Fata Libelli is a young, Spanish publisher of genre e-books. So far, they have released
Sui Generis (which includes
weird stories by
Quentin S. Crisp,
Reggie Oliver and
Mark Samuels) and
Hic Sunt Dracones, a collection of stories by
Tim Pratt (which I reviewed in Spanish a few weeks back). Their next ebook is
Ad Astra, another single-author collection
, this time with stories by
Peter Watts. Here at
Sense of Wonder we are
huge fans of this publisher, so it is an enormous pleasure to have our favorite collaborator,
Cristina Jurado, interviewing
Susana Arroyo and
Silvia Schettin, the girls behind
Fata Libelli. You can
read the original, Spanish version of this interview on
Cristina's blog,
Más ficción que ciencia.
Cristina: How did you two meet?
Silvia: I met Susana eight years ago, thanks to a common group of friends.
It may sound nerdy, but it wasn´t really this group of role players who made us
bond (we only played together once)
but the fact that we were both Philology students, interested in the Theory of
Literature. There was a time when we used to meet with other friends on Friday
nights to talk about the questions on our exams. Wild nights for Philology
students, but not what you expect!
Susana: I would say it was, eight
years ago? Thanks to common friends who used to play role games. We studied
Philology and loved to talk about Theory of Literature, so we quickly became
friends. The idea of start a business together was born years later, and I can
say it took as both by surprise.
C: A publishing company isn´t something one can start overnight. It comes
with an intense research in several domains: from the state of the art of current
publishing industry, to the laws about intellectual property and copyrights, as
well as financial and logistics advise. How did you create it?
Susana: The birth of the company was long and tedious. We have been both
working in translation and publishing, but had no idea how to start our own
company. First, we went through the legal formalities (all the paperwork to
establish the partnership, registration in different official agencies,
learning about tax issues, etc.) Then, we contacted legal advisors to
understand in detail all topics related to intellectual property and data
protection (in order to sell in Internet, and to send newsletters, one has to
guarantee the users´ privacy). Next we had to hire tax advisers to help us with
things like contracts, payments abroad, taxation and sales tax management (the
unfair 21% of sales-tax for e-books). Everything related to finances and
logistics was easier, because e-books don´t need much of an initial investment,
and they don´t need to be stored or distributed physically. We´ve invested
quite a lot of time in deciding the design of the books, trying to make them
recognizable and charismatic. I think it took us one year to give birth to Fata
Libelli and, even today, it demands a lot to eat.
C: You also publish a blog in which you address topics related to fantasy
literature. What do you think about Spain´s fantasy landscape?
Silvia: We started the blog because we wanted to write about fantasy
literature from a theoretical perspective, but without being dense and brainy.
We felt like exploring the genre using the essay form -that possesses us
sometimes- with a platonic enthusiasm (See? This is all a bit crazy…). The
issue of the state of the genre in Spain is one of those inevitable questions
that had been answered in many ways: a lot has been written about the lack of a
solid tradition –like in the Anglo Saxon market-; the shortage of serious
publishing companies; the fact that ours is a market niche with few writers and
less readers… In any case, it seems that in our days, fantasy is fashionable,
although this is irrelevant because fashion trends are temporary. The important
thing is what it remains when those trends leave: a fertile breeding ground in
which many new ideas, styles and genres can grow.
C: Is there any other publishing company that serves you as a model?
Susana: We deeply admire the Canadian ChiZine.
They publish books of great literary quality, offering carefully design
products, working equally well with paper books and e-books, and having been
able to grow slowly but surely. We also like Angry Robot because of its ability
to involve readers, and the courage they show when experimenting with new
ideas. There are other publishing companies we admire because they bet on
unconventional books, and because they win their readers over, like Chômu Press, Tartarus Press, Small Beer
Press and, of course, the fantastic Valdemar
in Spain.
C: The name “Fata Libelli” comes from a text by Latin Grammar
author Terentianus Maurus (II century). Each of the books you publish has a
Latin tittle. Is this a trick of mind domination that you perpetrate by using estrange
spells in classical languages?
