The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Literary Visionary: Aina Marti of Héloïse Press
In this episode, I chat with Aina Marti, founder of Heloise Press, who shares her journey from academia to independent publishing and how she's created a home for contemporary female voices from around the world.
• From academic roots studying Spanish and English literature to completing a PhD in comparative literature
• How reading Rachel Cusk's Arlington Park became an epiphany moment that inspired her to start a publishing company
• The clear vision behind Heloise Press: publishing contemporary female voices telling women's stories that other women can relate to
• Working across languages and the importance of building strong relationships between authors and translators
• Why many internationally successful authors prefer working with smaller presses when being translated into English
• The value of continuing to publish multiple books by the same author to help build their presence in new markets
• Creating a cohesive visual identity with distinctive book covers designed by Laura Kloss
• How small and medium presses are taking risks on unique voices that larger publishing houses often overlook
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Click Here to receive a 40% discount on Abandonment by Erminia Dell’Oro. The voucher code is bookshop to be applied at checkout.
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1:If you're planning on attending the San Diego Writers Festival on Saturday April 5th, look for me. I'm moderating a panel there. And on Thursday April 10th, I'll be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Edward Humes about his new book Total Garbage. He's a fantastic author and a wonderful speaker, so I look forward to seeing you there. The Lunch with an Author events in Santa Barbara are held at the Santa Barbara Club. Tickets are available for the Santa Barbara Lunch with an Author literary series through my website at wwwmandyjacksonbeverlycom. Forward slash events. These luncheons require reservations and prepayment prior to the events. I look forward to welcoming you to this warm reading community. For further information, please email me at mandyjacksonbeverly at gmailcom. That's M-A-N-D-Y-J-A-C-K-S-O-N-B-E-V-E-R-L-Y at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Now let's get on with this week's episode. You're listening to episode 287. Heloise Press champions worldwide female talent. Their careful selection of books gives voice to emerging and well-established female writers from home and abroad. With a focus on intimate, visceral and powerful narratives, heloise Press brings together women's stories and literary sophistication. Today, I'm in conversation with Aina Martin, their founder and publisher. Hi, aina, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2:Hello, mandy, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:I love the wall of maps behind you.
Speaker 2:Well, those maps actually are more like my partner's style because, yes, so he has a podcast in the news. So, yeah, he likes, he loves maps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do too. Well, let's begin with learning about you and your work in literature, teaching, translating, research and publishing. You have quite the literary academic background, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yes, my background is basically in literature and quite academic, so I studied Spanish and English literature at university in Spain, and then I moved to England and I completed a master in comparative literature. So so, basically, for those who don't know, comparative just means that you look at different literatures from different countries and different languages, and then I absolutely loved it. I loved thinking and writing about it and coming up with, you know, new ways of looking at the books that are out there. So I decided to continue with a PhD, which I really enjoyed as well. I think those were some of the best years of my life, to be honest.
Speaker 2:I had a good group of friends as well a good group of friends as well, and, yeah, so I just absolutely loved spending my day thinking about what I was reading, writing my thesis. So I was planning to, well, hopefully, find a job at university when I finished so that I could continue Rather than teaching. What I really liked was researching and thinking and keep breathing. So after I finished my PhD, I could teach for a couple of years at the same institution, but then I couldn't find a job in academia. In fact, here in the UK, a lot of language and literature departments are closing down, so it's quite dramatic, really, really extreme. Lots of them and lots of people are losing their jobs, so it's really a bad time to be doing this, to be looking for a job there, and that started, of course, five or six years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard about this, so sad.
Speaker 2:Right. So I finished my two years teaching there and then I just found a job teaching in a school. Covid came. So that was quite well. It was short, but of course we continued teaching online At the same time because I also had more time due to you know how, we just needed to lift back. Then I was also freelancing doing different things for cultural associations in the UK that promoted foreign literature, but mainly European literature. So if you could because I could read in a couple of other languages what I did is read the original and then we would have meetings to discuss if that could kind of be promoted amongst British publishers. Sometimes I just needed to write reviews of the book for different magazines that also focused on that kind of work. So that is where I come from. You mentioned translation, but I never translated literature. I had worked. I had done commercial translations for companies, but but not literally, not literary translations and from there you opened Halloween's Press.
