Some rather interesting stuff in today's email of links from the booktrade.info site, which is always a wonderful source of free publishing news.
Borders has another potential purchaser in the ring. (Last week Richard Branson was reported as interested.) This week it's Trevor Goul-Wheeker , former MD of book chain Hammicks, and he's believed to have teamed up Keith Watson, a former colleague at Hammicks. It is not known if they have arranged finance yet. Good to see some interested parties who have had some involvement in the world of books, to varying degrees.
Comedian Dawn French is offering up her memoirs. Apparently it took an offer of £1.25m from each of the eight interested publishers for them to be able to sit at the table and discuss the proposal. The Times says "Publishing insiders predict the memoirs of the 49-year-old French could set a record by selling for more than £1.6m. This is believed to be the amount that Weidenfeld & Nicolson, paid last year for the memoirs of Julie Walters. That book is due out next year." The article also says "The book will probably appear in 2008 and could clash with Walters’s memoirs. Once these are published it will leave only Victoria Wood, another national comic treasure, to write hers." Er, I don't think that Jennifer Saunders has done hers yet, has she? But also, are these ladies really worth those sorts of figures? I think their appeal rests with the 40+ age group, possibly female rather than male. But certainly, neither is about to do a Blunkett and both do start with the benefit of the "national comic treasure" label (not exclusive to Wood, in my mind).
Bloomsbury's financial condition is quite dependent on J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter novels it seems. A year without one and oh, how they suffer - profits are expected to crash from about £20m to £5m. Ah, here comes Blunkett again. They took a punt on Blunkett in that year, along with Gary Barlow. Neither sold well, to even match expectations. The linked article in the Sunday Herald also includes speculation about the price the next Potter could be offered at, in the supermarkets, and says "...some small independent bookshop owners claim they cannot afford to stock it, according to a survey carried out for The Bookseller magazine." Another sad scenario in today's bookselling market.
This article in the Guardian refers to politicians' books, not always memoirs, with some laying out their policies. Within the article, apparently Gordon Brown, our "firm" hand at the UK economic rudder, albeit a bit shakey at the moment, is to publish a book called "Courage" giving details about the eight people who have inspired him. These include: Edith Cavell, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. I'm not sure about this. I think you have to be admired to find that people are interested in who inspired/s you. Call me a cynic, but it's a good time for dear Gordon to make a human play, now that the top job is up for grabs. Recent leaks about pension memos won't help him. And his starting point is not really that of "crowd pleaser" is it? I wonder which publisher has taken a punt on that one. Oh, it's Bloomsbury again.
Personally, I think Bloomsbury has been as "logged up" as Canada through HP, that it can no longer see the wood from the trees. Good fiction sells and they bought Rowling's work after she had so many other rejections. They stung like a bee when they got her on board. Why do they now concentrate on the "celebrity/personality" market? Perhaps when J.K. takes a rest from HP, she'll be working on her memoirs too. Now that one would sell, without a doubt. All those rejections; writing in a café; an apparently difficult relationship with her father - everyone would want to know what made her what she is and the depths of her tenacity.
Overall, after reading all this, this evening, I don't see much improvement on the state of play pre-Christmas. Let's hope that behind the scenes, publishers are working on good new fiction too and that it just doesn't make it into the media reporting.
There is evidence of this, when it comes to crime fiction. It's only just the beginning of April and I've read three rather outstanding débuts already. These are R. N. Morris's "A Gentle Axe" (already on sale); Brian McGilloway's "Borderlands" (make a note in your diary for April 6th in the UK) and Chris Ewan's "The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam" (make another note in your diary for the start of June 2007 in the UK). Some publishers have a really good eye. All of these three début novelists are keen writers and have their next manuscript(s) already written or underway. So if you like their début novels, you can be sure of more to come, too.
It's not all bad news for a reader of crime fiction!
Whilst I have enjoyed most of French's TV output over the years, going way back to the Comic Strip, I'm not sure that I would feel the need to read her 'story'... Having read the 'official unauthorised' biographies of Julie Walters and Victoria Wood, likewise I wouldn't feel the need to read any more... Besides, the DVDs are much more fun!
Posted by: Chris | 07 April 2007 at 14:27
Interesting commment Off the Page, but it only adds the argument that Bloomsbury has been so heavily dependent on Potter, if that's their biggest mistake. However, I am not completely critical of them, they've had an excellent website for some time now, giving masses of information and assistance to writers on how to get published. I think that's a quality resource.
As for Borders, it will be interesting to see what happens. It wouldn't surprise me if the out of town stores are bought by one party and the smaller branches (ex- Books etc.) are bought by another. I imagine that some companies might simply like to get their hands on the out of town retail space. And it will be sad if these stores are full of furniture/clothes/kitchen equipment in the future.
Posted by: crimeficreader | 06 April 2007 at 17:46
Bloomsbury's big mistake was to fail to get hold of the Potter sub-rights, meaning when the film rights were sold off, they didn's see a penny of the hundreds of millions, which were divided up between J.K. and her agent.
On the subject of Borders, the former Hammicks employees considering a takeover is good news, they are 'book people' after all, and there aren't enough of those left in book retailing.
Posted by: Off the Page | 05 April 2007 at 15:04