Silvia:
As you can imagine I´m not going to reveal our master plan in order for
everybody to read it. So, I´m not going to answer this question neither in a
negative or affirmative way, but rather in an opposite way.
C: It is rather a cliché to ask an editor about preferred readings, fetish
authors, and favorite genres… Through the works that you publish in Fata Libelli
one can grasp the answer to those questions. I´m interested in discovering
something new, less obvious. What kind of literature do you avoid? (You can
uses as many examples as you wish)
Susana: I don´t avoid any genre or literary form, but it´s true that best sellers
–forged every season in the publishing world´s sweatshops- don´t interest me
much. If a book is well written, any theme, plot or genre can be appealing, and
time would not make its interest fade away, contrary with what occurs with fashion-dictated best sellers.
Silvia: I never avoid any kind of literature, exception made with anything that
has to do with Coelho. Of course, I have my favorites in literature. What
I can tell you, even though poorly -I´m afraid- is what attracts me from books.
There are readers that get frustrated with short stories or the briefest
formats because they always want to know more: what happens to a character when
the story ends, if he or she will have kids, if the marriage will work, why he
or she acts the way the story tells… I´m the opposite: I love the uncertain
sensation of having more questions than answers, to peek into the depths of a
world or a character, about whom not everything is being explained. I like mystery
in short stories and novels, regardless of the genre.
C: Which profession, different than the actual, do you think your work-partner
would most likely attempt?
Silvia: Susana is someone with so much talent, so intelligent and with an enormous
capacity to organize tasks; she could work in a thousand professions if she put her mind into it. And, all of them, at the same time! Even then, she would have
time to do more things in her spare time. Selfishly, I´m extremely happy that
publishing has recovered her from the perils of an academic life. Otherwise she
would have embarked in a wonderful venture combining literature and the digital
world. I can´t imagine her doing anything else, because I believe she was born for
this.
Susana: If Silvia wasn´t a
translator, I guess I could imagine her managing a vegetarian restaurant
located in a remote village in Galicia, lost in the heart of a mountain. That
version of Silvia would take care of
a dozen pets, while listening to heavy metal
and cooking recipes involving seitan
and tofu.
C: Is there a “perfect book” that you dream to publish?
Silvia: I don´t know if exists such a thing but, at the moment, I´m happy to see
how this project is coming about, slowly but surely. My emotions at this very
moment don´t allow me to think about the future (I just say “Azathoth,
Azathoth, let us live through this, so we can continue publishing books”).
Naturally in the solitude of my cave, I have crazy ideas, some unfeasible,
others maybe not so much. Lately, for example, I´m very interested in bilingual
editions. As I said before, I´m so busy at the moment and so excited about the
every day tasks of my job that dreams don´t keep me awake. The good thing about
digital publishing is that it´s a rookie, and its possibilities are still been
explored, so I hope we can continue experimenting as advances come along.
Susana: I don´t believe in the “perfect book”. But I have faith in e-books
standards evolving to a point in which they will allow more complex and
enriched reading experiences. Today, conventional e-books are merely code lines,
with some embedded styles and maybe some multimedia resources. I´m convinced
that, in a few years, we´ll be able to produce more beautiful and rich
commercial e-books that will work well in any device.
C: In Fata Libelli´s blog you have published a very interesting
entry on the Weird, an unfamiliar genre in our country. I would like to know more
about your personal opinion regarding this type of literature: how did you
encounter it; what attracted you in the first place; which authors do you
follow and why; and what interests you from the recognizable and yet bizarre
mix of references that the genre proposes.
Silvia: I´m not sure if it´s really unfamiliar, or it´s just that people don´t
associate it with the name. Lovecraft is very well known, and it was him
who coined the term and set the parameters. It doesn´t really matter. Labels are
an interesting intellectual exercise, even fun, but what it´s important is for
people to read Weird stories. In my case I must confess a weakness for horror,
the ugly sister of the fantastic three: ugly in sales, in readers and in
reputation. When I was little I read lots of adventure books but, when I
discovered horror, I devoured everything I could find, from the classics to
Gothic novels, contemporary horror and, of course, anything published by Valdemar.
I also waited Sunday nights to listen to a radio broadcast called “Historias”.
