ESCP ALUMNI MAGAZINE - #189 - MARS/AVRIL 2020 - 25

CARRIÈRES  ❙ Parcours

I definitely left Lora Fountain agency in
2007, I focused on representing Englishspeaking writers.

How did Betimes Books start?
I started Betimes Books in 2013 while
I was still an agent. «Betimes» is an old
English word that means «before its
time». I started it within an Amazon
publishing program for agents called
White Glove. I was planning to publish
only a few books, some first novels,
because it became quite difficult to
find publishers for first novels after the
recession, which was particularly harsh
in Ireland, and of course in America
which were my main markets. I also
wanted to publish some unpublished
novels from established authors and
books that I wanted to restore and
to print. And I just got hooked and
published nearly 30 books by the end of
2018! So now, we have 33 titles available
from 16 Irish and American authors,
and more coming this year, of course.

and make artifacts available for their
intrinsic cultural value, regardless of
their commercial value. I must say, it
has been, from the start, quite a quixotic
venture, but I think only a philistine
would ask to explain the importance
of art in general and of literature in
particular. I think we all want to see a
future with books in it.
Also, the current mercantile
environment is very dangerous for
literature and for literary values. Books
and writers are increasingly reduced to
their marketplace value where, all too
often, profitability trumps artistic worth.
With the non-profit model, we do not
have to focus on short-term profit when
we decide what to publish.

How are you funded? Do you
receive help from sponsors?
It's been only six months, but we were
lucky enough to get a donation from
an American sponsor who wishes to

remain anonymous. We're currently
looking for sponsors. We're also
working on a project that I mentioned,
the first Betimes title which will be
translated from another language. with
the help of the French Embassy and
the Alliance française in Dublin and
hopefully the Centre National du Livre.
I wanted to translate to French because
it's a language and a literature that I love
but it's also the 50th anniversary of the
International Organisation of Frenchspeaking countries/ la Francophonie.
When I contacted the French Embassy
in Dublin, to talk about my plans to
publish translations from French, they
said : «Well, that would be great, and it
would be good to publish something this
year, which was a bit unexpected» I was
planning it for next year! But they were
so enthusiastic, I had a few writers in
mind, and when I suggested Dimitri
Bortnikov as one of them, this Russianborn French writer, they thought that
it would be brilliant because he's

And after six years of being an agent
by day and a publisher by night, I was
encouraged by the success of some of
my writers because I sold foreign rights
to the books I published in France,
Germany, Turkey, Russia, in Mexico, and
even in Mongolia!

What is your project with
Betimes Books? How
does a not-for-profit
literary press work?
The choice of the non-profit model
was motivated by several successful
examples of literary publishing in
America. It didn't exist in Ireland. My
philosophy is that the non-profit model
allows publishers to act as custodians
of great works of literature, in the same
way that museums curate, preserve

ESCP Alumni Magazine numéro 189  ❙  MARS/AVRIL 2020

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ESCP ALUMNI MAGAZINE - #189 - MARS/AVRIL 2020

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