Gladys Bembo's observations on the book trade

The Olden Days ... and forgotten passwords

2010-02-23T15:52:00.003+11:00

Whenever I get the chance, I like to horrify young people by telling them stories from the Olden Days, such as ‘bookshops used to have a cash resister on the counter and that was all, and you had to work out the change in your head, and you had to remember where every book in the shop was … ‘ and ‘when I came for my first day’s work at an office job, I was shown to a desk with a chair on each side, two manual typewriters back-to-back and one telephone.’ However, there is a downside to having so much history stored in my head, and that is that there is no room left in there for the multitude of usernames and passwords one needs to remember in order to operate the interwebs. My young nephew, who usually comes to the rescue when I suffer a bout of technical bamboozlement, has been travelling overseas, and his blithe parting words that he would be ‘always available – on email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook or Skype’ proved to be pretty useless when I couldn’t log in to any of them! This is a long-winded way of admitting that I haven’t checked my email for a very long time (if fact, the password problems became so insumountable I now have a new email account at gladys.bembo@gmail.com), which is why I am only reporting the item below some months after the event …

The one about the flightless bird

2010-02-23T15:52:00.001+11:00

I hear from one of my dearest bookselling friends in Sydney that the NSW ABA/APA Christmas party held back in December was very well attended by both sides of the industry ‘with drinks flowing, copious food and lots of good cheer from the wall-to-wall people.’ Random House, Harper Collins, Allen & Unwin, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Murdoch were all well represented, with both management and sales reps in attendance. However, when it came time to hand out the prizes for the best reps, it soon became clear that while one publisher (the one with a flightless bird for its logo) was getting many of the gongs, ‘they were notable for having not ONE single person present to accept the awards for their reps. Everyone was laughing that this is such a small company, they couldn't possibly afford to buy a ticket and send someone,’ my friend reports.

Forget pulping, millions of books trashed

2010-02-23T15:51:00.000+11:00

In the ‘did you know?’ department: in the US, returns are still running at 30-40% and over a billion unsold books are destroyed each year. What’s more, with so many more titles in the US being published in mass-market paperback editions, a lot of unsold copies don’t even get the chance to be remaindered, as most have their covers ripped off and returned for credit, with the pages of the book simply being put out in the rubbish by the bookseller. As poor old Borders limps along in the US (obligatory note: Borders Asia Pacific is entirely separate now under REDgroup ownership and is doing quite nicely, thanks), it is winding up most of its Waldenbooks stores, and a grass-roots campaign is urging Borders to donate unsold stock from these branches to schools, libraries and community organisations rather than throwing them away. From this beginning, the campaigners are hoping to put pressure on the entire industry to stop being so wasteful. See www.donatenotdumpster.org for more.

Farewell Borders UK

2010-02-23T15:50:00.002+11:00

It was very sad to hear of Borders in the UK going into administration and closing its 45 stores just days before Xmas (resulting in over 1100 booksellers losing their jobs and being literally cast out into the cold). Keen to ensure there was no confusion, the good folk at REDGroup sent out a press release within an hour of the news breaking to assure us that all was tiddly-boo with Borders in Australia, NZ and Singapore under their stewardship. Slightly ironic, then, to receive a ‘Buy 3 books at Borders, save 35%’ offer by email just a few hours later …. wasn’t that just the sort of behaviour that’s gotten our British cousins into so much strife?

Charitable gestures

2010-02-23T15:50:00.001+11:00

After the enormous success of the Indigenous Literacy Project, I hear rumours of a marvellous new charitable venture in the book industry. I've heard talk that a senior executive within a Certain Retail Organisation has started a reading group for fellow captains of industry. Book publishers have been invited to suggest suitably inspirational titles. The publisher of the chosen book will then receive a handsome order so that the book can be enjoyed by this elite group. So where's the charity come in? Well, obviously CEOs can't be expected to actually pay for the books that they read, so the lucky publisher's three-figure order must be supplied gratis. Clearly, being read by such grandees is reward enough. Great to see our book industry doing its bit to spur on the country's hard-up business leaders.

A sigh of relief

2010-02-23T15:48:00.002+11:00

Given the trouble Kiwi icon author Witi Ihimaera has gotten himself into over plagiarism accusations in his latest novel, The Trowenna Sea, I’m sure there’s a Melbourne independent publisher breathing a sigh of relief in his compact little backyard office that after some umming and ahhing last year, his eventual decision was not to acquire the Australian rights and publish an Australian edition! (Although as an aside, it always strikes me as odd how few of the books published across the pond, often by branches of the multinationals, get promoted – or even properly distributed – here. Surely an expat population of approximately 250,000 Kiwis is in itself a good enough reason to try to do more to sell NZ books in Australia?)

Of men and their sheds

2010-02-23T15:48:00.001+11:00

Speaking of backyards … Some time ago I was invited to lunch at the home of an old friend, a veteran journo and sometime author who has published a number of books over the years with a range of publishers. Lunch was taking a while to prepare, so half a dozen or so guests and our host were assembled in his fine garden, sipping a pre-lunch drinkie or two in the sun. I’d been to his house previously, but usually for dinner parties, so I don’t think I’d ever seen the garden in full daylight, and I noted out loud my surprise that there were two garden sheds. ‘So, one is for garden tools, what do you keep in the other one: all your remainders?’ I quipped, unwisely. There was a collective intake of breath among the guests, followed by a very uncomfortable silence … until our host strode over to his second shed and flung the door open to reveal that it was indeed stacked with cartons printed with some familiar publishers’ logos. The moral of the tale: never ask a man what he keeps in his shed!

Of authors and their sometimes colourful lifestyles

2010-02-23T15:46:00.000+11:00

At one of the many pre-Christmas drinkies events I popped into ‘just for the one’ I was told some very entertaining and scurrilous stories about the personal life of one of our best-known authors. Of course I’m sworn to secrecy, but if you’d like to speculate on who it might have been and what their colourful ‘lifestyle’ might include – and you can do it in a manner that is a) amusing but not filthy and b) not defamatory (as judged by the strict standards of the publisher and editor of this esteemed organ) – you can email me at the address provided below and I may include your responses in a future column.

13 would be just too much bad luck

2009-07-17T13:49:00.000+10:00

What does it say about how much a certain quasi-governmental instrumentality (or should that be ‘externality’) knows about the industry it has spent so much time studying that the print version of its final report has a 10-digit ISBN?

Flying out the door ...

2009-05-14T12:36:00.000+10:00

Not only do Ms Meyer’s terrifically successful teen-vampire books now have their own ‘account manager’ at Hachette, apparently they have inspired some particularly creative shoplifting. I hear that one central Melbourne bookshop was flummoxed at how their entire stock of a ‘limited-edition’ tie-in tote bag (will merchandising wonders never cease?) was pilfered in one hit … while on top of a very tall display in clear view.

The lawyers always win

2009-05-14T12:35:00.000+10:00

That old truism about lawyers being the only winners in lawsuits seems to have come true for poor old thriller writer Clive Cussler. Action-man Clive thought he’d suffered enough after losing a long-running series of court cases against the film studio that made the spectacularly unsuccessful film based on his novel Sahara, paying out US$5 million in damages. But now he has been ordered to pay the winners’ lawyers’ bills as well at $US14 million! Once he pays his own legal team, estimates are that he may be US$27 million out of pocket.

More culture in a pot of yoghurt?

2009-05-14T12:33:00.001+10:00

My old friend Horace Bent, who writes a similar column to this one in the UK’s Bookseller magazine, has announced the winners of the annual Diagram Prize for the year’s oddest book title. The 2009 winner is The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Professor Philip M Parker (Icon Group International). The title received 32% of the 5000+ votes cast at the Bookseller’s website. The runner-up, with 22% of the votes, was Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M Seyfarth (University of Chicago Press). Also in contention were Curbside Consultation of the Colon by Brooks D Cash (SLACK Incorporated), Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski (C & T), The Large Sieve and Its Applications by Emmanuel Kowalski (Cambridge University Press) and Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by Lietai Yang (Woodhead). Dear readers, can you think of any locally published titles that we might want to nominate next year?

Why you can't buy a $20 book

2009-05-14T12:32:00.000+10:00

I’m always over the moon to receive correspondence relating to my little tales—it does reassure me that I still have an audience and that I’m not prattling on to an empty room. In reply to an item in the March issue, I received the following illuminating recollection: ‘In answer to your correspondent asking why we don’t price items to the full dollar, there is a very valid reason not to. In a past life I was with a (then) large Australian publishing house who wanted to do just that. At an arranged meeting with a (then) large bookselling department store, we were promptly advised that would not be possible. We were advised: “For a $20 purchase the customer can hand over a $20 note and with no change required, turn and walk away. The canny cash-register attendant could choose not to ring up the sale and pocket the note!” It was because of this integrity issue we did not get retail support and did not proceed with rounding to full-dollar pricing.’