Gothic novels are all right but they present wear-out formulas (that´s why they
are subjects to parody). I read M.R. James, but I remember his short
stories in a different light. Poe blew me away. From there, I tried to
read more stories in the same style, from Le Fanu to E. F. Benson
or Vernon Lee. My answer is nostalgic but also honest. Not always it can
be rationalized what one likes, and I´m afraid of rationalizing too much my own
taste. I don´t want it to become an unconsciously cooked invention to please
the reader. I like, as I already said, a certain subtle estrangement, a bit
sinister and disturbed (or maybe revealing?), that the already mentioned authors
uncover in between the lines of reality.
C: It´s well know my weakness for a certain author of Weird, multi-tattooed,
voluntarily bald, with a PhD in International Relations an a very special
talent, responsible of making me pinch myself every time I read his stories so
I have to ask myself, am I dreaming? Jokes aside, I would like you to tell
–nobody listens- your meeting with Him. During the interview, what did surprise
you about him?
Silvia:
You know we share that weakness… with half the cyberspace! I remember a video
in which he was nicknamed “sexy beast”. It´s funny when I meet someone who
likes reading, but doesn´t specifically read fantasy, and has never hear about Miéville,
even if it has been numerous times in the pages of The Guardian. I think,
“it´s our secret!”
I asked him if I could interviewed
him by e-mail, so I could write a post for my personal blog, because I feel
comfortable writing and talking and because I never envisioned other ways of
interaction. He didn't accept any more written interviews because they take too
much time away from him, but he was open to other options. On the spur of the
moment I asked him if we could meet when I visited London. He told me he felt flattered
and I explained that I was planning a quick trip to London with my boyfriend. I
thought mentioning my boyfriend would make him feel at ease about my intentions.
Anyhow, the rendezvous was in a public coffee shop because, who knows the
intentions of my boyfriend. You never know!
I was surprised to see in him gestures
of Jack Sparrow. I thought he was really fun. And he is very tall. I
wanted to touch his biceps but I don´t think it could have been appropriate. Nothing
else shocked me much: I´ve seen many of his interviews, and he always behaves in
such a gentlemanly way, that I wasn´t surprised at all. Our meeting was an hour
long, only. There was envy from my part, because I really envy people who speak
eloquently in public, and anybody who has seen him in an interview knows that China
is like that. In addition, talking in a language that it´s not my native
language makes me look a bit silly. Simply talking to people makes me look
silly, so all that accumulation of silliness could have stained his imagine of
Spanish fans. The good news is that he loves to talk, and so it´s not necessary
for you to speak too much: if you frown like a Russian thinker, it appears that
you understand everything and you even look very intelligent.
It´s clear to me that he is an
extremely cerebral writer, who has a distinct idea of what he wants to do and
how: that it´s revealed in every of his thoughts about literature. But he is
not intelligent in a cold way: he exudes charisma. I loved the fact that he has
an Android as a cell phone. “Good, China, good”, I said to myself. I left that
interview with a master plan to become buddies with him, but I´m afraid, it didn’t
work.
C: Why in Spain there are less female voices in fantasy, especially in
science fiction and terror?
Silvia: I sincerely don´t know if I´m capable of answering this clearly,
but I will try to give my opinion. There have been numerous comments about it:
some say it´s a question of numbers, because there are not many authors, so
there are less female writers; some other say that there is not a lot of people
writing fantasy, much less women, because we don´t have the tradition of Anglo
Saxon countries; there is people who defend that there is less women interested
in science fiction and horror than men, and then they copy and paste a
biological explanation about it; others say that it´s a club of proud males;
some state that women are pushed to write fantasy because it´s what they are
good at, and that not many would buy a science fiction book written by a female
author. I´ve heard that there are women doing things in the genre but the
promotion is almost non-existent to prevent people from break away. I've also
heard that female characters in fantasy literature are so pitiful that nobody can feel the necessary empathy to get hooked, and I´m not even going to attempt
to answer those who try to define the genre. I honestly don´t know. Maybe the
best answer is a mix of all that and more things that escape my reasoning.
