Pressing Matters: Interview with Tramp Press

“The great thing about publishing is it’s not rocket science. You fi nd authors, you edit the crap out of them and you put out a great book. Then you get people to read it. That’s it in a nutshell.” smiles Sarah Davis-Goff, one half of new independent publishing venture Tramp Press.

Sarah met fellow Tramp – and former Hot Press-er – Lisa Coen when the two were working in Lilliput Press. A desire to establish the literary equivalent of 4AD records, the storied UK indie record label, and a mutual adoration of the written word spurred them to create their own publishing venture.

“The problem a lot of publishers have,” explains Lisa, “is that they’re very big and are trying to diversify by absorbing other imprints and be seen to be publishing all kinds of titles. Also, perfectly good books are rejected on the grounds they’re not commercial enough.”

With this shared vision and some Arts Council funding the pair will unleash the independent company’s inaugural title at the end of March, followed by two further works of fiction later in the year. The first offering is the debut from Oona Frawley and is titled Flight.

“It’s an Irish novel, set in Dublin,” says Lisa. “It had done the rounds and been rejected. Some of the feedback was quite alarming; ‘It’s not Irish enough.’ ‘It’s not on a farm.’ ‘It’s not in the Gaeltacht.’ Basically, ‘It’s not John McGahern and it’s easier to sell this abroad if it’s more of a cliché’. The reality is, with good readers, if they fi nd a book that they love they’ll read it.” Tramp Press is committed to reading all manuscripts it receives and replying to each within a reasonable time period, a practice that seems to have fallen by the wayside in modern publishing where many submissions go unopened. Sarah is all too familiar with this scenario as she was the person that discovered Booker Prize nominee Donal Ryan.

“Yes, that’s my claim to fame,” she smiles. “I’ve been riding on poor Donal’s coattails for way too long, it’s a little embarrassing. All I did was find a good manuscript and not cock it up basically! He’d had in the region of 50 rejections, which is not uncommon. His sense was often that it hadn’t been read or anything more than the first couple of pages had been skimmed.”

So what key problems in Irish publishing is Tramp addressing? “One is diversity; most publishing companies are run and owned by middle-aged men,” Sarah notes. “Another thing is we need to react to talent more quickly because we have no one to please but ourselves and nothing to do but publish brilliant books without any other consideration. Also, many publishing companies have quotas to meet and can rush to fi ll them. If we don’t fi nd anything great to publish next year we won’t publish anything. We don’t want half-measures, we want brilliance. I’m hoping that, as we build the brand over the coming years, we’ll be recognised for that.”

Tramp Press’ first title, Flight by Oona Frawley, will be out April 3. For more information see tramp.ie.