Beyond customer service

2009-05-14T12:31:00.000+10:00

My good friend Mary Dalmau at Melbourne’s Readers Feast bookshop is known for many things, among them her love of a good detective story and a ferocious commitment to customer service. Recently, she got to combine the two, after a lost wallet was found in the store late one afternoon. Let’s let Mary tell the story: ‘I checked the wallet and found it belonged to a David D Franks of Richmond, Virginia USA. So began the detective's hunt. I rang the major hotels to see if he was registered as a guest, but no. […] I rang American Express to see if they could give me a contact number but the Australian girl rang through to an American counterpart who was particularly unhelpful by cancelling the poor man's card! I rang the local police station only to be told to come down and fill in a report. […] By this time, it was about 6.15 and I asked James if he had served many American tourists today and he said that he had helped some women who had been on a cruise ship. So, next stop was the Port of Melbourne Authority—all automated! So, I went online and found that a ship had docked today belonging to the same shipping line as the name on the card in Mr. Franks' wallet and that it was leaving tomorrow. Nothing for it, I decided, but to go down to Station Pier adjacent to St. Kilda and see what I could find out. The classic scenario then of security on the gates only letting passengers through to the ship. I explained that I didn't even know if this man was a passenger but I wanted access to the ship to find out, or for them to contact the ship for me. Cut a long story a bit shorter, Dave (my new mate on duty at the Port) sorted it and established that indeed M. Franks was on the ship and word was getting to him to come to the gate to meet me. That alone took twenty minutes, but along came the fellow. Well, we had the best chat. He is Professor David Franks of Virginia who simply could not believe the effort I had gone to.’

Going that extra mile ...

2009-05-14T12:30:00.000+10:00

Mary’s efforts are possibly surpassed by American academic Daniel Fleisch, who flew more than 900km on Christmas Day from Ohio to Ottowa in Canada to hand-deliver a copy of his book on an obscure set of physics formulae to a customer who had posted a negative review on Amazon complaining that he’d been sold a flawed copy. At first Fleisch offered to send a copy of the book via overnight delivery, but the date—it was 24 December—meant the book, intended as a Christmas present, wouldn’t arrive in time. He thought about driving to Canada from Ohio, but the weather was too snowy. ‘I felt pretty lousy,’ Fleisch told the Dayton Daily News. Then he found a flight leaving at six am on Christmas morning, hired a rental car, and arrived at the disgruntled customer’s house. Fleisch apologised for the flaw in the original copy, handed over the book and headed back to Ohio, arriving home after midnight. ‘Just seeing the look on his face ... it was worth it,’ he said. The customer has now updated his Amazon review, saying the book is ‘excellent for a new aspiring electrical engineer, physics student or even a practising engineer.’

A sad sign of the times

2009-05-14T12:29:00.000+10:00

It’s a sad sign of the times, but the daily email bulletin from our friends at Publishers Weekly has recently added a ‘Comings and Goings’ column for all those in the US book trade who have been laid off to post their private email addresses so people can stay in touch. There is a growing list every day of those who have lost their jobs.

Innovative retailing solutions?

2009-05-14T12:28:00.001+10:00

With Dymocks recently buying into a sandwich-bar chain, one has to wonder what ‘innovative acquisition’ will be next: ARW (sorry I mean ‘RedGROUP Retail’) buying up failed ABC childcare centres? Collins/Book City selling you a book while servicing your car?

How to save a fortune by doing absolutely nothing (and ignoring your accountant)

2009-02-02T11:47:00.000+11:00

Among all the economic doom-and-gloom talk, it was nice to hear of a good-news story, albeit somewhat accidental. During last year, a number of long-established book distribution businesses merged and were then sold on to a third party. The upshot was that the original owners of the businesses each received a substantial cheque once all the dust had settled. One of these book-trade veterans decided to take a well-earned, extended holiday, and simply deposited his cheque in the bank before jetting off. His accountant kept urging by email and text message for him to move his windfall from the ‘low-yielding’ bank account to the ‘lucrative’ stock market, but to no avail: the holiday was not to be interrupted; business matters could be dealt with later on. And just as well our chap stuck to his guns: by the time his holiday was over, the stock market had crashed and he saved himself a fortune by doing precisely nothing!

A bookish sort of PM

2009-02-02T11:46:00.001+11:00

Our new(-ish) Prime Minister has always seemed to me like the bookish sort, and indeed he was spotted in a well-known Melbourne bookshop (you know, that one on Lygon St) just before Christmas. According to the Age’s John Elder he even went so far as to praise bookshops as ‘temples of the soul’. After shaking many hands with other browsers, posing for photos and coo-cooing at babies, what books did the PM actually buy? Apparently his stash included Nuns Having Fun, copies of Harpers and the New Yorker, Tom Holland’s Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom and Simon Schama’s The American Future. ‘In fact, there were a couple of other items he’d earlier selected being kept discreetly under the counter,’ the Age revealed, somewhat breathlessly, ‘notably The Chaser Annual 2008.’

The occasional anonymous gripe

2009-02-02T11:45:00.000+11:00

I always like to receive correspondence, and while I prefer it to be invitations to glamorous parties, the occasional anonymous gripe also has its place in my in-box. Thus, ‘an anonymous bookseller’ writes: ‘I’d like to point out an irritation I have with the publishers now pricing their books with “$x.99 cents”. Do they think customers don't realise that we cannot give one-cent change or that the book is actually cheaper than pricing it up to the full dollar? I feel quite stupid telling customers a book is $19.99 (a bit like a used car salesman). We all know they upped it from 95 cents to gain that extra four cents, but really why not show a bit of integrity and price it to the full dollar? I am interested to see if I am the only one that feels this way.’ Correspondence in reply to the usual address, please …

An unhappy Christmas tale

2009-02-02T11:43:00.001+11:00

I’m afraid I have share a distinctly unhappy Christmas story. West Australian bookseller Eric Ladhams had a shocking end to his 2008 after vandals broke into his store, Boab Books. The shop lost around $50,000 worth of stock when local children with whom Ladhams had clashed earlier in the week pulled the books off the shelves and poured milkshake syrup over them, before destroying the store’s computers, cool room and cafe. ‘Nothing was stolen,’ Ladhams told the Weekly Book Newsletter, ‘they just came in purely to smash and destroy.’ ‘Even if I could have afforded new stock, it would have taken three or four weeks to get there, so our Christmas trade was basically nil’. Two 14-year-olds have been charged, while four nine-year-olds have received juvenile cautions. Boab Books is now for sale.

Go you good horse!

2008-11-21T14:10:00.000+11:00

We know that all publishers are born gamblers, but retailers are usually rather more risk-averse. But just to break the mould, I hear that a prominent bookseller who says they never usually have a flutter ended up having a very nice win on Melbourne Cup day after trusting their instincts and plunging $20 on a 36/1 outside chance, based solely on the horse’s name: Juggle the Books!

Rememberance of Frankfurts past

2008-11-21T14:09:00.000+11:00

A lovely Frankfurt story, passed on to me by a weary foot-soldier who says he ‘won’t even look at another sausage for months: you could say I’m wurst for wear.’ When everything was packed up on the Australian stand on the final day, a notebook was left unclaimed. Luckily Maree and Kathy from the APA had a good idea who had left it behind, and the notebook travelled back to Melbourne with my correspondent and was returned to its grateful owner. And was the notebook full of highly confidential business information and irreplaceable international intelligence on hot rights deals? Well, maybe it was, but the owner was most relieved to get it back because ‘one of my Frankfurt contacts had the most marvellous recipe for Madeleines and I wrote it on the front of the notebook.’ How delightfully Proustian!

A catty conversation

2008-11-21T14:08:00.000+11:00

According to the Galley Cat blog, an attendee at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair swears he overheard the following catty conversation between two publishing industry pros:
‘Where were you? You missed our appointment.’
‘I know. I'm sick of remaindering your books.’
‘You might have called to cancel.’
‘I was busy talking with a real publisher whose books actually sell.’

How very Gallic!

2008-11-21T14:04:00.001+11:00

When French novelist Jean-Marie le Clezio was announced recently as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, the big American publishers searched their back-catalogues in vain—the few titles of his they did have rights for were long out of print. Smarting from the pre-prize pronouncement from Nobel Prize secretary Horace Engdahl that ‘American literary culture is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature,’ one hears that a number of US-based publishers hoped to rectify this embarrassing situation by bidding for translation rights to Le Clezio’s newest book at Frankfurt. But it wasn’t to be. Anne-Solange Noble, rights director for the venerable French publisher Gallimard, was playing a particularly Gallic game of chat et souris: ‘When an American publisher asks me about the book I reply with “Why are you interested in this Le Clezio? What do you know about his other books?” I tell them that I'll note their interest, but I don’t need to rush the sale, I’ll sell the rights later.’

[Since I write this, I've learned that Simon & Schuster have now picked up rights for le Clezio in the US]

The best of the worst

2008-09-19T14:36:00.005+10:00

The winner of one of my favourite ‘literary’ awards has been announced: the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Started in 1982 by the English faculty at the San Jose State University in the States, the Bulwer-Lytton recognises the purplest of prose, with entrants asked to write the most deliberately awful opening sentence to an imaginary novel they can think up, inspired by Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s immortal ‘It was a dark and stormy night …’ This year’s winner is one Garrison Spik, a 41-year-old communications director and writer from Washington, D.C.

