Farewell Borders UK

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

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

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

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

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

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 ...

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.