Speaker 1:So what was the impetus, the drive behind wanting to open a small press?
Speaker 2:so then, um, if we just continue in chronological order, so when COVID finished I of course had a fine salary and I couldn't spend it during COVID just buying food, really. So I realized I had these savings there from that time, plus another very old bunch of savings that I had never used. Then I continued reading women writers, especially contemporary women writers, which partly it was related to this kind of freelancing jobs. I had reading manuscripts, etc. And I thought, well, many of these writers of books I liked haven't actually been successful amongst UK publishers, so they're still there to be published in this country. And I had this saving so I decided to do it.
Speaker 2:This is like the kind of more pragmatic version of it, but there is also a bit of a, an epiphany moment there, because I remember I was reading Rachel Kask, arlington Park, and that book touched me. You know when a story connects with you at many levels. So this book is about five women who are friends and they were all in their 30s just like me, and a lot of things of the book I could relate to, like, for example, where they lived in London. I had lived in one of the areas in London. Someone one of the characters had a job similar to one job I had done. So there were a lot of things that were similar and there were five friends and my PhD group of friends. We were five of us as well, five young women, but there was a main difference.
Speaker 2:It made me think a lot about my good times with my friends during the PhD, but the main difference was that in the Nobel they were all married and settled and not very happy, and the reason was that at some point in their lives each of them had made the bad decision. Like at some point you turn right or left and they just went you know something that the wrong way in the long term. So I thought I felt at that point in my life. I felt like, okay, now I will need to find another kind of more stable job, but what I really want to do is work with literature. So I felt like I was at that junction and I needed to make the right choice. I couldn't end up like one of those characters, so that was a bit as well inspiring for me to just go and say, ok, I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the regret about not trying something, not following that gut and heart instinct within you, if you don't give something a try that you kind of wish you had, it can almost be debilitating and traumatizing after you've passed through menopause and you kind of start looking back. I'm all for jumping in and trying whatever you can, because if you don't I know can only speak personally there's that emptiness within you and I don't really want to have too many ifs at the end of my life Now. Was it clear from the conception of Heloise Press which voices you wanted to publish and could you speak a little about why you were drawn to female writers with visceral and powerful narratives?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I think, yeah, I think that was quite clear, because when I kind of saw I say so because I really saw it, it was, it was quite the concept itself came to me, quite, you know, shaped. It wasn't a matter of thinking, oh, I want to be a publisher, oh, what could I do? Let's see if that's there or that's not there. No, no, no, the concept came quite at once.
Speaker 2:So the idea was and is to publish contemporary female voices and stories that kind of speak to women. So when I choose a story I find it very important so that it can be heard, gives me the impression women could relate to it. So they are women's stories, not only written by women but about women, and that is in terms of content. And then a style is also very important to me. So I kind of like finding things that feel a bit different. Some of the books I've published, in terms of the narrative, are more traditional, if you want to say, more conventional, but many of them are more striking. So I like this sense. I think that brings a sense of our times of modernity, and I like that because that press needs to be very, you know, feel very of our days, very contemporary, and I hope it does.
Speaker 1:And I think everything you said speaks directly to the book that I read of yours that you published, titled Abandonment, by Herminia Deloro, and it was translated by Una Stransky, who has also been on the show, and I'll put a link to her episode in the show notes. Abandonment is about a single mother's challenges during the outbreak of World War II in the Italian colony of Eritrea. I found it fascinating and it's a beautifully written book. Now, what have you found to be valuable skills you've learned in your past work, which you use daily at Eloise Press?
Speaker 2:a reader every day and I think reading is a journey. So I read since I was very, very little, because my parents both are philosophers and my my house was full of books always, and so I started reading very early and then, from my academic, it was just deepening that reading skills thinking, interpreting, looking at old books with new eyes. So I think all these kind of different ways of reading, very conscious reading, that's what I hope I do. I think that's what I do when I read manuscripts.