His winning sentence is: "Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

But I think I prefer the runner-up, from Andrew Bowers: "Hmm . . ." thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfish's bow ties, "time to get my meds checked."

If you want to read more of the cringe-worthy category winners and runners-up, go to http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm.

A cardinal sin?

2008-09-19T14:36:00.003+10:00

While we’re on the topic of bad writing … British novelist Andrew O’Hagan, who I recall was quite a hit at the 2007 Sydney Writers’ Festival, now seems to be auditioning for the next series of Grumpy (not quite so) Old Men.

During a panel session at the recent Edinburgh Writers’ Festival, he started by committing something akin to treason in the world of UK publishing by criticising the morning TV hosts Richard and Judy. While no-one denies that R&J’s book recommendations have shifted a lot of ‘units’, O’Hagan had the temerity to suggest that ‘they think the British reading public is stupid’ and that the kinds of titles selected ‘oversell a reduced, unimaginative notion of what people's literary enjoyment might be.’

He then added that he was disappointed by so many students taking creative writing courses, and recalled a visit to one such course at a famous institution. He complained that ‘some students were more interested in finding an agent in the United States than in improving their writing.’

‘When you speak to students, if you teach on a creative writing course, often what you find is that they are not interested in life at the level of the sentence,’ he said. ‘When you try to activate some interest, they find that slightly distracting. What they want to talk about is what it would be like to be a famous novelist.’

Sticking their fangs in

2008-09-19T14:36:00.001+10:00

Whatever else we might think of it, That Global Online Bookseller (and everything else-seller!) has certainly played a big part in giving readers a voice when it comes to reviewing their purchases. Sometimes the reviews are gushingly over-the-top, others are very thoughtful, and at others hilariously brutal.

Take this one (some names omitted to spare anyone’s blushes): ‘[this] series has never been great-- it's been sloppily-written, almost plot-less, and incredibly cheesy-- but it's been a guilty pleasure. Or at least the first book was. [Book 2] was bad, [book 3] was worse, and now [book 4] is the cherry on top of the really horrible sundae. It rapidly goes from unintentionally hilarious, to awful, to leaving the reader wondering how it ever got published.’

Despite reviews like this—and this one is by no means an isolated example—and growing calls from disgruntled fans for a mass consumer return, this book has been the biggest thing since sliced wizard, selling in the millions. Will quantity win over quality? Or will fan-based communities really shape the way we publish and sell into the future?

On that lofty though, my dears, I bid you adieu.

Where have all the photos gone?

2008-08-28T16:23:00.002+10:00

Spending a pleasant few hours looking back through old issues of Bookseller+Publisher magazine recently, I noted how many of you used to send me photos of your goings-on (how young and carefree we all used to look!).

For some reason the pics have dried up, which I find a bit sad given how easy it apparently is to take and send them with all the digital whatsits we have nowadays. So if you have a pic that you think should be gracing this blog or my regular page in the magazine, send it to me by email (gladysbembo@yahoo.com), or become my ‘friend’ on the Facebook website, where my nephew has kindly set me up with an account.

Grumpy old men

2008-08-28T16:23:00.001+10:00

Now here’s proof that as long as my memory might be, I don’t know everything. The British author Will Self, who can sometimes be seen on one of my favourite telly programs, Grumpy Old Men, has set his latest novel (named after a body part) partially in Australia. Here’s the bit I didn’t know, courtesy of an interview reproduced on the ABC’s Articulate website. Self says ‘I worked for the Northern Territory’s government briefly in my early 20s and I always thought “I’m going to do something with this material.” The Australian Aboriginal culture just leaves you staggering. They were the first people out of Africa 30,000 years before us and walked round the coast to Australia before we had even got out of the f...ing trees to go round the other way [he does have a colourful turn of phrase!]. They are the most political, Byzantine people imaginable. The complexity of their politics is astonishing….’ Self found out the hard way just how Byzantine: ‘I got in terrible trouble over How The Dead Live, or at least a situation I took seriously. I named one of these Aboriginal wizards in the book and ran it past a very old friend who’s lived in the Northern Territory for decades. He said no, you can’t do this, it’s got back to him. We had to pulp an edition in Australia and I had to pay compensation.’ I bet that made a few more old men than Mr Self grumpy!

It's like deja vu all over again!

2008-08-28T16:20:00.000+10:00

All the malarkey about parallel importation, open markets and 30/90-day rules (I’m still not entirely sure I understand them) is on again! It’s all thanks to the surprise announcement hidden away in one paragraph of a lengthy COAG communiqué released in early July.

Apparently all the state and territory governments have come to a sudden consensus that our territorial copyright regulations are a ‘priority area of competition reform’ and a pressing issue on a par with ‘rationalisation of occupational licences, national transport policy and further reforms to infrastructure access.’ Not to make light of it: this is a very serious issue for all of us and we all need to be acutely aware of the potential impact it could have on our trade, but such debates do bring out some nice rhetorical flushes--a bottle of my favourite passable red to anyone who can remember who compared whom to ‘a pack of dingos’ the last time around!

A bee in her (frilly) bonnet

2008-07-24T12:22:00.000+10:00

Speaking of great women, I hear that a certain feisty publisher has got a bee in her frilly bonnet about one aspect of the otherwise extremely genteel Jane Austen Society of Australia (or JASA). She wrote to the society recently: ‘I am contacting you to express my extreme disappointment in one aspect of the JASA website and that is the linking of the website to the US online bookseller, Amazon.com. In Australia, we boast many of the best booksellers in the English-speaking world. Their knowledge of books, their enthusiasm and passion for books is one of the greatest un-sung assets to our cultural life. The greatest threat to their livelihoods is for their customers to go off-shore to purchase their books. As a cultural organisation that benefits from a literate, book-reading population I feel JASA should be doing all it can to encourage JASA members to support their local bookshop.’ And on that note, Dear Readers, I bid you all adieu until next month!

Great love letters

2008-07-24T12:21:00.000+10:00

I’m sure that like me you wouldn’t have been able to avoid the advertising for a new moving picture based on a television series about some carefree (but painfully thin!) young lasses in New York. In this film, the main character is seen to read from a book entitled Love Letters of Great Men. Fans have been quick to search for this instructive tome, only to find that it doesn’t actually exist! However, the small US publisher who took a punt last year and reissued an obscure and long out-of-print book entitled Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day has had a nice surprise: his little book leapt into the bestseller chart on Amazon.com and is now reprinting!

Recapturing one's lost youth

2008-07-24T12:20:00.000+10:00

There was no such controversy about this year’s Miles Franklin pick (or at least there wasn’t at the time I was writing this!), but isn’t it telling that the winning book’s publisher admitted that sales of the winner’s books to date have been ‘modest’—despite his being shortlisted for the Miles three times and winning a regional award in this year’s Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Let’s hope that finally winning ‘the big one’ sees Steven Carroll rewarded for many years of lonely work. Carroll’s own plans are quite modest: he plans to spend some of the $42,000 prizemoney on something called a Rickenbacker (which my nephew tells me is a brand of electric guitar, once favoured by The Beatles: at least I’ve heard of them!). Carroll told the papers that he traded-in his beloved guitar for an electric typewriter to kick-start his writing career 30 years ago. ‘It was one of these pivotal moments, life-defining moments, it’s got a real sadness to it,’ Carroll said. ‘You can’t buy your youth but you can buy back your Rickenbacker.’

How short should a shortlist be?

2008-07-24T12:19:00.000+10:00

Our friends across the pond have been getting worked up over their biggest book awards of the year, the Montana Awards. The problem is the shortlist—it’s too short! The judges only chose four novels for the fiction shortlist instead of the usual five, with one saying that ‘while there were other great books, we did not want to dilute the Montana (finalist) sticker by promoting a fifth.’ The pundits were outraged and newspaper articles, blog posts, and live radio interviews on national radio followed, suggesting many well-received novels that they thought should have been contenders. There was even talk of a defamation suit at one point! Isn’t it nice to see such passion? I can’t recall a good stoush about the shortlist for an Australian literary award for years.

From little things, big things grow?

2008-07-24T12:18:00.001+10:00

A friend who understands something of the opaque world of finance tells me that the fortunes of a certain large bookselling chain have improved dramatically in the past six months. From being well and truly in the red, said company has now reported a very healthy half-yearly profit. How much of this good fortune can be apportioned to the company’s slightly controversial practice of adding a few cents here and there above RRP to much of its backlist, my correspondent wonders?

I'm back!

2008-06-26T14:50:00.002+10:00

My Dears,

Please accept my sincere apologies for not having updated in so long. There was some palaver with lost passwords and 'Google log-ins' and the like ... Luckily my very clever and patient young nephew has finally sorted it all out, so I'm back on the air!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my dear readers for their emails, especially all the ones from Nigeria -- who'd have thought my little blog would have so many fans in Africa!

love, Gladys.

