Marzipan Books, anyone?

It’s time for a book update again. Yes, I realise this is dragging, but it feels like the end is nigh, or at least the book is near. Hold on in there. We’ve almost made it.

This week I saw the logo for my imprint name, and it is sooooo good. There’s those extra Os again, so you KNOW it must be epic.

For anyone who, like me six months ago, is unsure what an imprint is… an imprint is the name in place of a publishing company on self-published books. I am the publisher as well as the author, but I’d prefer not to put my name twice. It doesn’t look very legit, and this book is oh so very legit. So I get to choose a name. Yay. (In the case of solely e-published work this isn’t necessary. But in order to create real life paper books, an ISBN number is needed, and in order to get an ISBN number, a publishing name/imprint is needed. Anyway if you are interested in all that, you can read more here). 

I could have kept it simple and called myself Nicky Bond Publishing, but I wanted to get creative. To be honest I got very excited about the opportunity to think of a name which this, and subsequent books will be published under. Don’t worry, I did my research. I looked on my bookshelf, and made a note of other self-publishing imprints, to see the sort of thing other people chose. One author used what I am guessing are his initials. Another had what seemed to be a made up word, perhaps with a meaning only he knew. I read examples online of people choosing their home-towns or locations from their novel. It seemed there was an ‘anything goes’ mentality about it. It just had to be previously unused. 

I did the first thing that everyone should do whenever they have to think of anything. I made a list. I made a list of words and ideas that mean something to me, on even the smallest of levels. Words that evoke an image or a memory that I like. Simply put, as the song goes, these are a few of my favourite things.

• Black nail varnish
• Eurovision
• Battenburg cake
• Cheese
• Left handedness
• Independence
• Eighties
• Retro
• Tea
• Bond
• Brunette
• Charleston
• Gordon
• Nolan

I started to peter out around there. That list includes food and drink, family surnames, eras I like, and physical characteristics about me. It is as specific and as personalised as it gets. Yet, the minute I started searching the Internet, it seemed that a variety of permutations of each one already existed.

My first choice was Black Nail Books. I like black nail varnish. It’s just my thing. It felt like a lovely little nod to me, without it being blatantly about me. But as soon as I started googling away, there seemed to be all sort of literary uses of black nails, in book titles and publishing circles. I had to think again. 

It could have been so beautiful. Sob.

In the end, there wasn’t a lot of choice. Words like ‘left’ invoked a political slant to the publications, ‘cheese’ implied terrible writing, any real name had already been taken, and in the end I couldn’t bring myself to present my life’s work via a marzipan-based cake. It was all left to ‘tea’.

I think some background is needed.  Without realising it, I have turned into a bit of a Sally Albright when it comes to ordering a drink. Like a script, it is always the same. ‘Hi, can I have a large tea in a take away cup, with skimmed milk, please’. What’s so anal about that, you might ask?  Well, here’s the thing. I don’t take it away.  I sit in the coffee shop, bold as brass. I know! The madness. (It really does keep the heat better than a lidless cup. FYI)

Realising this had become a bit of a habit over the course of writing, I decided to work it into the imprint. (I edited most of this book in Costa. There was a lot of tea.) And so, after plenty more searching of domain names, and trawling the records of Companies House, I got there. My imprint name is… fanfare please... Take-Away-Tea Books.  I know.  Doesn’t it just trip off the tongue. 

Anyhow, all that was done and dusted a couple of months ago but this week, my marvellous design man at Portal - Design & Illustration asked me if I wanted a logo for it. I replied seconds later with a hearty Ed Milibandian ‘hell yeah’ and that was that. It was in my inbox a day later.  Isn’t it GORGEOUS.

The spilt tea is particularly
reminiscent of my Costa visits.

I’ll talk about the front cover another time, which is equally beautiful, but things are all coming together. After months of hanging around, I can see the finish line. 

Thanks for hanging around with me. 

Have a lovely week.