Teckle Books - A funny publishing company interview

Teckle Books is trying something a bit different in the world of publishing. It's still outputting words on paper, so nothing out-of-the-ordinary in that respect... what is notable is that it's a publishing company just for comic prose... one set up by comedy fans, for comedy fans.

Teckle's first offering was The Tartan Special One, a football-based tale that 'asks the big important questions and a load of wee shitey ones as well.' Praised by Christopher Brookmyre as 'by some distance the funniest book I've read in years', it grew out of a surreal internet message board post mocking a footballer's dull blog.

The company's new product is Clubbed To Death, a humour-packed story set around about a struggling nightclub operating in a small post-industrial Scottish city. Can Club Quantum rise above organised crime, adverse local press, Savile-worshipping DJs, pseudo-intellectual bouncers and borderline-sex-pest barmen to become a success story?

Barry Phillips is the author of The Tartan Special One, whilst Teckle founder Grant Hill is the man behind Clubbed To Death. As you'll discover if you read on, the duo clearly have humour tattooed onto their bones, but - whilst primarily being funny - there's a serious idea behind the company.

Grant, could we start off by asking you to introduce yourself and, in the process, let us know your favourite books, as we think that acts as a good judge of character...

Grant: Je m'appelle Grant. J'habite a Dundee dans le nord-est de l'Ecosse. j'ai deux ans. Ou est le plage? The first two parts are correct but I bunked off French class a lot at school and never learned to update my biography or expand upon the one additional phrase that stuck with me. Thus, the only women I could ever impress with my language skills were paedophiles with a penchant for building sandcastles with their victims.

I judge a comedy book by the number of times I need to take my inhaler while reading it. Neil Forsyth, John Niven, David Nicholls, Frank Skinner and Bill Bryson have all scored highly in this regard but I can honestly say no writer has taxed my lungs so much as Barry. My wife banned me from reading early manuscripts in bed because she couldn't get to sleep for me laughing so hard.

Barry - same question to you. Who are you, and what have you enjoyed reading please?

Barry: I was born in a crossfire hurricane... the same adverse weather conditions that spawned Mick Jagger, as detailed in the Stones' Jumping Jack Flash. I blew north to Dundee after passing through Dartford, and here I am. I still speak to Mick on occasion. Usually he'll run ideas for songs past me, and I'll reply, "Give it up, you face-like-a-melted-wellie cunt. Enough's enough. Regards to Keith."

Loathed though I am to inflate his already considerable ego, I have to say Clubbed to Death had me laughing out loud on several occasions. This is a rare skill in a writer. I can often read "funny" books without passing more than a mere snorted exhalation of general amusement. One particular scene in CTD had me in such a condition that I was grateful I do a great portion of my reading on the toilet, because I quite literally was pissing myself laughing. Beyond that, I found the recent Morrissey autobiography to be hilarious, though I'm not sure that was written to be intentionally so.

Great, thanks. So how did Teckle Books come about?

Grant: I'd been trying to write sitcoms for a few years and myself and a mate had put together scripts for a series about two guys with one dream and no clue who buy a nightclub. This was Clubbed to Death, which eventually became my first book.

As the aspiring comedy writers on BCG know, a patronising 'it's good, but fuck off and don't bother us again' response from the BBC or a production company is about as good as it gets. The odds of getting your script picked up are about the same as for finding Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling enjoying a picnic on Hampstead Heath while absent-mindedly stroking each other's thighs.

Being white, Scottish and lower-middle class I obviously feel an affinity with rabble-rousing African-American rap troupe Public Enemy and the line from Burn Holywood Burn, 'So let's make our own movies like Spike Lee' always stuck with me. At that time, there were a few internet sitcoms like The Burg springing up and I tentatively looked into making one but being a technophobe I've never really understood what the web is for other than wanking.

Fate then entered the fray and threw the two of us together. When I say 'fate', I mean Barry's cousin, Boab, who's been a good mate of mine since school and who I was meeting in the pub after another fisting for our team, Dundee FC. Barry was with him and I asked if he'd ever done anything with this brilliant blog he'd written a few years back, and thus found out he was experiencing some of the same frustrations as me.