Grey Gorillas awarded

2008-06-26T14:49:00.001+10:00

For some inexplicable reason, my invitation to the APA’s 60th anniversary dinner was ‘lost in the mail’, but I hear that a fine time was had by all and I congratulate so many of my oldest and dearest friends for being recognised in the inaugural George Robertson Awards (which I suspect will forever be known as the ‘Grey Gorilla’ awards). Along with all the MDs and publishers, I was particularly pleased to see that Trevor Klein, the indefatigable sales manager for Adelaide’s Wakefield Press, got a gong. Trevor, however, has told his local paper that he was lucky to be around to receive his award. ‘They have to go and catch us before we all die,’ he said (with his tongue presumably firmly lodged in his cheek). ‘We’re all getting old and decrepit, teeth and limbs are falling off.’ Once Trevor reaches the final chapter, he even has a bookish plan for the hereafter: ‘When I die I want them to bind me in a hardcover, drop it in the incinerator and … end of story.’

Near-death experiences at MUP?

2008-06-26T14:48:00.001+10:00

While she seemed very upbeat after participating in the Prime Minister’s 2020 Summit, one of my old friends wonders if MUP publisher Louise Adler may have had a near-death experience lately. As evidence, he offers this list of recent MUP titles:
Swimming in a Sea of Death
Sweet Sorrow: A Beginner’s Guide to Death
A Good Death: Argument for Euthanasia
Sacred Places: A Memorial for War Dead
Book of Dead Philosophers
I Lost my Love in Baghdad
A Family History of Smoking
‘Let’s hope Peter Costello isn’t suspicious!’ my correspondent writes.

Message in a bottle

2008-06-26T14:47:00.001+10:00

Bruce ‘Salty Sea-dog’ Macky of Dymocks Adelaide has managed to find an empty rum bottle and has sent the following message afloat from an idyllic atoll somewhere in the Pacific:
Dear Gladys, I am extremely flattered that the revered Gladys Bembo would even notice my absence, let alone make note of it in ‘THE’ column. I thought I’d bring you a little more up to date. We indeed arrived at Qingdao on Valentines Day, to the most phenomenal welcome. The following Tuesday was presentation night. The Chinese Olympic Committee did us hugely proud. The Book Industry Awards have a huge distance to go to match the pizzazz. We left on the 24th, on schedule, in absolutely freezing conditions. We had some beautiful sailing down under the bottom of Korea, and across to Honshu Island, Japan. We were making great progress until, on 5 March, our mast broke. What had been 85 feet became 40, with the rest over 4000 metres down in the Pacific. We were incredibly lucky it happened in 8 knots of wind. 36 hours later we had 35+ knots with 20-foot waves. Had it happened then, I'm sure someone would have been lost. The silver lining to this horrible cloud was that we managed to rig a "jury rig", and sail and motor about 1400 nm to Midway Island. This former military base is now a wildlife jewel, home to nearly 2 million albatross, assorted other sea birds, and the very rare Hawaiian Harp Seal and green and loggerhead turtles. We stayed two nights, to fill up with fuel and food, and had a fabulous welcome from the 57 residents on the island. Got parts flown in, fixed to motor, and spent another 6 days motoring 1100nm to Hawaii. We are now enjoying Waikiki while we wait for bits for the boat We will head either for Santa Cruz, California, or to Panama as soon as it is repaired. Gladys, I'm sorry I have rambled, but I cannot emphasise enough how beautiful Midway is, and what a threat plastic is to the worlds' wildlife. Enough. I shall see you in Oz, sometime after July 13. Bruce.

You go girl!

2008-06-26T14:42:00.003+10:00

There were sad farewells last month at Hardie Grant Egmont for Susannah McFarlane, who left the firm after six years' hard work turning it into Australia's most dynamic children's list. The creative force behind such bestselling series as 'Go Girls' and 'Zac Power' was presented with a special gift by her staff - her own 'Go Girl' avatar.

Does Aunty speak with a forked tongue?

2008-06-26T14:39:00.001+10:00

In the week that my keen and efficient young editor is politely but firmly insisting that I finish my column, the ABC has been ‘flatly denying’ a report in the papers that the ABC Shops are about to close and that one book chain will get an exclusive deal to sell ABC-branded products. However a number of very reliable and well-connected old friends have told me that according to their inside info from our national broadcaster not only are the ABC Shops on their way out sooner rather than later, but more than likely ABC Books as well … who wants to wager a bottle of passable red on the outcome?

Give us a break, Louise!

2008-04-17T16:18:00.004+10:00

How can we foster a population with wide-ranging intellectual and creative curiosity? asks the blurb for Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit. Don't bother to ask book publishers, for starters.

My good friend Louise Adler is the only publisher invited to the Summit and therefore has the great responsiblity of representing the interests of the entire $1.4 billion Australian book publishing industry on her own.

'I am going to Canberra to argue for more money for artists, for more support for the making of more Australian stories, a tax break for Australian book publishers, for the adoption of the French method of cultural protectionism, with a small levy on all movie tickets,' she wrote in The Age.

One can only hope her lone voice isn't drowned out by the 887 others at the Summit, including a healthy number of representatives from the film industry, theatre, TV and music.

No wonder the Australian Publishers Association is forking out a handsome sum on a new report from PR company Australian Public Affairs with the express purpose of raising the industry's profile with the Rudd Government. A pity it won't be published until after the party's over.

2008-04-17T15:14:00.004+10:00

Bibliotherapy - the use of books to help people, especially children, better cope with their problems - goes back to the 1930s. It's easy to be cyncial about it, however, especially if you're a publisher being beseiged with proposals for books with titles like Johnny Has a Goitre, Why Spot Must Die, Meredith Has Lost Her Savings in the Sub-Prime Crisis or Mummy's Having Liposuction. Actually, that last title is almost real. My Beautiful Mommy, a tale of a little girl whose mummy has a tummy tuck and nose job, has recently been released in (where else?) the US by Big Tent Books. At last, a book to help little kiddies get over their mum's cosmetic surgery. Author Gabriela Acosta says she wrote it for her son: 'I didn't want him to think [the surgery] was because I was hurting. It was to make me feel good,' she told US magazine Newsweek. Well, it doesn't make me feel any better, Ms Acosta! Why these vanity processes are deemed necessary at all when you can buy a perfectly good foundation garment from Myer is beyond me.

Apostrophe catastrophe

2008-04-11T14:06:00.003+10:00

Sydney shopper and blogger seunjinbing took this rather telling photograph recently at A&R's new bargain book store in George Street, Sydney. Sadly, there don't appear to be any copies of Eats, Shoots and Leaves in stock. To adapt those Government AIDS awareness ads from the 1980s: 'always use a proofreader, my dears, always.'

A Strange encounter ...

2008-03-13T16:27:00.006+11:00

His new colleagues at Paperchain Bookshop in Canberra must have been mightily impressed by bookseller Shane Strange's reputation. A regular customer of Shane's previous employer, Riverbend Books of Brisbane, had also recently moved to Canberra. They popped into Paperchain recently and asked for Shane by name. How nice to see a familiar face. The customer? None other than our new prime minister!

How NOT to market your business?

2008-03-12T15:58:00.003+11:00

The marketing guru Dave Patton was so annoyed that a new edition of his book How to Market Your Business was being discounted heavily by Amazon.co.uk that he wrote asking the online bookseller to stop stocking his book.

'If they’d read my book, they would know that you only discount to shift unsold volumes not new editions—this is the sixth —and certainly not on publication date,' Patton told the UK Booskeller. 'With a cover price of £12.99 they are selling it at just £8.57, so they’re giving away more than £4 a book. It’s madness.'

The madness looks set to continue. I note that, for the very first time, there were more discounted books sold in the UK than non-discounted books last year.

Poet's pay day

2008-03-12T15:46:00.002+11:00

One week poet John Tranter is scooping a handsome $25,000 in the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and the very next his partner, Lyn Tranter of Australian Literary Management, is advertising for a personal assistant in the Weekly Book Newsletter. A reader asks: are the two events in any way related?

Edgar gets award for picking winners

2008-03-10T11:49:00.003+11:00

Some may have been a bit surprised that someone working in television should win this year's Dromkeen Medal for contribution to Australian children's literature. Patricia Edgar is a special case, of course. Her work for the Australian Children's Television Foundation, which included commissioning series such as Winners, Kaboodle, Touch the Sun and Round the Twist, not only gave work to a lot of Australian writers, but also sold a lot of books too. At her acceptance speech for the medal on 29 February, Edgar recalled McPhee Gribble's insistence that the scriptwriters on Winners also wrote the book tie-ins, which went on to sell a staggering 200,000 copies. This gave one young scriptwriter a chance to write his first book. His name? Morris Gleitzmann.

Sorry, you're just too small

2008-02-08T14:08:00.000+11:00

What’s this I hear about one of our chains outsourcing some of its buying to a third party? It seems they consider most local suppliers just too small and bothersome to deal with, so their books will now have to supplied through a middle man. Quite how inserting an extra step in the supply chain saves money is lost on me, but then I never claimed to be an economist.