Speaker 1:Now, I just want to go back to a phrase you said that was so touching, and that is when you were talking about your parents both being philosophers. You said I grew up with a heart full of books always. Oh my goodness, that is just gorgeous.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about languages. You are proficient in Catalan and English, with elementary proficiency in French and German, and you're proficient in Spanish. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Spanish and Catalan are at the same level, just native, yeah.
Speaker 1:When you're reading for pleasure, is there a specific language you prefer to read?
Speaker 2:for pleasure. Is there a specific language you prefer to read? Well, it depends. So if I can't read the original, I need to just mention my French is way better than my German. So if the book is written in Cantonese, spanish or French, I would probably read the original. If not, I would read in English. A translation in English, I think, rather than a translation, let's say, in Spanish, I think, because I'm here in the UK, I'm more used actually to written English. Now, yeah, but I'm not sure I have. Other than that, I don't really have a choice a preference?
Speaker 1:And what about editing? Is there a preferred language you prefer to edit?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't really do the edits myself, because I always have an editor on board of a project, because I think being an editor is actually a profession, and you cannot even in your native language, you cannot have anyone editing right, you need someone who knows the craft. It's actually a craft and it's very important. What I do is so we edit in English for the press, obviously. So what I do sometimes, I mean I always read the final product. So when the translation or if it's not a translation, uh, the manuscript in english has been edited, I will go over it. Sometimes I have made suggestions. So, especially if I know the original.
Speaker 2:I remember with a french book, ultramarine, that we published the english translation. I met quite a few contributions. There was sometimes you have very interesting conversations going on between the translator and the editor on the choice of words, especially when the editor can also read the original, and in that case all of us could do that. So it was very interesting and there I would sometimes give my opinion, and there I would sometimes give my opinion, but I always respect the editors and the translators' choices, because that's what they do.
Speaker 1:I think it was early last year. I interviewed a translator and she was telling me that when she's translating a book, it takes her up to a year because basically she's writing a book, a book. It takes her up to a year because basically she's writing a book and often she has to speak with the publisher and the original author to figure out a specific word, and that's not something AI can do. There's a cadence to the writing.
Speaker 2:No, we don't work with AI. It's absolutely forbidden from Aries Press and I think all the people I work with agree with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good to hear. When I'm writing and I am struggling with a word, I often spend quite a bit of time looking at synonyms because you want that perfect word and sometimes it can take a while. I'm just not convinced AI can do that. I mean, that's just been my experience. Exactly convinced AI can do that. I mean, that's just been my experience Exactly. I'm a huge supporter of small and medium presses and I wonder how you see the role of these presses globally now and in the future of publishing.
Speaker 2:Well, it does seem that they are the future. Really Many authors have actually told me that as well. My experience comes actually more from talking to authors where, for example, with the foreign authors we have, some in their home countries are with very big companies. When they are translated they tend to not always, but it's quite common that they end up with a smaller press in the country where they are being translated and they all prefer that experience. So they are well, there is an element of the personal there because they know who they are talking to.
Speaker 2:The person there, because they know who they are talking to, there's less people in an office and it's just, I think, more pleasing for them. I think they feel it's easier that they might feel more respected or their work, their work is more like respected things, like marketing campaigns. Sometimes they haven't been consulted on that by big companies and they haven't really agreed on the terms, so they don't like you know what has been, um, yes, what the focus has been on, etc. Because you can alienateate an author, could feel alineated from their own work. So I think it's important to at least mention not all mind much, but some do and it's important that if you decide to focus, let's say, the campaign, on a specific part or concept of the book.
Speaker 2:There's a reason that we think about this, but you know, just explaining why to the author. Most of them will be very happy with that, but they need to understand what's going on with their work. Also, it seems that big corporations are very traditional and not very risk-taking when it comes to publishing new voices or things that are different. And then you find that the public really loves that, but there is, I suppose. Well, I actually don't know why. I don't understand why they would not do this kind of publishing.
