Hanson's not-so-secret publisher

Interesting to read Pauline Hanson being coy about the title and publisher of her autobiography, due for release on 29 March. Hard-working News Limited and AAP journalists were clearly content to leave it a mystery in their coverage of her remarks. A pity, because a simple Google search would have found the full details of the book, including its cover, on the Pan Macmillan website. PanMac's distribution arm MDS are distributing the book on behalf of small independent Melbourne publisher JoJo Publishing, and a lot of booksellers have already placed their orders. JoJo also features the book, poetically entitled Untamed and Unashamed, prominently on its own website. My journalist friends might even like to take advantage of the website's special pre-publication offer for a signed copy of the book. Perhaps Hanson and the media enjoy their merry little dances so much neither wanted facts to get in the way of a good story.

A&R and Barnes & Noble?

The rumours are flowing around about a connection between Angus & Robertson Whitcoulls and and US bookselling giant, Barnes & Noble. Staff from Australia and New Zealand's largest bookshop chain have apparently been on a 'study tour' in the US partly hosted by B&N. If one is to believe the share market bloggers, the US chain is apparently ripe for a leveraged buyout by private equity, just as ARW was in July 2005, when it was purchased by Pacific Equity Partners. All this means nothing, of course. For the moment, all the two chains have in common is their ampersand.

Impecunious authors

‘Why should authors get any more than other people with hobbies like sport or music or painting?’ I expect Penguin publishing supremo Bob Sessions may not be the most popular publisher with members of the Australian Society of Authors, following this masterful attempt to hose down their earning expectations in the December 2006 issue of Australian Author. Bob’s remarks certainly seem to have exasperated the writer who interviewed him. Dawn Cohen ended her article canvassing collective bargaining by authors, and even trying to persuade fellow ‘hobbyist’ (and Penguin author) Bryce Courtenay to down tools in support of his impecunious peers.

A Christmas cheer

Credit where credit is due. I had a gentle tease of a certain NSW library supplier a few months ago for promoting things other than books as gift ideas in their Father’s Day newsletter. You can imagine my expectations were high on receiving their Christmas newsletter. Here are the heartening opening words: ‘A book. The perfect Christmas gift for those you know and love ... and for those you don’t really know all that well and maybe aren’t that fond of.’ And they even focused on Australian authors too. Now, that’s more like it! I can also recommend their seasonal recipe for summer pudding, although I’ve found it can be improved upon with the addition of a little brandy or rum (but best not tell the librarians).

Publishers make good bloggers

I note another industry identity has joined myself and Black Dog Books’ Andrew Kelly in the blog-ocracy. Henry Rosenbloom has always been one with a keen turn of phrase, and now we can enjoy his well-chosen words on the recently re-vamped Scribe website (haven’t revamped your own website recently? Shame on you!). Henry, who describes himself as a ‘deracinated Jewish atheist,’ admits to mixed feelings about the trade’s reliance on the Christmas selling period. ‘Any publisher who releases a serious book between November and December is likely to regret the decision,’ he notes. ‘The seasonal avalanche of celebrity bios, blockbusters, brand-name authors, summer reads, and sports books crushes everything in its path.’ This didn’t stop Scribe releasing Inside the Global Jihad in November, I note.

The long lunch not entirely dead

I hear Pearson Australia CEO Peter Field, who has now left Australia to run Penguin UK, received a right royal send-off from his board. They went to Donovan’s in Melbourne’s trendy beachside suburb of St Kilda for a nice farewell lunch. What started as a lunch, however, soon progressed into afternoon drinks and then … dinner! The staff at Donovan’s must have been relieved when the final stragglers left late into the evening. Who says the long lunch is dead? Bon voyage, Peter.

Brilliant hoax?

You would think that having a book exposed in the New York Times as hoax on the eve of Frankfurt would put paid to any rights deals. Not in the case of Rohan Kriwaczek’s An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin. Seemingly an innocent and well-researched work of scholarship about a particular musical tradition born in the Middle Ages, the book is handicapped by one small detail— apparently there’s no such thing as the art of the funerary violin! Such a minor detail didn’t discourage Scribe Publication’s acquisitive Henry Rosenbloom from snapping up this eccentric work from its UK publisher, Gerald Duckworth & Co. It was a book, Rosenbloom enthused, that showed ‘how elusive facts and truth are … if it’s a hoax, it’s a brilliant, brilliant hoax.’ The book’s eccentric author is doing his best to muddy the waters further. In response to questions relating to the book’s authenticity from concerned Duckworth publisher, Peter Mayer, he apparently said: ‘Some [questions] I can’t answer, Mr Mayer, because it is a secret society and it is dying out.’