Growing up with Salt

Growing up with Salt Publishing. I really don’t know where to begin.

. . . It’s . . . Fun?

Saying that Salt doesn’t matter to me would be a big lie because it does mean a lot. It means a lot of things. It means that I can learn a lot about publishing literature like my mum and dad do. It also means that we aren’t ever going to have a massive amount of money. When I tell people that we have our own business they are usually pretty surprised that we aren’t rich. It only takes a sentence to explain why we are as wealthy as we are and that is “We publish poetry and short stories.”

Since before I can remember it’s been problem after problem after problem all the time. I daresay it’s getting worse but at the moment it’s pretty awful. A better memory I have is when I was about 8 and some boxes of books got sent back (we still had the office in the house back then) and dad let us destroy them. So we did, me and Kirsty, tore the pages out of about 100 books. I can’t really remember what books they were, but the torn, crumpled up space station cover is still a cherished memory.

Until the age of 6 I thought my dad’s face was the back of a computer screen, the way he was always hidden behind it. Now I’m blatantly smart enough to realise that his face is the back of his laptop. The sad irony behind it is that he left Cambridge University Press to stay at home with us and we still barely see him. My mum on the other hand is a total bad-ass rebel. She’s the type of person who’d steal a wheelie bin. The type of person who would point and laugh if someone got bird turd on their head. She’s been a brilliant influence on me, nice one mum.

As if my life could be any better, I have a brother and a sister who are both younger than me and both demand more attention than me. There is a major difference between the two. I can beat Cameron up, if I so much as poke Kirsty she will cry her eyes out. Cameron is going to be a drummer. Or a boxer. Or something else that involves primeval instinct and hitting things. Kirsty will definitely at one point or another get a book published, that’s obvious — She is writer material.

I on the other hand will grow up to be an ologologist.

It’s an . . . Ologist of ologies.

Or be an ologist of ologologists, which would make me an ologologologist.

It’s a very broad title.

But I’m keeping my options open. I think watching Salt grow has been a pretty cool thing to see, even if it is the literal equivalent to watching paint dry. Compare it to “How long it takes for a pea to explode if you stare at it without blinking.”

I think it’s been a pretty good experience, despite everything that’s happened. We’re staying strong thanks to everybody who buys books and so long as people keep buying them we’ll be fine.