Ten Minutes with Mike Savage

Susie and I moved to Duluth in 1986. At the time I had been doing freelance writing for about three years (evenings) and was looking to get a full time job as a writer. I also imagined being the next Hemingway and sought to connect with literary folks up here are well.

As it turns out, there was an ad or newspaper story about a writer's group that was meeting at The Depot. It drew a fairly large batch of area writers... maybe fifteen or so. During that first meeting I was sizing up the group to find which were the serious writers and which were simply wannabes. In the course of a lifetime, there are twenty wannabes for every one who actually writes. A Native American writer named Jim Northrup was there. He read a few poems that were incredibly powerful, and since that time his work reached the national stage.

Another writer in that room was Mike Savage. I believe he was on the verge of publishing his first novel, Something in the Water. I hit it off with Mike immediately, impressed by his work ethic. He was serious about the craft and over the past two decades we have had many lunches together where we discuss the challenges of writing and publishing.

Early on Mike founded Savage Press, to help local writers find a way to get into print and their stories told to a wider audience.

ennyman: How did you get your start as writer?
MS: Poetry interested me in high school. I had an interesting teacher named Anita Helski who somehow managed to connect with me at some subterranean level because, on the surface, I acted out a lot. But, poems interested me and I started writing them in high school. I compiled the poems into a mimeographed sheaf and handed a few around and that day on the bus ride home Tommy Daubner made a big deal of my writing and publishing. It was negative reinforcement, but it was reinforcement none-the-less. So, there it is, from high school on I was a writer and a publisher.

ennyman: You one time mentioned a writing discipline which you maintained for years. Can you describe that? How important is discipline for writers?
MS: I generally write every day in the morning. Usually I awake early and do some thinking, some meditating, some praying, and then some writing. Either journaling, book writing, article writing, letters, emails, poems, political commentary, humor, whatever is alive in me at that time, I express it on screen or paper.

Discipline is important to clear, concise writing. Discipline isn’t necessarily important as a stand-alone “commodity” so to speak. Anyone can do what I do in the mornings... journal, sloppy slathering of sentimental prose and/or poetry. But, if the goal is to present copy that is either salable or succinct or enviable, discipline is required. Everyone needs an editor, either their unmerciful selves, or some outside source that recognizes bad grammar, improper spelling, awkward usage, unclear expression, poor word choice, repetition… all the hallmarks of hasty, haphazard writing.

BTW, most submissions that I read are hasty and haphazard.

ennyman: How did Savage Press evolve and what is its roll in the world of writing?
MS: Savage Press filled many needs when it started in 1989. Our literary magazine, “The Northern Reader” ran 13 or so issues and made a whole bunch of people published authors. The books filled a niche market for the Twin Ports region. Back then, I was writing much more, writing magazine articles, newspaper articles, radio stuff…and books. I wrote in the morning and published in the afternoon/evening.

ennyman: What do you enjoy most about the publishing business?
MS: I enjoy reading new work. This last weekend I read a proposal and the first four chapters of a 40-year-old man who went to Moscow, met, and eventually married a Russian woman. Then he divorced her and married a prostitute. And then he wrote a book about it. It was fairly interesting reading, but the author was pretty unsympathetic to me and I couldn’t see how we’d make any money publishing his story, even though he is adamant that he and his story are going to end up on Oprah some day.

I also enjoy editing and creating handsome books. I enjoy selling books to some degree too, but prefer direct sales to readers over wholesale distribution and marketing.

ennyman: What separates you and your company from the competition?
MS: Savage Press is not a profit-oriented business. Over the years we’ve published a lot of books that weren’t terribly profitable. But they did deserve to be published and would never have become a book if profit were the driving motive behind their publication.

ennyman: What advice would you give to someone just starting out as a writer? And specific books you’d point them to?
MS: Number one: Write every day. Two: Distinguish between writing for publication and writing for personal gratification. That book I mentioned above? The one about the guy who couldn’t marry well? His book is more of a long whiny testimony to his victimization. It is almost a rage book. The author is unqualified to judge his story because he is so caught up in the melodrama of his own life. He thinks he’s going to get published and get vindicated and get rich. In my opinion, as the story stands today, based on what I read, he will probably get only more bitter and angry.

ennyman: I like your honesty there and it is probably something I have always liked about our friendship. You are always a straight shooter. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you could not fail?
MS: I’d publish a book that reduced readers’ fears by 90 percent.

ennyman: That probably wasn't the first thing that came to mind, but I like it. In what ways has the Internet changed the publishing world in general and your world in particular?
MS: The Internet and World Wide Web has made publishing about 75 times easier. Proofing documents using Adobe and transmitting files electronically makes prepress much more streamlined. I communicate almost exclusively via email these days. Web sales and marketing isn’t as peachy as it was cracked up to be back when the “paperless office” concept was being bandied about freely, but the Savpress website is a virtual catalog that informs people and saves paper. I gave up mass producing a catalog. If anyone wants to see a particular title I tell them to look at it on-line or I send them the specific URL.

ennyman: Describe the strangest or funniest incident you have experienced as a publisher?
MS: There are many, many such incidents. Too many to relate here. One that jumps immediately to mind is when I was called up to the dais at a book event to receive a minor award and as I approached the stage the presenter fell over in a dead faint. So much for getting my need for attention met. The entire focus went from my minor accomplishment to the poor woman’s body laying prostrate on the stage. I returned to my seat and finished my scalloped potatoes.

ennyman: Are we going to see any more Dave Davecki books? Where did Dave come from? I certainly saw some of you in this character. Were the books fun to write? What did you like most and least?
MS: One never knows, but I’m doubtful there will be another Dave Davecki installment. I have two Davecki books finished. One is called “DIErland” where Davecki uncovers a murderous band of Celtic crazies who get their jollies killing people, robbing graves, and selling priceless pre-Christian Irish artifacts to wealthy peabrains. The other is a rehash and amalgamation of “Death by Corvette.” It could be called “Death by Cadillac” or “Death by Being Terribly Stupid and Driving Your Caddy Convertible into St. Louis Bay.” I’ve got a raft of Dave Davecki plots stored away somewhere. Every once in a while I think of digging out the plot for “Death by Poetic License” and tinkering with it for my own amusement, but I always get caught up short by the utter financial foolishness of publishing another Davecki novel.

ennyman: Mike, thanks for sharing and for your contribution to the local literary scene. You've helped a lot of people find an audience. The very best to you going forward.