Kolkata exhibitors Wild(e)

2008-02-08T12:34:00.000+11:00

To adapt the great Oscar Wilde, to lose one book fair may be seen as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness. For the second year running, the two million Indians looking forward to the Kolkata (or Calcutta, as I remember it) Book Fair were disappointed at the last moment when the fair was called off only 48 hours before it was due to open last month. It seems the local judiciary objected to the fair’s environmental impact on the showgrounds where it was due to take place and forbade it from going ahead. Well, two million pairs of feet can make quite an impact, I suppose. Disgruntled exhibitors—who spent a fortune shipping millions of books from all over India for the world’s most attended book fair—may have shrugged off the disappointment but for the fact that the same fair was cancelled at the last minute for the same reasons last year! As they shipped all their unsold stock home again, they might reasonably have been wondering just what the fair’s ‘organisers’ have been doing for the last 12 months. Here's to next year's fair: third time lucky?

Gladys gazes into the crystal ball

2008-01-09T14:31:00.000+11:00

Given the surprises we’ve had this year: Pearson buying Harcourt, Collins Booksellers acquiring Book City, Borders putting all its international stores up for sale, Angus & Robertson’s now-celebrated ‘pay up or its goodbye’ letter to its suppliers, it would be a brave person to make some predictions for the trade for 2008. Michael Cairns, US-based former president of R R Bowker and now an industry consultant, has posted a few predictions to his PersonaNonData blog, including ‘there will be some additional consolidation in trade and this could result in a higher profile for Hachette, Bloomsbury and/or Macmillan.’ If I could hazard a few predictions of my own, they would be:

• Melbourne’s Discovery Media is purchased by Cengage, which promptly changes its name to DisCengage.
• Borders merges with Barnes & Noble in the US and announces plans to build an international bookselling chain … all over again.
• French mega-publisher Lagardère buys another ailing UK publishing house only to discover six months later that it already owned it.
• Clive James finally finds the speech he was supposed to make at last year’s Melbourne Writers Festival.
• With both the continuing consolidation of publishers and the proliferation of literary awards, we finally arrive at the day when one publisher wins everything.
• Christmas stock deliveries are flawless as distributors fail to reach agreement on whose turn it is to muck things up.

By all means share your own predictions with readers of this blog by making a comment below.

The perks of the job

2008-01-08T09:59:00.000+11:00

You may recall the case a couple of years ago of Joe Gordon, the Edinburgh bookseller sacked for maligning his employer, UK chain Waterstones (or 'Bastardstones,' as he preferred) in his blog. I'm reminded of the case by poet (and sometime bookseller) Tracy Ryan, whose latest collection of verse, Scar Revision, has just been released by Fremantle Press (I'm still getting used to that name change, Clive). Her poem 'Curriculum Vitae' is a thoughtful meditation on work and the worker and includes a section inspired by Mr Gordon's fate. Ryan seems to speak with some experience as she describes the job thus:

Refuge of intellect
Without resources, without room to move.
But huge compensations: books, and books,
And books, and special discounts, and first look-in
When stock's discarded. Teabreaks
Where no one minds you reading. It's the perks
They get you with, and once they do, you're got.

Sound familiar? The poem also contains a 'downsizing' episode that will ring a bell with quite a few chain booksellers. Well worth ordering a copy for stock just to have a read.

Check under the beds again!

2008-01-04T16:21:00.000+11:00

We are living in the era of the survey, by my troth. Mary Cunnane received one before Christmas from a student at a publishing course run by one of our leading universities, who was eager to learn more about the romantic and glamorous world of the literary agent.
In the main, the student's questions were straightforward enough: 'What are the most and least satisfying aspects of your line of work?' and 'What skills or qualifications would be ideal for this kind of work?' were two. Buried further down, however, Cunnane discovered an altogether more troubling question: 'How do you educate yourself about the market and all its different fascists?' Sadly, I am not privy to Cunnane's response (although I like to imagine she named a few names). I realise the industry isn't quite the socialist nirvana it used to be back in those heady days of the 1970s, but I had no idea that it had swung so far to the other side.

Low pay working at the book-face

2007-11-19T13:29:00.000+11:00

One must feel sorry for those working in the UK book industry. Such is the penury in which most of them exist, they have created a group on the Facebook website called 'I work in publishing and I'm underpaid.' When I looked last month, there were nearly 800 members of this forlorn group, huddling together online for virtual warmth. How they must envy us here in Australia. No wonder so many of them come and work here.

Choking on SPAM

2007-11-15T17:23:00.000+11:00

While my days of resisting the internet would appear to be over now that I have an online blog, I'm still maintaining the rage about the ever-increasing avalanche of email, the sole function of which appears to be to prevent me from doing any productive work, or conducting meaningful communication. A well-known Sydney literary agent is clearly on my side. She has announced that her Fridays will be email-free from now on, and that if publishers and authors want to contact her then, they should pick up the phone. It's such a good idea, I'm going to follow suit. Imagine the things I could get done if I didn't have to personally respond to all those Nigerians offering to send me illicit funds. You know, I could even read a book. Remember them?

Iraq for Dummies?

2007-11-08T17:39:00.000+11:00

Following the heat the Footscray-based travel publisher has received for publishing a guide to sunny Afghanistan, a recent BBC documentary aired in the UK has revealed that the Lonely Planet guide to Iraq was one of the resources used to plan and execute the 1990 invasion of that country. Yet another sign of military incompetence, or a shameless plug for the BBC’s latest asset?

A Frankfurt tale

2007-11-01T14:44:00.000+11:00

I hear Louise Adler of Melbourne University Publishing tells a story of how a publisher stopped for a rest on her stand last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and they got talking. They had no books in common, but he suggested she go and look at a book by a French author that might be of interest. Twelve months later, Michel Onfray’s The Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam has been published in Australia to significant acclaim, with the author attending this year’s Sydney Writers Festival. It just goes to show: if a stranger pops by your stand, you should be friendly!

Still a lucky country in educational publishing

2007-10-30T10:17:00.001+11:00

With all the changes currently going on in educational publishing, and the accompanying gloomy predictions for its future health, one could be forgiven for thinking the writing is on the wall. Sometimes you need to look over your neighbour's fence to be aware of just how lucky you actually are. Dudley Schroeder, executive director of the South African Publishers Association, gave some interesting statistics at a presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In South Africa, there are about 25,000 schools. Only 7% of schools have a library. Four thousand have no electricity, while fifty percent of South African households have no books at all. Yet, Schroeder was very optimistic about the future of his industry, saying there was 'a real place for the educational publisher.'

Lost in transition

2007-10-29T12:35:00.000+11:00

It's a publisher's worst nightmare - you arrive at Frankfurt with a list of appointments a mile long, and your samples haven't arrived. One major Sydney trade publisher had to put on a very brave face after their books failed to arrive on time this year. Staff briefed, customers ready to buy, the fair opening for business and ... an empty stand. After many no doubt frantic phone calls, the books finally turned up, thank goodness, halfway through day one, so only half a day's business was lost. The fate of the particular courier isn't known, but it's probably safe to assume they will be a little less busy next year.

The worm has (re)turned

2007-10-25T10:04:00.000+10:00

The general election has even reached the world of children's books. Inspired by the recent Howard vs Rudd TV debate and the infamous Channel Nine worm controversy, Kate Colley at Bloomin' Books in Sydney decided to have her own worm-themed window display. I have to say, I never knew there were so many vermicular tomes around. I expect Kate had to cast around a fair bit to find them all.

A pair of Crocs

2007-10-18T11:58:00.000+10:00

Experienced Frankfurt attendess will always tell you that stout footwear is essential for walking the book fair's endless aisles. Two attendees at the Australian aisle party last week were clearly taking this advice very seriously indeed, if this picture is anything to go by. The shoes in question are, I'm advised by my youthful nephew, called Crocs. According to their manufacturer, they are 'a lightweight, comfortable, slip-resistant, fashionable and functional shoe.' Let's not forget colourful too. No doubt we can expect to see more Crocs at Frankfurt in years to come. In the meantime, why not guess which Melbourne-based independent these particular Crocs were representing. A bottle of passable red to the first correct answer pulled out of the hat.

Trump this

2007-10-18T10:08:00.001+10:00

Clearly Donald Trump doesn't believe that free publicity is the best publicity. The New York Times has revealed that the snaking queue at a recent signing of his new book at a Barnes & Noble store in New York only existed because people were paid a total of US$30,000 to stand in it. According to an ad placed the previous day, the first 100 people were promised US$100, the next $200 received US$50, and the budget stretched to a further US$10 for the next 1000 people.

Apparently, quite a few Trump 'fans' ran off once they'd received their cash, foregoing the oportunity to meet the great man and buy his book. Time is money, after all.

Books for APEC leaders

2007-09-13T10:13:00.000+10:00

It seems sometimes only a book will do. The lost business caused by the recent APEC meeting clearly made quite a few of Sydney's CBD booksellers grumpy, but ironically the APEC leaders seemed intent on promoting books. Kevin Rudd gave George W Bush a copy of David Day's John Curtin: A Life, while Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made Kinokuniya's day by buying up most of their nonfiction section including, encouragingly, Helen Caldicott's Nuclear Power is not the Answer. After their hilarious celebrity catalogue, no doubt the entreprenuerial Steve Jones and his team are even now working on a 'recommend reads for APEC leaders' catalogue for next year's meeting, to be held in Darkest Peru.

