The PW London Fair Dealer, Wednesday 4/13/2011

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London Fair DEALER Wednesday 13 April 2011 1

13 APRIL 2011

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I n New York, Abrams has signed an agreement with Olivia Harrison, widow of

Beatle George, to publish the life of her late husband in pictures. Living in the Material World: George Harrison – named after his 1973 solo album – was bought by Editor-in-Chief Eric Himmel from Andrew Wylie.

It will be created by Olivia Harrison and will have a foreword by Martin Scorsese and an introduction by Paul Th eroux, and its autumn publication will coincide with the release of Scorsese’s documentary of the same name. Drawing on Harrison’s personal archive of previously unseen photos, letters, diaries, and memorabilia, it will reveal the full arc of his life and will include reminiscences from Eric Clapton, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and his family.

Abrams President and CEO Michael Jacobs described it as “a publishing event that George’s fans all over the world have been waiting for”. ■

Harrison remembered

Sonny Mehta (third from left) with (l-r) Steve Walker, Chairman of SBS Worldwide, Simon Master, Chairman of the LBF Advisory Board, and Kazuo Ishiiguro

O ld friends – including Caroline Lascelles, fi rst Picador editor –

spanning years and continents gathered to see Sonny Mehta presented with the LBF Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by SBS Worldwide. It was an emotional occasion honouring a man who treated all authors with “great respect”, who “never patronised” and showed “a depth of care” that is unparalleled, said Kazuo Ishiguro, who as a yet unknown author fi rst encountered Mehta on a trip to New York. Wherever authors were gathered, they moaned about their editors. “But mention of Sonny kills all the fun. No one ever moans about him.”

Simon Master, who worked with Mehta during the glory days of Pan, noted that, “since the turn of this year, he has published across six decades”, beginning with “a starter job” at Rupert Hart-Davis. Th en came Granada, where he worked with Carmen Callil, and published Th e Female Eunoch. He succeeded Clarence Paget at Pan, becoming Editorial Director of both Pan and Picador, showing that “his literary skills embraced both sides of the street” – Jack Higgins and Jackie Collins on one, Edmund White and Bret Easton Ellis on the other. He recalled editorial meetings, Mehta “his head under a brown blanket, a full ashtray to his left, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels to his right and a fi erce-looking dog sitting on his lap”.

Th en, in 1987, he crossed the Atlantic to create more magic throughout Random House.

Mehta said he didn’t recognise himself. “I share this award with all [my colleagues] but the honour, as always, belongs to the writers who make our work possible.” ■

Sonny Mehta – a very full lifetime

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Fresh from commentating on the US Masters for Sky, Colin Montgomerie visited LBF as Orion announced it had bought world rights in his autobiography Monty (September 2011). Guy Kinnings and Sarah Wooldridge at IMG handled the sale.

The golfer is pictured (right) with publisher Alan Samson, both clutching the Ryder Cup, which Europe won last September under Montgomerie’s captaincy.

Ghonim book up for grabs at buoyant Rights Centre

T raffi c was strong at the International Rights Centre during the

second day of the London Book Fair, writes Rachel Deahl. While many agents and other insiders said there was no big book at the Fair, talk was gurgling up about a coup Michael Carlisle and Richard Pine at Inkwell Management scored, signing Egyptian internet activist Wael Ghonim. Ghonim became an international folk hero after his Facebook page, about an Egyptian man who was beaten to death by police, went viral and helped spark the revolution that swept Egypt.(Ghonim, who works for Google, is to be awarded the 2011 Kennedy Profi le in Courage Award and is slated to appear in the Time 100.)

In an unorthodox sales approach, the agents set Ghonim up in a conference room in the Rights Centre, where, Monday and Tuesday,

he gave hour-long presentations discussing his life. Inkwell has not closed any deals yet for the book, Revolution 2.0, and is, instead, letting interested publishers leave their names, so to speak, at the door.

Aside from the buzz about Ghonim, many agents seemed positive, if low-key, about the Fair itself. Katie Dublinski, at Graywolf Press, who was attending the Fair for the fi rst time after multiple trips to Frankfurt, said she was busy and noted that there was less talk about ebooks than there had been in Germany. “It seemed like every conversation I had at Frankfurt ended with, ‘So what are you doing about ebooks?’” she said.

