for a new novel to read. Many I simply put down because the font size was too small. At least as a reader I can make an ebook readable. Part of my policy as publisher at Barbican Press is to deliver what I wold like as a reader and a writer. So our print books look grand, they have a handsome font size and generous line spacing – they are physical objects a writer can be proud of. The authors get true buy-in with their cover design and how the book looks.

That’s important – authors put years of care and love and inspiration and craft into a book, so we give due honour to that. What do we pay? We’ve tried for more, though have settled on 10% of RRP (recommended retail price) on the print books. Sticking with RRP is something of a throwback position where most contracts are shifting a portion of net sales. My own contracts with the big houses had that 10% of RRP on hardback sales as the starting point, the percentage figure declining with volume and paperback, and that always seemed minimal to me so I don’t want to offer less. Other figures (print costs / typesetting / design / postage) are fixed so it seems fair that the author should have some point of fixed unit sale. And we don’t pay advance royalties. But you can see that leaves us with £2.61 per copy to play with, including printing costs etc. In physical book sales, the publisher is left with pennies at best.

Then why do it? In Barbican Press I’m providing what I felt the need of as a writer – a house that offers a home to real quality, daring writing that the big mainstream houses might not be able to risk. One writer pal lost her contract for her next book because her previous one had only sold 30,000+ copies: it sounds crazy because I would love such numbers but I can understand it. Margins are so horribly tight that with the likes of discount sales through Asda it becomes a penny business for all. I also provide what I want as a reader – the very best books I have read lately are the ones we are set to publish (great ones already out and ten in the pipeline for next year).

That’s the romantic side of it all. There has to be an economic side too. In 2014 we are investing in publicity for two titles: a major digital marketing campaign for James Thornton’s SPHINX: THE SECOND COMING and a publicity campaign for Kate Horsley’s THE MONSTER’S WIFE (possibly with digital follow-through). The hard-copy books are a lead: for reviews, for competitions, for those proud book-in-the-hand moments: a book as a luxury object. We distribute through Central Books and for the moment avoid the 60% Bertrams / Gardner discount – it would be good to be everywhere in Waterstones, but I know too many instances where small publishers have been killed when Waterstones has returned unsold stock. The wholesalers do provide our books, but not in great volume. We give bookstores a 35% discount so they have something to play with (and make more than the authors and us, for sure) and may well go the Bertrams / Gardner route in the future, but that would be because it offers returns in the current bookselling environment to the author rather than because it’s worth the risk to us. We are part of the Amazon Advantage programme. The main hope has to be in ebook follow-through.

For ebooks, our contracts give the author 25% of net income. RRP percentages don’t make sense because an ebook RRP doesn’t really exist: discounts are the norm and the hard copy book sets the discount point. As an author I’ve argued in public forums for a 50% net share of net ebook income and been shot down. Publishers told me that would be totally unsustainable. Now I am a publisher, I know they are right. The ebook is where all those editorial, design, typesetting and publicity costs – that sheer production factor of a book – can be recouped. There’s an argument for increasing that author percentage when production costs have been met.

The Waterstones branch I browsed in was in Trafalgar Square. That’s prime real estate and I was frankly surprised to see it was still in business. I wouldn’t bet any publishing business on the future of bookstores. I was in the store because I had gone into town without my Kindle and needed a book. I indeed bought one (Rawi Hage’s Carnival from Penguin, £8.99 in the store but it would have been £6.29 with my free Amazon Prime delivery or £4.32 on Kindle) because it seems immoral to browse books in a store and then save money online. In the end though I downloaded the Kindle ap onto my phone so I could continue reading the novel I had left at home: Robert Harris’s splendid An Officer and a Spy , RRP £7.99 but bought as a £1.99 ebook.

I used to love the books of Picador. Their books had the dare and flair I liked. John Calder, Peter Owen in this country, Black Sparrow Press and City Lights in the USA, those are models for Barbican Press. The Press reflects my editorial tastes … one of our authors recognized it as a blend of darkness and humour, which seemed astute. We are building a terrific list that features wonderful writers … and is for a large community of readers who should love us and spread the word once they find us. We are small enough not to need to compromise. Digital allows for international publishing. The plan is to transcend formats, flow with the best means of delivery, and focus on what publishing at its essence is all about – great books.

Martin Goodman    @MartinGoodman2

@BarbicanPress1