Controversy proves a hit

2007-09-05T16:45:00.000+10:00

Due to international publicity surrounding a certain Sydney book distributor in August, I hear hits to their website jumped from 1,000 to 11,000 in just a few days. The inundation of public interest - which flowed on to their publisher clients' websites as well - overwhelmed their servers, forcing them to spend extra money on upgrading their site. As far as I know, there are no plans to recoup the unforeseen costs by invoicing a certain national bookselling chain ...

Anyone for tennis?

2007-09-04T15:23:00.001+10:00

David Cohen has a special attachment to ISBN 978-1-876044-55-8. After processing many thousands of ISBN numbers as a worker in the ISBN Agency, Cohen was recently finally able to allocate one to a book of his own - a comic novel entitled Fear of Tennis (Black Pepper). Rarely have 13 digits held such fascination, I'm sure. The novel, launched at Readings Carlton last month, examines that particularly Australian phenomennon: the impossibility of avoiding sport. I should have known it was only a matter of time before the ISBN Agency decided to cut out the middle man and produce books itself.

A dangerous precedent

2007-08-29T17:06:00.000+10:00

That Dangerous Book for Boys really started something, didn't it? Scarcely a week seems to go past without some copy-cat appearing, making it the Eats, Shoots and Leaves of recent times. I note some hopeful US agent recently even posted a proposal for The Dangerous Book for Dogs on the Publishers Marketplace website. Perhaps someone could wake me when the danger's over.

A party plan

2007-08-29T12:32:00.000+10:00

Publishing and parties go hand-in-hand. Indeed, the image of the smiling, rosy-cheeked publishing type holding their glass of passable red aloft is such an industry cliche that such images were actually banned for several years from the pages of this journal. While parties lubricate the publishing process, I've not heard of a publisher entirely financed by parties until now. The publisher concerned is avant garde publisher Is Not Magazine, which publishes its quarterly magazine as a giant poster, pasted up in public spaces in Melbourne and Sydney. With no advertising revenue, and no retail price, the publisher generates the vast majority of its income by running extravagant parties. The events are such a hit with the party-going set, editor Penny Modra told a Melbourne Writers Festival session recently, that 'many regular party-goers have absolutely no idea we publish anything at all.'

Sexy bookseller a conference drawcard

2007-08-15T15:56:00.000+10:00

'I can't believe I get to sit next to Melbourne's Sexist Man!' whooped an excited female attendee of the New Zealand book industry awards in Auckland last month. I hear a couple of visiting male Melbourne publishers puffed out their chests on overhearing the lady's exclamation. Alas, she was referring not to them, but to a bookseller: namely, that charismatic young man, Mark Rubbo of Readings, who has had to wear that particular monicker since an article in the Age back in 2004. It seems Booksellers NZ just happened to drop this piece of information into its publicity material to help attract delegates to the conference. It must have worked: I hear the dinner was a sell-out.

The White Rose of Lindfield

2007-08-14T15:05:00.000+10:00

Still on the unkillable wizard, I’m told that this seventh and final book was ‘good for the indies as well as the biggies.’ I take that to mean that one didn’t need the ‘market leverage’ of a national retail conglomerate to sell a decent number of books at a decent price and have a jolly good time while you’re at it. As evidence, I was provided with this lovely photo of ‘Professor Snape’ Scott Whitmont, ‘Professor Sprout’ Toni Whitmont and ‘Professor Dumbledore’ Max Oliver of Sydney’s Lindfield Children’s Bookshop—and if you’re wondering where Scott’s trademark designer spectacles are, he tells me ‘After the fourth customer asked why I was dressed as Nana Mouskouri, I decided they had to go!’

Timely training opportunity

2007-08-14T14:43:00.000+10:00

The energetic Dee Read, training officer at the APA, puts together a pretty good program of professional development events. One that caught my eye was her September seminar, 'Conflict Resolution: Think Win/Win,' presented by Eleanor Shakiba. Interestingly, the Melbourne session booked out almost immediately. Perhaps Dee sent an invitation to a certain Melbourne-based retailer ...

All bets are off

2007-08-10T09:51:00.000+10:00

I'm sure my bookselling colleagues enjoyed selling the 'last' Harry Potter book back in July. Perhaps some of you have now had a chance to finish the book for yourselves. If we should worry for the poor booksellers who didn't make any money out of it all (what were we thinking to stock such an unprofitable line?) , then perhaps we should spare a thought for the poor bookmakers too. London bookmaker William Hill took a number of bets on how Harry Potter's fate would be resolved at the end of the seven-volume saga. When the book was published, three William Hill staffers were quickly despatched to read the book and determine the outcome of the wager. Sadly, they couldn't agree on whether Potter died or not.

'It was a fairly ambiguous ending, open to various interpretations, and so whatever way we settled the bets would have annoyed some people,' Rupert Adams, a William Hill spokesman, is quoted as saying by Bloomberg. 'So we paid out on all the bets.' The bookmaker paid out some $216,000 on the wager, its first on a book ending. If you're an interested punter, William Hill is already taking bets on there being an eighth HP book.

110% the solution to A&R's predicament

2007-08-09T17:06:00.000+10:00

I notice both the Sydney Morning Herald and Crikey have now posted online ARW Group Commercial Manager Charlie Rimmer's fast-becoming-legendary letter to the book retailer's 'unprofitable' suppliers (among which are some of the nation's finest book publishers). The ever-alert Australian Society of Authors has even called for a boycott of Angus & Robertson company stores. Some sympathy, please: it's not easy being squeezed between the demands of private equity and the heavy discounting of the DDS. I’ve been trying to think of a solution to A&R’s predicament and I think I’ve finally come up with something that won’t eat into the publishers’ margins. We have to make every book worth 110% of RRP. An extra 10% would keep everyone happy. Not only would this give A&R the 5% they seem to want to take anyway, but you could give the other 5% to the author and keep the ASA happy too. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

Tip of the iceberg

2007-08-08T15:32:00.000+10:00

When I was young girl working in my first bookshop, it was not unknown for a satisfied customer to tip me a shilling if they felt I'd been particularly helpful. A shop assistant's pay was even worse then than it is now, so we were always glad of a little extra. You can imagine the enormous sense of nostalgia I felt, therefore, when I recently discovered one large book retailer is reviving the practice. The retailer is asking publishers to tip its floor-walkers $1.25 to recommend a nominated book to their customers. What a great way to earn a little extra pocket money.

The secret to successful publishing

2007-07-26T13:20:00.000+10:00

The learned heads of two small but successful independent publishers were locked in intense conversation in the pre-dessert mingle at the Australian Book Industry Awards this week.

'I wouldn't mind asking you some detailed questions about the financial side,' said one. 'Oh, there's no real secret to it,' said the other, 'just work yourself three times as hard as anyone you can afford to employ!'

There, the secret's out.

Brickbats to News.com.au

2007-07-20T09:39:00.000+10:00

Brickbats to the nitwits at News.com.au who, at 8.28am on 20 July, decided to post an ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on their website, thereby ensuring that every killjoy in Australia potentially had the ammunition to spoil the experience of thousands of avid fans waiting to find out for themselves a day later. The fact that the News.com.au ending was incorrect doesn't mitigate the crime. I suppose these are the same people who took delight in telling younger siblings there was no Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy.

Caught napping?

2007-07-12T10:13:00.000+10:00

Fans of Japanese comics will be saddened to hear that publisher Asahi Sonorama is to close its doors and be absorbed into its parent, the Asahi Shimbun Company. The publisher of such celebrated titles as Night Parade of Spirits and Monsters and Crusher Joe (no, I hadn't heard of them either, but they're big in Japan) had, it seems, finally caused its parent company to run out of patience. Fair enough too, really, as Sonorama's president Mr. Takashi Iida freely admitted that business had been insolvent for at least 20 years! Indeed, Japanese Writers House suggests that Sonorama had been performing consistently - consistently badly, that is - since its founding in the 1970s and now has liabilities of 1.6 billion yen (just over A$15 million). You'd have to say they've been given every chance to make a go of it. Even so, it seems Sonorama may have continued into the future but for an HR crisis. 'With the aging of its employees over recent years, it became difficult to continue operations,' says Japanese Writers House. If only they hadn't taken all those afternoon naps. Talking of which, it's about time for mine now.

Warehouse of Secrets

2007-07-09T18:12:00.000+10:00

Finally, the ADS warehouse in Tuggerah gets the recognition it deserves. No longer a mere distribution facility, it has been transformed quicker than you can say 'firm sale' into 'Harry Potter's Warehouse of Secrets ... where the final Harry Potter book will begin its magical journey across Australia into the hands of spellbound readers.' We have a couple of lyrical Fairfax journalists to thank for this alchemy. Thanks to them, readers of The Age now know that ADS has a 14,790-square-metre site, and that the books will be packed in boxes of 20 copies. It can only be a matter of time before Phill Knight starts receiving a deluge of CVs from logistics-smitten Muggles. Seriously, though, it's nice to see them get some well-deserved limelight.

