#onecupofcoffee Can ÖZ

The sons of Erdal-Sami Öz; Can ÖZ, is an individual who grew up loved in a very caring family. A publisher who loves team spirit. While Öz was continuing his sociology education at Boston University, he returned to Istanbul due to his father Erdal Bey's illness. Can Öz states that he naturally accepted his role in the publishing house. The publishing house, which grew by 47% in 2014 with visual and infrastructural changes, provides great support to the Socrates magazine, which intersects sports and literature with its quality content.

Can is a well-known publishing house in Turkey... The responsibilities of carrying this legacy must also be great...

It wasn't a responsibility that I thought about and asked myself, "Should I do it, can I take it, is it right?" It's like the things you're born into. If you were born and raised in the forest, the highway might seem foreign to you, if you were raised in a dry place, the sea might seem very surprising. The conditions you were born and raised in seem natural to you. They might seem heavy to some, light to others...

When I lost my father, there was no doubt that this job had to be done. My mother and sister did not have the emotional capacity to do this job. They were devastated. I was born and raised in this family. I started by coming to work the next day without thinking; I accepted it naturally. I was like a robot at that time.

During the period of mourning for the loss of my father, you try to support those who are grieving. You do this at the age of 24-25. There were some difficulties, but it never seemed like a heavy responsibility to me. There were things that needed to be done. And I was doing them. It is the same today. Publishing is not that complicated a job. There are a lot of details, but after a while you learn. And when you learn, like in many jobs, it starts to seem easy. It is a demanding job, but not difficult.

When deciding to purchase a book, how important is visuality and how do you interpret its impact on sales?

I think it is very important. Let me tell you from my own perspective. I read a lot of English books. I visit and tour bookstores abroad. When I look at books and their editions, I have been envious for years. Owning and reading that book is a different pleasure. Then putting that book on your shelf… You experience a more intense satisfaction, more through the design than the text. If the text, story, and grammar are not good, the design will not save anything. Visuality is very important to me. If the cover is well-designed, it gives a clue about what the book is. In the 1980s, the design of Can Yayınları, which had a very important place, was important. 60 books were published per year. The number of publishing houses was very few. Knowing that this book was from Can Yayınları meant that it was a literary book. It was not a children's book, it was not a textbook. This had to be explained. Rather than what kind of writer the author was. The reader perceived it the moment he saw it; this cover was the answer to that. Today, it is not enough to explain this. Because today, fifty-five thousand books are published per year. Moreover, the design capacity has also improved. There were no computers back then, everything was done by hand, and it was difficult to design well. The Can Publications design is a nostalgic, valuable and historically valuable design. If we were not born and raised with this design, if we were to encounter it for the first time today, it would not appeal to us at all. In this supply of books, in this crowd; we have all been spoiled by seeing beautiful books, and it was necessary to create a design that would make the author and the book stand out. This does not mean that I do not like white covers. I miss them very much, it even hurts me that the book that comes to my table is not white. We meticulously make new books. We made this change in January 2014. Our publishing house grew by 47% that year. I cannot explain this only with the cover. In fact, this is a development caused by something else, as a result of the change in cover designs. We realized this after the Gezi Park protests. We have nowhere to lean on in this country. There is no power other than the people, including the state. We do not have the luxury of failure, this action needs to go very well. We have to do the best we can under the current conditions; both editorially, in terms of publishing policy and financially; in other words, in terms of marketing and sales. We have to do the best we can in many areas such as copyright agreements, relations with writers, social media management. No one will look out for us. In fact, if possible, we will have to look out for someone. Because we are strong now. Not as individuals; but Can Publications is a power. We need to use this correctly, so we said that we will take our job more seriously and work. We also have a lot of fun doing our job. We can't work with those who don't take their job seriously. I have a very good team. The fire of this team has allowed these covers to change and many jobs to progress better. We are a team with a consensus. We are aware of the realities in Turkey. I think that every individual working at Can Publications loves their job and produces good work. I am very pleased. There are many things we can pave the way for and be instrumental in. We will continue with its responsibility. We need to be alert and standing tall.

In our opinion, books and coffee are very close to each other. How do you interpret this relationship?

Coffee has an ideal temperature for me to drink it at its most enjoyable. I don’t know anything about coffee. Drinking Turkish coffee as a tradition and as a matter of practice is enjoyable. It is something I like as a table culture; however, I don’t like its taste. I don’t like filter coffee, latte, etc. My only favorite is nescafe. I drink it in a cup. It should be noted that I don’t understand it. Still, my ritual about coffee that I don’t understand is this; it has an ideal temperature. It needs to be at a temperature where it gets rid of its very hot state and the steam rises. That is for a short time, the coffee cools down immediately. It sits next to me while I am reading a book, I don’t enjoy it even though I like its presence. Therefore, it is a coffee that I constantly refill and can’t drink. Still, I want it to stay somewhere.

Coffee aside, let's talk about Socrates... Sports and literature magazine...

I don’t understand magazine publishing. I’ve never made a magazine, and I haven’t really talked to people who make magazines about the subject. I’ve talked to them as a reader. I don’t know its structure or sustainability. I can’t tell you what kind of characteristics people who should work in a magazine should have. What makes it successful in the market, what is the shelf culture, what does competition mean, what is the importance of advertising… I know advertising as a reader; sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad if there’s no advertising. It’s very difficult to distinguish that institutionally. I don’t know the magazine business. I still don’t know, even if Sorcates magazine is published…

How did Socrates come to life?

Bağış Erten is a close friend of mine. He is the project leader of the magazine. He is a very good writer, a good translator. He has a very tasty pen. I was constantly pressuring him to write a non-fiction book about sports and politics. He could not get his act together, we were having meetings about the book project; but nothing was coming out. He called one day. He said, “Finally, everything is ready, I am coming, we will talk.” We met with Bağış one afternoon with our friends at the publishing house. While we were waiting for the book, he turned on his tablet. He started telling us, “This is my new magazine project.” We were surprised. We listened to him until the end so as not to be rude. He told us about the magazine for twenty-five minutes. We listened without expression. As he told me, I got excited, and the team started to get excited too. Bağış won us all over that day. He actually told us the main idea of today’s magazine. We said, even if it fails, let it be. We have to support it in any way we can. We talked about how often it would be published, the size of the magazine, its price, sections, who would write, how the editorial board would meet, who the team would be, where the offices would be, how the design would be. The budget was ready, the publication date was finalized and the team started working. We still thought of it as a magazine that would sell 3,000-5,000. We said the first issue would sell 8,000, and the following issues would sell 4,000. We saw the ready version of the first issue. We also saw the designs. We don’t know anything about magazine publishing, but we say that anyone who sees this magazine will buy it. After watching the promotional videos, we also predicted that it would be heard of. We decided to print 18,000 copies of the first issue. We said if it doesn’t sell, we’ll keep it and print less in the next issue. We said it would be a shame if we cut it off if it sells. All the magazines sold out on the second day of its launch. We printed three copies in its first month. It became a magazine that sold over 10,000, and it continues to do so.

The team that publishes the magazine is a very good and bright team. The monthly magazine is prepared with 164 pages of articles, special files and interviews, translated articles and special illustrations for each news. Each news has its own layout. This is done in a monthly magazine. This is crazy. As long as the team continues to do this job with passion, this magazine will continue to operate.