Brian DeFiore, of DeFiore and Company, said that the lack of a big book seemed a sign of the times. Since it was so easy to spread information about projects via email these days, DeFiore thought that the

“urgency” publishers once felt about buying books at the Fair no longer existed.

He added that while there was talk about ebooks, foreign publishers, including the British, did not seem to believe fully that ebooks would penetrate their local markets in the same way they had in the US. American publishers, he said, had seen the numbers with ebooks “get so big, so quickly” that the format had actually infused an excitement into the business and had caused American houses to buy more aggressively. Th at was not happening with the foreign publishers, he said.

Marta Fricke, who handles international rights for St Martin’s Press, said there was a “nice energy to the show” and that, mostly, everyone seemed pleased to be back in London after so many people could not attend last year because of the volcanic ash cloud.

Robert Gottlieb, Chairman of Trident Media Group, acknowledged that “ebooks are a big topic”, but said he was hoping the conversation would move away from the heavy focus on royalties. Figuring out where ebooks fi tted into an author’s career is what was

important, he said, and it was a “mistake to be overly focused on the royalty issue alone”.

German agent Michael Gaeb, who was seeing strong interest in a debut crime novel he represents by Max Bentow called Th e Feather Man—it has sold in Spain and the Netherlands – said he had been heartened to see a growing interest from American publishers in literature in translation.

Although much talk in the States has been focused on a boon in Swedish crime bestsellers, on the heels of the global success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, Gaeb thought that this new interest went beyond just crime fi ction and just Swedish authors. Th at serious literary authors were fi nding footholds in America and England – in the States Roberto Bolano has been a hit for FSG and in the UK Faber published, last year, French author Tristan Garcia – may be sparking the trend.

Gaeb said he was seeing more interest in literary translations from the British and Americans here in London than he had even in Frankfurt, where, he said, he tended to do more business with other continental European publishers. ■

4 London Fair DEALER Wednesday 13 April 2011



R I G H T S N E W S

Beautiful Books has signed a world rights deal with the Real Man Pizza Company to produce a series of The Real Man Cookbooks. The series will offer readers a range of menus and approaches to the enjoyment of food “refl ecting the values of The Real Man company”. The fi rst book will be published in the UK in physical and ebook formats in autumn 2011. The deal was signed at LBF between Beautiful Books MD Simon Petherick and Real Man MD Tom Winnifrith.

Chatto & Windus has acquired UK/Commonwealth rights to a debut novel by Francesca Segal, in a two-book deal from Rogers, Coleridge & White’s Zoe Waldie in a hotly contested auction. Temple Fortune – “an age-old tale of love, temptation, confusion, commitment and coming to terms with the choices we’ve made” – will be published next year. Chatto is describing it as “a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence”. Said Poppy Hampson: “‘We couldn’t be happier to be publishing this book – it’s witty, charming,

clever and utterly enjoyable, and there’s no doubt that it will be a highlight for us next year. We’re thrilled that Francesca is joining us.”

Segal – the daughter of Erich Segal, a classicist who achieved worldwide fame with Love Story and who wrote the screenplay for the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine – was brought up between the UK and America. He studied at Oxford and Harvard before becoming a journalist and critic.

Simon and Schuster Children’s Books has acquired further titles for the successful Dork Diaries series by Rachel Renée Russell. Jane Griffi ths bought UK/Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) in three new titles from Angharad Kowal at Writers House UK. The deal comprises two further titles in the series and a spin-off journal. The fi rst title under the new contract, Dork Diaries: Pop Star, will be published in June.

Dork Diaries was fi rst published in the US in 2009, followed by the UK release in spring 2010. The fi rst two books have already sold over 230k copies for S&S UK, with almost 1.7 million copies sold worldwide.

CEOs talk revolution“I’ve never been to a revolution, but what is happening doesn’t feel very evolutionary,” John Makinson, Chairman and CEO of the Penguin Group, told the CEO panel at LBF. Th ere was “a transformation” in every area of the publishing chain, and publishers were forced to learn new skills, including the creation of direct relationships with consumers and the production of better pricing analytics. Publishers needed to “Try to understand how the growth in digital is going to track with the inevitable decline of, and in some parts of the world the collapse of, physical book retail.”

Finally, there was the challenge of understanding readers and how they responded to new forms of content. “Will they read immersively, as they have done,” Makinson asked, “or will they expect some other kind of experience?”