Nevertheless, the same thing
happened with the statement that “no girls play game roles” and now the number
of women in conventions is higher than years ago. I´m not comparing both things
but taking into account that fantasy imaginary is everywhere -specially in
audiovisual media-, the seed is been planted to see the rise of more female
writers. They also need publishing companies publishing and promoting them as
genre authors.
Susana: Fortunately in my working experience I´ve never encounter an
editor like that, but I´m afraid that type-casting is more common in the Anglo
Saxon publishing industry, where there are commercial subgenres with gender
defined audiences (I´m thinking "chick lit") and where companies take
those things into account when hiring authors. J. K. Rowling is the best example of an author who had to hide her
name at the request of the publishing company. Tim Pratt has also published novels as T. A. Pratt because his editors told him that urban fantasy novels
with a female character would not sell, if a male author wrote it.
This year in Fata Libelli
has published more male than female writers, but next year will be the
opposite. We didn´t plan it, we just look for authors that interest us without
taking into account their gender. In any case, it looks like the number of
female readers is growing every day in Spain, so the landscape will probably change
in the next few years.
C: We see lately many moves in fantasy collections, from the take
over of RBA Fantástica by RBA, what is happening with Timún Mas… how do you see the future of
the industry (not the literature) in our country at a short-medium term?
Susana: I think the future will depend on the patience of those companies
and their short-term profit expectations. This genre is, by definition, a
niche-oriented one, and everybody is waiting to see how it becomes mainstream
in the next few years, juts like it has happened with detective or erotic
novels, thanks to a handful of best-sellers. We are clear on the fact that
e-books and crowdfunding will allow the arrival of many indie projects,
oriented towards small genres. This is a kind of publishing that, even though
it will never be profitable on a massive scale, it will allow many minority
texts to see the light. The next few years are going to be really interesting
for the industry, not only for the more commercial projects but also for the
more independent ones.
C: High sales tax in e-books (21% in Spain), how does affect
profitability in a venture like Fata
Libelli?
Susana: If the sales tax in e-books hinders already profitability of any
traditional publishing company, in the case of digital businesses is a basic
problem. To be forced to pay 21% in taxes marginalizes e-books, compared with paper
ones (as if e-books were not cultural objects), increases the price and leaves
editors and the Spanish bookshops unprotected, facing companies who pay taxes
in other countries (Amazon is the best known example). We hope that, in the
short term, this situation will change, and e-books achieve the same status as
the paper ones.
C: What are you immediate projects?
Silvia: As you know, Peter Watts´s
book is about to come out, and also the Christmas special. We have announced a
short Lovecraftian anthology for next February with Caitlin Kiernan, Laird
Barron and Elizabeth Bear. In
April we will publish a collection of short stories by Reggie Oliver, for whom we care a lot because of his kindness,
craftsmanship and dedication to this genre, so particular and special. After,
although we don´t have confirmed dates, we will publish two collections of
short stories: one by Elizabeth Bear
and another by Nina Allan. All this
is what I can confirm (we have to sign agreements in order to tell more), but
we still “scout” around a lot. We would love to publish more hard science
fiction, but our search is been difficult. In the future we will like to work
with longer formats, even though we still believe in short stories and novellas
as a special part of our company. That is not going to change. More plans
require more investments; so whatever we can do in the future will depend on
the success of the company. We are patient, knowing that this is a long-term
project. Despite all, we are hopeful. Our fetish publishing company ChiZine said in the last WorldCon that
this is the first year in which they can work with the certainty that they will
no close. We shall endure!
About Cristina Jurado: Cristina Jurado Marcos writes the sci-fi blog Más ficción que ciencia. Having a degree in Advertising and Public Relations by Universidad de Seville and a Masters in Rhetoric by Northwestern University (USA), she currently studies Philosophy for fun. She considers herself a globetrotter after living in Edinburgh, Chicago, Paris or Dubai. Her short stories have appeared in several sci-fi online magazines and anthologies. Her first novel From Orange to Blue was published in 2012.
Ya está a la venta Verbum: Relatos fantásticos en español, la nueva antología de la editorial Fata Libelli. El libro se vende en formato digital sin DRM por 4,90€. 