Speaker 1:Which is odd in a way, because the big five publishers probably have the most money to spend on taking risks, being courageous. But in actual fact, what I have found is the small and medium presses and some of the imprints who are willing to take an unknown or, for that matter, a known writer's manuscript and work with them to build that relationship, to get them with an editor who they feel comfortable with. I'm finding that that is what is important to writers it is building a relationship with their publisher and their editor. The other thing you mentioned is the marketing. I think it is fair enough to say that these days all authors need to be involved in their own marketing programs, and maybe it varies from author to author. But if they're not involved with the big PR projects, then, even if it's social media, it's good to have that conversation between author and publisher to see what the author is comfortable with doing.
Speaker 2:In my case, I always talk to the author, so that's a conversation we have. I wouldn't just expect them to do things. It's my job to have the campaign ready and try to get the most of it. And then I talk to them and then we see. So it's always well.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think I had one case where she didn't want to be much involved. There was a bit of a language issue as well, but most of the times they are very happy. They want to sell their book and it's very nice because they understand that, being published in a different country, they might be very well known in their home countries, but being abroad is starting from zero. And I have this conversation, especially when I publish authors that are very well known in their home countries, and I know that because you need to manage expectations. A lot of people say oh, that's it, I'm in English now and you know that's it because it's the language that most people can't read. And the reality is it's going to be so hard to sell your books in the UK. It's going to be really hard. So you need to explain this and I find that younger authors, or newer, independently of their age, understand that much better and they are very active in, you know, doing all they can with us, of course, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've seen the same thing with the authors I've spoken with. I want to go back to something you said, and that is that it's your job as a publisher to come up with a marketing plan and to speak with the author to find out what they're comfortable doing to be a part of that marketing plan. I really appreciate hearing you say that. More and more I'm hearing authors feel distance between the marketing and the PR and the book. Now, some authors probably like that, but, as you said, if an author has been published in another country and they want to get published in English, that's a whole new ballgame and it needs a whole new marketing PR plan. I see the partnership between the publishing company and the author as a relationship, just as I see the relationship between an author and a book and a reader, and I think in some aspects, with some publishing companies, that idea tends to get lost in the business of publishing.
Speaker 1:Another aspect, and I feel an extremely important one, is the relationship between authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers. I've had authors emailing me or calling me and saying you know you talk all about independent bookshops, but I can't get my book into an independent bookshop. And I'll say to them okay. Well, where do you buy your books? Eight out of 10 times I'll say Amazon and I'll say, okay, well, part of getting your books into independent bookshops is about building relationships with the booksellers in those independent bookshops. Booksellers speak with each other all around the world. If one bookseller absolutely loves your book, they will talk about it with other booksellers and they will sell it.
Speaker 2:Yes. So bookshops are very important and the publisher also needs to. I mean, I'm trying constantly to increase my network of bookshops and, you know, make the tours bigger and bigger and bigger. It's very important. Booksellers are at the heart of bookselling. That's what they do. They sell books.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear about some of the writers and translators you would like the world to know about at Eloise Press.
Speaker 2:Well, I love all of them, I think now, because now it's 25, so we started publishing in 22, so it's three years. So this year, for the first time, we are having an author that we already published, because that's one of the things I wanted to do is try to keep publishing the same. It's really hard to become known in a foreign country, so I think you need to keep building that profile by just keep publishing them. So that's exciting because for the first time it's happening this year. This is Laura Vogt, who is a Swiss author. Author, and we published her book in 22.
Speaker 2:What concerns us was her second book, written in German, and then we are publishing her third book. That will be our second in September, and it's really nice because you also know the author and what. And it's nice because it's like now working with someone you already know. She was here for a tour as well. She has the same translator. That's something I like to do keep the author with the translator. Unless something went terribly wrong, which didn't, because the translator knows that work, that author. The author needs to trust the translator. It's a very important relationship and when it has worked well, it can't just go better, it only can go better. So that's nice. So I'm looking forward to see how having the next book of Laura out will also kind of push the first one right, because, as you know, the backlists are important.