Barry: Teckle Books were the publishing company with the melon-sized testicles to make me a published author. I started writing on a football forum in which a thread had been created to take the piss out a blog on the BBC website by Leigh Griffiths, star striker at the time with Dundee. Leigh's blog was rather dry and boring. I decided to write an alternative version that offered a somewhat more surreal take on life at Dens Park. The blog's popularity snowballed and went viral within Scottish footballing circles. It reached the point where I learned celebrated Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre was a fan. I called him out online and was rewarded with him offering me his home phone number.

This led to me picking up the phone and offering the slightly odd introduction, "Christopher Brookmyre? It's Barry from the internet." Credit to him, he didn't bat an eyelid. Among the great deal of praise and support he offered was an introduction to a publishing executive in Glasgow, a man who said that he loved my work but couldn't possibly publish it as it was the most libellous thing he'd ever seen. I took that as a great compliment. Having given up the idea of having the blog published, Grant then stepped in one fine afternoon in the pub and we started making plans to make my crazed internet ramblings into something you might find in book shops.

Grant: I thought more and more about it and couldn't believe no one was willing to take a chance on this brilliant, surreal, hilarious work with thousands of fans around the world and decided, fuck it, let's make our own books like Spike Lee's whiter literary equivalent.

Was it a financial jump to set up, or relatively straightforward?

Grant: I had a few bob in the bank from selling my flat so that took care of the financial side of things. I spoke to a couple of people about the mechanics of producing a book, called in some favours and bitch-slapped Barry until he learned the meaning of the word deadline. The hardest part of producing a book is the writing and, to a lesser extent, the editing. Otherwise you're putting together a to-do list and ticking off items in the right order. I'm not saying that's easy or it won't take your life over, but it's something most people could manage with varying degrees of success.

If we stopped writing potentially litigious books we could possibly save a fortune on legal fees, although the lawyer's letter is always worth reading. "The bit where the character alleges Lorraine Kelly slept with Gentle Ben is fine as it was only a dream"... "The character threatens Scouting for Girls with death. Fine. I fucking hate them as well"... "Jimmy Savile stuff is offensive, but totally okay with me" etc.

Basically, I would say to anyone considering going down this route to think very hard about every possible expense you'll encounter and minimise costs wherever possible. There's a lot to think about but it's definitely doable if you've got a good enough book and have an innovative way of getting the word out.

Also, get the book proofed, proofed and proofed again. People started pointing out errors that had crept through to the final draft the day after I ordered a second run of 1000 books. eBooks are much more profitable but I'm still a fan of the physical product and probably wouldn't go digital only.

Barry: My only risk was being disowned by my family upon them reading the book. My granny made it four pages in before suggesting my being 36 didn't mean it was too late to put me up for adoption. I'm not sure what my mum thinks of it, as she now bursts into tears every time I see her, making it difficult for her to offer a reasoned critique.

Ha ha. There are loads of other publishing companies out there already. Did you really need to set up something new?

Grant: Firstly, there's no other publishing company dedicated entirely to comedy books. Secondly, that might be a load of shite because we don't really know what we're doing and have very little understanding of how the publishing industry works. This is a DIY operation and the less we know about orthodoxy the better because I think it's inevitable that way of operating will infect your own thinking, whereas we're trying to find our own way of doing things through trial and error.

Barry: Grant and the Teckle Books operation have a very punk rock, 'fuck the mainstream' kind of attitude. It's the kind of approach I felt I could get onboard with. All the major decisions regarding setting the company up and writing the book were made in the pub. No contracts were signed, we just talked it out and shook hands on it.

My advance was a pint and a bag of crisps. Not even good crisps formed of potatoes hand-reared on love and readings from the Guardian in idyllic county meadows, I'm talking the cheapest ones behind the bar here. The biggest selling point for me was total creative freedom to write what I wanted. Excessive use of the word "cunto"? No problem. A character with a giant penis? Go for it. An orgy scene in which a lesbian darts player finds a teammate's foot lodged in her vagina? To be expected. The sordid depths of my imagination were left to be explored without restraint.