Farewell to the Big Smoke

2007-07-09T14:46:00.000+10:00

In times past, it has become common to warn Frankfurt visitors not to make appointments in the German halls after midday lest you risk early onset of emphysema. It seems smoking at Frankfurt has finally run out of puff, however, following the shattering news that the halls will be smoke-free this year. I expect this will be of particular concern to the model-thin, stilleto-healed European literary agents, who have somehow appeared to survive solely on smoke fumes and champagne in the LitAg centre in years gone by. I fear it may backfire, however, knowing how gregarious smokers tend to me. It wouldn't surprise me if industry power-smokers (and we have some of the best here in Australia) snap up even more of the hot deals while huddled in small groups outside the hall exits in between formal meetings. Just remember to take a scarf.

How can he live with himself?

2007-07-09T12:03:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to Scribe and Penguin for accomplishing something truly historic, namely publishing a book of the same title about the same person on the same day at the same retail price, listed on the same invoice, packed by the same warehouse and delivered in the same box via the same courier. I speak, of course, of the two Kevin Rudd biographies. This huge coincidence has also led to the books appearing side-by-side in the same book reviews, and achieving almost identical media coverage, according to Thorpe-Bowker's Media Extra survey. And what about sales so far? Well, I think you might take an educated guess, dear reader.

Queer agenda

2007-07-03T16:16:00.000+10:00

There's room for all sorts in our industry, thank goodness. The program for this month's Booksellers New Zealand conference in Auckland is a good case in point. It contains a session for 'Circle Users' - a group which one might think included almost all mankind (who doesn't use a circle at some stage of the day?). Circle users, I have now discovered, are actually those that use the Christchurch-based point-of-sale system of the same name. BNZ's program also features an 'Alternative Bindings Breakfast' for gay and lesbian members of the trade. I note the breakfast includes a 'compulsory AGM from 8.03 to 8.06am,' which suggests a very queer agenda indeed. The session also appears to be without a sponsor at present, but there's still time if you're interested.

The Man Who Moved My Cheese Gets His Come-Uppance

2007-06-21T10:35:00.000+10:00

I hear Andy Griffiths, much beloved by naughty children around the world, thoroughly entertained booksellers at their dinner at the ABA conference. Having asked them to vote on whether they’d prefer to be a pimple or a boil (I hear it was boils by a nose), he thought they were ready for the kind of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’-style story seen in his inimitable children’s books. ‘You spot a desperate-looking customer in your self-help section,’ suggested Griffiths. ‘You go up to them and ask if you can help. They start crying and say, “My life is falling apart, I’ve lost my job, my spouse has left me, all my friends hate me, I find it hard to make even the simplest of decisions and I can’t stop eating, drinking, smoking, gambling and loving too much…and somebody keeps moving my [expletive deleted] cheese … can you help me?”’ Those booksellers who chose to recommend professional help to their forlorn customer were dismayed to discover they had made ‘the last in a long line of terrible bookselling decisions.’ Griffiths continued: ‘It is the last straw for your business. Your store goes bankrupt. Your spouse leaves you (even if you don’t have spouse), all your friends start hating you, you find it difficult to make even the simplest of decisions and you can’t stop eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, loving too much and you catch the [further expletive] who keeps moving your cheese and you strangle them to death with a stale cheese stringer. You are caught with the blood-soaked cheese-stringer in your hand, and then charged and sentenced to be hung by the neck until you are dead. You are hung by the neck until you are dead. YOU DIE.’ The majority of diners (perhaps wisely) chose the alternative option: to steer the customer out of the self-help section and give them a copy of Griffiths’ own Zombie Bums from Uranus. Right answer! ‘All they really needed was a good laugh to get everything back into perspective … They come back and buy the entire Andy Griffiths backlist and, furthermore, are so impressed by your ability to put such a great book into their hands with such a vague description that they give you the maximum five-star rating on their very popular RATEYOURLOCALBOOKSELLER.COM website and your business explodes. You have to open a second store to cope with demand, and then a third and a fourth and then countless more until soon you win the Bookseller of the Year award and then find yourself spending your days on board your private yacht drinking martinis and actually reading books instead of selling them. Unfortunately, your yacht hits a reef and you capsize in the middle of the ocean. You cling to the hull of the boat, surrounded by circling sharks which you only manage to keep at bay by hitting them on the head with a soggy copy of The Secret until one day you look up and there’s a helicopter and it airlifts you to safety and your amazing story becomes the subject of a worldwide bidding war and eventually becomes a world wide best-selling book, making you a worldwide bestselling author …You buy a new yacht …and resume your life of leisure.’ Given Griffiths’ winning gifts for both mirth and self-promotion, I’m sure readers will look forward to the publication of his new book, Just Shocking!, in October.

A DAD, egad!

2007-06-21T10:32:00.000+10:00

I received a flyer across my desk the other day which offered to explain ‘Why Every Publisher Needs a DAD.’ Of course they do, I thought, goes without saying, even in this digital age. The flyer then went on to explain that some publishers might want more than one DAD. I should have known it wouldn’t be so simple. A DAD isn’t someone you build go-karts with (à la Dangerous Book for Boys) or give birthday socks to with impunity, but rather a Digital Asset Distributor. Illuminatingly, the flyer explained that there was no consensus on what a DAD actually did, but it was something to do with doing what book distributors do now. Now you know. I put the flyer down when it got to the stage of asking whether publishers should become DADs themselves. Not a role I have to worry about. I shall stick to my knitting.

Diamond geezer

2007-06-21T10:31:00.000+10:00

I hear Irishman John Mc Namee of the European Booksellers Federation enjoyed his visit to the Australian Booksellers Association conference. Having scared everyone with prophesies of store closures in the digital future, John admitted there was an area of modern bookselling which he just didn’t understand: manga comics. Fortunately, Diamond Book Distributors’ beatnik-coiffed Scott Hatfill came to his rescue by running a ‘Manga for dummies’ session at the conference. ‘Now I understand why I didn’t get manga,’ Mc Namee was heard to admit afterwards, ‘I was always reading the books from the wrong end!’

Taking the Mickey

2007-06-21T10:08:00.000+10:00

I’ve always maintained that the best way to generate goodwill at the ABA conference is to put money behind the bar. This year the good people at Disney did the right thing. I hear any misgivings about accepting free drinks from a Mickey Mouse organisation were soon dispelled.

Blown spume

2007-06-14T13:30:00.000+10:00

Talking of circling sharks, it has come to my attention that one of South Australia's leading booksellers—Bruce Macky of Dymocks Adelaide—is getting off the gym treadmill and heading for the open seas. He is off later this month for a year-long clipper race around the world (either business is very good, or diabolically bad!). His yacht will be armed with a global positioning system, so reps who want to try every last thing to boost those Christmas orders can locate him successfully. Bon voyage, Bruce.

Garrett's the good oil

2007-05-24T14:36:00.001+10:00

In contrast to Brandis, the performance of the Shadow Arts Minister on the same program a week later was very refreshing. Peter Garrett (shadow minister for climate change, environment, heritage and [phew!]the ... arts) was clearly briefed on the issues, was able to speak passionately and with knowledge as a creator and copyright holder himself and made all the right noises about preserving ELR, abolishing the recent sedition laws, protection territorial copyright and even looking into annoying anomalies in the GST (although the GST on books is here to stay). If anything, he was slightly less 'bookish' than Brandis, but I suspect the industry will forgive him that if he delivers something more than the current incumbent. Given the complete absence of any measures for the industry in the recent Federal Budget, that probably won't be very hard.

New 'Minister for Books'

2007-05-16T16:45:00.000+10:00

If the performance last week of the new 'Minister for Books,' Senator George Brandis, on Radio National's 'Book Show' is anything to go by, it's unlikely books are going to get much attention in the lead-up to the next election. Brandis, actually Federal Minister for Arts and Sport (always a popular combination, that) was the guest of stand-in presenter Michael Gurr. Brandis has clearly been slow to get briefed on the book industry side of his portfolio since his February appointment, claiming that the annual ABS industry statistical survey was still going (Gurr politely informed him it wasn't), and identifying no particular measures his government was pursuing on the industry's behalf beyond the modest sums dispensed by the Australia Council. Still, he did mention he read books (his favourites are David Malouf's Johnno, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Robert Menzies' The Forgotten People) and said he bought books from Folio Books in Brisbane and Hill of Content in Melbourne. Perhaps the best that can be said about his performance, which was almost breathtaking in its blandness, was that he believed he didn't see a role for the government in regulating the industry. The government, he said, 'should keep their noses out of it.' That may be the best we can hope for.

Profiting from Guantanamo

2007-05-02T09:29:00.000+10:00

What's wrong with this sentence?

'We're not trying to stop them from trying to sell their story, but we are saying you can't profit from it.' (Philip Ruddock)

Our beloved Attorney-General makes no attempt to explain why anyone, let alone a penniless, socially-marginalised, virtually unemployable convicted 'terrorist,' would want to sell anything except to make a profit. Perhaps he'll require David Hicks to provide a profit-and-loss statement on the writing of the book:

INCOME
Advance against royalty: $500,000

EXPENDITURE
Pen: $3.00
Paper: $20
4 years in Guantanamo Bay: Priceless

Expert tracker

2007-04-27T12:38:00.000+10:00

I'm indebted to Peter Kirkpatrick, president of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for finding this little gem on the HarperCollins website. Kirkpatrick was writing a piece for the excellent Australian Author on the changing fortunes of Australian literature when he thought he might search for Katherine Susannah Prichard's backlist online. Only one KSP book, Coonardo, remains in print but Kirkpatrick was most excited to see an invitation on the website to sign up for HC's AuthorTracker service. 'Want to receive notice of Katherine Pritchard's [sic]new books, tour dates, and promotions? Sign up now!' encouraged the website blurb. An author tour from KSP would truly be an event for the headlines given she died in 1969.