Speaker 2:Yes and build, you know, a wider readership for her. And then so that's something I'm excited about Next year in 26,. We are doing the same with two other authors. So one is Erika Moo, an Italian author. That was the very first book we published in May 22. It was Thursday. Sea is still is a book people have loved, is amazing, and it was her debut as well in Italian. And now she published in 24 the second book and we are publishing it in 26. Another one in 26 that we published in 24 is Swedish author Hannah Nordenhoek, which Cesaria, which is actually published in North America by Book Hack Press, who are a Canadian, america, by Book Hack Press, who are a Canadian publishing house. So we are publishing her new book Also, again, all these three authors have the same translators. They all have an excellent relationship with them, so it's really nice.
Speaker 1:Well, that's fantastic, and I'll make sure to put links to your catalog in the show notes. Now tell me about your book covers, because they are extraordinary. I absolutely love them.
Speaker 2:My book cover designer is great, so she is Laura Kloss, and when I started putting the press together I had no idea, because I don't design myself.
Speaker 2:So, and I couldn't really but I can't draw a house, I mean. Anyway, I was thinking how should I do that? Because I thought I could ask other presses about the designers they work with, and I did with one, but then I wasn't. I knew the kind of a style I wanted in the covers and I wasn't too in love of any covers that you see out there. So anyway, I decided to just Google, look for designers in my area, and then I came across three designers that did just product design for different all kind of things, not for books. So yeah, so those three I like the most and then I talked to each of them and with Laura, I think her designs were the ones that I really liked and and she had, I remember, thinking she had designed beautiful logos for things like Fijian ships shop and I thought, if you can make that so beautiful, you know if you can really make that concept so beautifully.
Speaker 2:And for many other companies and for many other companies, and I said to Laura, we started with the logo. So I said, look, that's what the press is going to be, that's the concept, that's the name. Perhaps we could see how the logo goes and then maybe see if we could try a first cover etc. So the logo, I loved it. I mean she sent me several versions. I really liked it. I thought it encapsulates what the press wanted to be and so we move into the first cover. And she just did that and she understood perfectly well, because the printer where you print the books sends you this kind of instructions I cannot read oh, I hear you.
Speaker 1:It's like a whole different language.
Speaker 2:It's so complicated yeah, she had never done a book cover before, but she understood everything perfectly and the design actually thirsty sea, which was the first cover. I think people, people, loved it because you find on social earth people mentioning how they took the book because they love that cover and then buy the book and then loved it, and so since then I stayed with laura because, also, she's a great person to work with. So she does absolutely everything. She did the, so she does absolutely everything. She did the website. She does the catalogue every year, the cover, so everything is one person and all organic.
Speaker 1:And that's what brings everything together. There's a cohesiveness about everything that you do, from your website to the book covers. Yes, yeah, let's talk about you and reading. What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2:So I'm reading two books. One is Kairos, which won the International Booker Prize last year, and the other one is Barbara Pym. So I'm reading this one because there is like well, the book is Excellent. Women, you know, these days there are like revivals of older female writers that are being republished and rediscovered. So I'm reading these two books.
Speaker 1:I haven't read a lot of her work, but I need to read more. People seem to love her writing. Now, how do you see Eloise Press in the future?
Speaker 2:Now, how do you see Eloise Press in the future? So I would be very happy if that was possible. But I think the press, as I said before, since the beginning it was very clear what it would be and I keep thinking the same thing. So, yes, it would be just a matter of growing really.
Speaker 1:I know you've built something quite remarkable. Eloise Press is fabulous. For anybody interested and I hope you are, you can get a discount on the book. I spoke about Abandonment and I will put that link in the show notes. The book is titled Abandonment, by Herminia Deloro, and it's translated by Una Stransky. I loved this book. I think it's fabulous. Ina, thanks again for being here today and I wish you and Eloise Press continued success.
Speaker 2:Thank you, mandy, it's been really lovely.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Ina Marti, the founder and publisher at Eloise Press. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show, and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson-Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrienne Otterhahn, and graphic design by Frances Barala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time. Bye.