Grant: Have you noticed that the format of this interview is exactly the same as the Daily Sport feature where they prompt two girls off the street to speak to each other about all the filthy things they get up to?

Barry: I have, Grant. So, have you ever got involved in any girl-on-girl action?

Grant: Of course I have! It's soooooo hot when being with another girl. What about you?

Barry: I was in the pub toilet powdering my nose recently and this really hot chick came in, grabbed me and just started snogging me. It was great and I totally would have gone all the way with her if my boyfriend wasn't waiting for me upstairs.

So, um... no, we've lost our train of thought. Er, pulling a random question out of the air then: You've been running for about a year now. How's it going?

Grant: We broke even, which was the first objective, and made a few quid each on top of that. I put it into the production of Clubbed to Death, while Barry invested heavily in the black market and has a deviated septum and genital warts as a result.

Anyone who wants to be a writer should be under no illusions about the riches waiting for them as soon as they're published or have their work appear on the radio, screen or stage. You have to start out scribbling away because of a passion for writing and if you can ever join the miniscule ranks of those making a living from writing then fair play.

In terms of challenges, some would argue the self-publishing platform and worldwide marketplace provided by Amazon is revolutionary. People can make up their own minds, but in my experience they're cunts of the highest order. Bookstores have become more risk-averse in response to Amazon's domination and less susceptible to a "my pal's books is fucking brilliant, you'll need hundreds of copies" pitch.

Barry: In terms of writing, the challenge for me is finding time to produce a second novel. I work a Regular Joe 9-5 gig in an office that, crucially, doesn't afford me the time to fuck about and write daft stories during working hours like when I worked in the public sector during the period I wrote my debut. If I can offer any advice to budding authors it's this: get a job in an office where your boss can't see your computer monitor.

As readers may have gathered by now, Teckle is based in Scotland. Does that have any influence on things?

Grant: Neil Forsyth, who wrote the Bob Servant books and TV series, and who's been a great champion of our books, was talking recently about their being a surreal strain to Dundonian humour, which differs from the West Coast comedy. You definitely see that in Barry's tales of jetpack-flying football managers, tipi-dwelling strikers and nymphomaniac, ecstasy-dropping pensioners.

Barry: The city of Dundee, in which TTSO is based, had a massive influence on my writing. Dundee is my muse. There are a thousand stories to be written about the place and the people who live there. I'm not saying they'd be the kind of stories sensible people would want to read, nor would I promise many happy endings, but the city is a veritable hotbed of life screaming out to given voice in prose.

Grant: Clubbed to Death is much less surreal and overtly Scottish. When one of the characters is a Jimmy Savile apologist, you're unlikely to prove a hit at genteel home counties book clubs though. Viz, South Park, Peep Show and Factory Records probably influenced it as much as anything else.

Any thoughts on the next project? Would you work with a 'stranger' who approached you, or would you need to know the author already?

Grant: My wife is eight-months-pregnant so my difficult second novel will have to wait until I've got to grips with nappy-changing and such tasks. Someone is taking over the business side of the company so what direction Teckle takes is up to him. I know he's keen to put together a fanzine/anthology type effort showcasing new writers so there will be opportunities arising.

I posted on BCG a while ago inviting comedy prose writers to get in touch and we received a good few submissions. These were passed on to the incoming management (which sounds better than saying "me and Barry's mate, Frank") for consideration.

Barry: Should a stranger come into the fold with a third book on Teckle I'll want to know what kind of crisps he or she got as an advance. Grant will have some serious questions to answer if it's anything better than a bog standard Walker's Ready Salted.

Ha ha. Thanks for your time, and all the best with Teckle.

To find out more about Teckle Books do visit their website. 'The Tartan Special One' and 'Clubbed To Death' are both available to order now in paperback and on Kindle. tecklebooks.co.uk