Chain reaction

2007-04-24T16:48:00.000+10:00

With the Australian Book Industry Awards almost upon us, there has been much debate about the Chain Bookseller of the Year award. What constitutes a chain bookseller exactly? Last year, Melbourne's five-store independent group Readings scooped the award to the surprise of many and the bemusement of owner Mark Rubbo, whose business is usually a front-runner for Independent Bookseller of the Year. Clearly, it wasn't going to happen twice. The definition of 'chain' has now been changed to exclude Readings and other regional chains, and to ensure the award goes to one of those large national book retailers for which it was created in the first place. No doubt one of Borders, Angus & Robertson, Collins, Book City or Dymocks will be 'thrilled and surprised' when they win this year's award.

Dickens theme park

2007-04-24T12:01:00.000+10:00

Satire died, according to Tom Lehrer, the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is probably so, as the opening of the world's first Charles Dickens theme park at the end of this month could only happen in a post-satire world. That's right, dear reader, the author of Great Expectations and Bleak House now has his own theme park - Dickens World - in Kent, England. Cobbled streets, gas lamps, costumed actors and quaint Victorian shops have been combined with water rides, a children's play area called Fagin's Den, a 'Dickensian' shopping mall and a 'haunted' Scrooge's house to produce what the venue's website describes as 'A New Themed Entertainment Visitor Attraction Based Upon the Life, Times, Books and Characters of Charles Dickens, Our Most Famous and Enduring Author'. There's no mention of whether this $150 million monstrosity will have something as quaint and old-fashioned as Dickens' novels for sale. Will Australia be next? Bryce World can only be a developer's long lunch away from conception.

Crime and publishing

2007-04-03T14:07:00.000+10:00

Time was when a nice little book deal could be relied on to bring comfort to a criminal or n'er-do-well in their retirement. No more. Now they can't be seen to profit from their misdemeanours, which rather puts a dampener on chequebook publishing and journalism and (dare I mention something so unfashionable) perhaps even freedom of speech. Not only does it mean we've probably seen the last of publishing phenomena like Chopper Read, but I hear the courts are now trying to get their hands on the $350,000 Pan Macmillan has paid to Schapelle Corby (but not, thankfully, the profit Pan Mac itself has made out of her book). My guess is the cash has already left the country, but they could always try checking the baggage at Sydney airport just in case.

Five Mile Press bjorn again

2007-04-02T15:48:00.000+10:00

Introduced as a man dedicated to the principle of never using a piece of artwork only once, Five Mile Press's outgoing owner David Horgan was looking pretty pleased with himself last Friday night, according to my sources. Having sold off the company to Swedish giant Bonnier, his pockets are stuffed with kronor, and consequently he treated staff and friends to a big bash overlooking Melbourne's scenic Albert Park Lake. Aptly, Horgan was presented with a limited edition book about himself as he laid down the 'subtle' changes that will be implemented by the firm's new Swedish owners. As you can see from the attached photo, hair is now to be compulsorily blonde, all future company cars are to be Volvos, office furniture will be delivered flat-packed from Ikea, pickled herrings will be served in the staff lunchrooms, and the FMP boardroom is to be converted into a sauna so that meetings can be conducted either 'naked or wrapped in a fluffy white towel.' Also in keeping with a great Swedish tradition, there were a large number of sore heads the next morning, by all reports.

Librairies sans frontieres

2007-03-27T11:35:00.000+10:00

So Borders is placing its knitting back in the box and putting its Australian stores up for sale, just as WHSmith did before them. While local publishers are no doubt very concerned that the 20-store chain is maintained in some form, I'm sure there are plenty of booksellers adjacent to Borders outlets who must be feeling like the inhabitants of the Earth at the end of H G Wells' War of the Worlds. There is some suggestion that a management buyout of the US chain's Australian stores may be a possibility, but perhaps just as likely Pacific Equity Partners (owners of Angus & Robertson) may jump in or perhaps Dymocks, given Borders has expressed an interest in franchising. One thing appears likely - for the moment, anyway. We can wave goodbye to that phenomenon so beloved by sales managers - the Borders' new store opening order.

Grid guys

2007-03-19T10:38:00.000+11:00

A number of industry identities were spotted at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne last weekend, including distributor Dennis Jones, Phil Walshe of Bolinda Audio and Pearson Australia's technology guru Peter Dart, who enjoyed the hospitality of Hewlett Packard. (I wonder if Dart has kept this quiet back at Penguin HQ. His colleague Bob Sessions was an early and vocal marcher against the race.) Phil Walshe seems to have got closest to the action. Visitors to his apartment overlooking the racetrack were surprised to discover a Channel Nine film crew using his balcony as a vantage point. That's one way of ensuring you appear on the evening news.

You Only Live Twice?

2007-03-16T17:03:00.000+11:00

When my nephew asked if I had discovered the Second Life yet, I almost clocked him with my handbag. But it turns out he wasn’t being rude about my advanced age after all. Second Life is apparently the name of an alternative online world where people can live, make money, build houses and even attend concerts, not as themselves, but as self-created characters, or ‘avatars.’ Such is the popularity of this virtual world (four million people belong to it, with as many as 200,000 strolling its virtual streets at any one time), that businesses are starting to get involved. The main reason for this is that any intellectual property you create in this online world remains yours, and it’s an interesting way of market testing and even promoting your brands. Thus, Penguin UK already has a resident Second Life publisher, while a ‘live’ reading from a virtual Dean Koontz heralded the opening of a Second Life Bantam Dell bookshop last month (selling only Bantam Dell books, of course). I hear we may have our own Australian inhabitants in Second Life before too long. The (surely not cash-strapped) University of Queensland has apparently purchased (with real money!) some real estate in Second Life. I shall therefore look forward to greeting the avatar of a virtual Greg Bain on a virtual Second Life golf course before too long. Those of us who don’t have enough time to live our First Life can only marvel. Or despair.

A Tale of Two Chains

2007-03-15T14:10:00.000+11:00

No doubt we will have another round of insane discounting when we all go Harry Potty in July. It reminds me of a tale of two bookselling chains (whom I cannot name, of course) that I learned about recently. Like many good stories, it is set around Christmas time, and involved a bestelling book (which I also cannot name). You will be dumbstruck, dear reader, to discover that one chain was selling this book for substantially less than cost. The price was so good, in fact, that the head office of its competitor sent out a command to all its stores to go directly to branches of the first chain's stores and buy up all available stock of the title without delay. This was duly done. Then, the second chain's existing stock of the books was taken off the shelves, replaced with cheaper books and (and this is the really nice bit, I think), returned to the publisher. One can only imagine what all this skullduggery did to the BookScan figures. There's an even more interesting story about the creation of the book itself, which I would love to share with you but, alas, it may have to wait until the annals of this age are writ.

Books They Should Read

2007-03-15T12:46:00.000+11:00

Booksellers' catalogues can tend to look the same, so it's nice to see someone trying something a little bit different. Steve Jones and his team at Kinokuniya in Sydney have produced a celebrity-driven Books They Should Read catalogue, which amusingly and somewhat wickedly exploits the nation's obsession with celebrities. They picked some well-known names, including John Howard, George Bush, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (I can thank my occasional trips to the hairdresser for my acquaintance with the latter two) and creatively put together recommended reading lists for them. As good booksellers are so skilled at doing. Thus, among several recommendations, Bush was helpfully recommended Where's Bin Laden? and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Iraq, Howard got Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, Spears was directed to Idiots in Love: Chronicles of Romantic Stupidity and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, while The Triumph of the Airheads was suggested for Hilton. My own favourites from the catalogue: Kinokuniya's suggestion that Victoria 'I've never read a book' Beckham might like to read her own Learning to Fly, and Coffee, Tea or Me? The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Hostesses for, you've guessed it, Ralph Fiennes.

Putdownable books

2007-03-13T11:12:00.000+11:00

Readers don't finish almost half of all books they buy, according to a Teletext survey of 4000 readers in the UK. This follows the revelation in my December 2005 column that a third of Brits bought books 'solely to look intelligent.' Now we know which books they are not finishing. Top of the unread fiction list was D B C Pierre's Booker winner, Vernon God Little, followed by what is probably the most famous unedited book of all time, J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and James Joyce's Ulysses (for which library binding has proved largely unnecessary). Big unfinished nonfiction titles included Bill Clinton's autobiography (a book, I was gratified to discover, I too have not finished), Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves and, tellingly, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. It made me wonder what 'putdownable' Australian and New Zealand titles might appear on a list done in this part of the world. I'd be glad to receive your nominations, dear readers. Just jot me a line to gladysbembo@yahoo.com or, if that's too low-tech for you, place a comment on my blog.