Li Pengyi, President of the China Education Publishing and Media Group, said that digital was more than a change of people’s habits, but a “change of lifestyle”. Li said it was unlikely that publishers would be replaced – as long as they found ways to make themselves indispensable; but he likened print to species rendered extinct by environmental change.

If print were to die, though, “it would be a sad story”.

Elsevier CEO YS Chi, speaking from an STM industry perspective, said of the major publishers: “We are the incumbents. When change is fast incumbents are toast. When change is gradual, incumbents reign. So it is not in our interest to make this a revolution.”

“Th e closer you are to the consumer, it defi nitely is a revolution,” said HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray, citing the rapid adoption of ebook readers. In the US, some titles were selling 50% in ebook format in the fi rst few months. “Th at is a watershed to me. Th at means we are beyond the tipping point in some genres.”

Publishers’ best customers were no longer visiting bookstores, Murray said. Th at raised issues of discoverability and marketing. Piracy was also a signifi cant concern, as was scale. “When you move to a complete digital product and value chain, some of the (manufacturing and distribution) scale goes away, and that’s where new ventures can challenge some of the incumbents.”

However, Murray said, we had “an opportunity to really reinvent our business”. It was “an incredibly exciting time”. ■

Usborne toasted debut thriller writer Paula Rawsthorne with drinks and cupcakes at LBF. Rawsthorne wrote her novel, The Truth About Celia Frost,

for the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices competition, and was signed up by one of the judges, Jo Unwin of Conville & Walsh. Unwin sold the novel to Rebecca Hill,

who said that she had “never read a thriller that packs such a punch”. L to r: Unwin, Rawsthorne, and Hill.

Italy is to star at the Global Market Forum at BookExpo America, which takes place in New York in May. “We are excited to roll out the carpet for publishing professionals and authors from Italy in New York in one month,” said BEA director Steven Rosato, adding: “Italy is one of the strongest and most dynamic publishing markets in Europe at this point.”

Italy will be at the centre of events on Monday, 23 May, the day before the show fl oor opens. Topics of the debate with speakers from both major Italian and US companies and institutions include an overview on the Italian book business; the rights and translation markets, with specifi c emphasis on fi ction and on children’s books; and digital publishing. On the digital side, there will be a panel on “Arrow”, an Italian project on identifying orphan works for digital exploitation.

Rosato said: “We are working with the Italian publishers’ association AIE, the Italian trade commission in the US, and major corporations from both Italy and America, assuring that the most relevant voices will be heard at BEA.” Participating houses will include Europa Editions, Rizzoli, RCS, GeMS and Mondadori, as well as the book fairs of Bologna and Turin. ■

BEA welcomes Italy




Andrew and Gilly Johnston toast 10 years of Quiller Publishing

Sheila Bounford and David Taylor pause for a beer at the Ingram party

Peter Balis (right) and colleagues from Wiley celebrate 20 years of Dummies

Up on the Kensington Roof Garden – Robert Harris with (l-r) Caroline Gascoigne, Gail Rebuck, Emma Mitchell and Susan Sandon

Under the big top of Earls Court – a celebration of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus

Denis Avey, 92-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, with his Dutch publishers Heleen Buth (left) and Maria Rutgers of House of Books. Hodder hosted a dinner at the Bluebird Cafe for Avey, co-author Rob

Broomby, and many of the 13 international publishers who have bought rights in the memoir

London Book Fair gallery

Phot

o: D

enis

Nid

os

PARIS COOKBOOK FAIRMarch 2012

Trade meets pleasure

GOURMANDInternational

Edouard Cointreau - [email protected]

Meet us at the London Book Fair

LBF / Gourmand Cookbook CornerEarls Court 2- Z305

become in Bologna. “Th ey had a wider collective stand compared to previous years, and our Japanese area was squeezed. My colleague had a half-day meeting with Korean publishers, and said it was great and interesting. We have always had a selling meeting with Korean publishers every year, but this year was the fi rst time to have so many buying meetings with them.” Some companies, Nonaka, noted, stayed home because of the natural disasters in Japan.

Paulina Lin of the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, organisers of the recent Taipei Book Fair, said that “the mood was much more favourable [than in recent years]. When we fi rst attended in 2009 I seriously questioned the purpose of our presence, but now am quite satisfi ed.”

Peter Whitfi eld of New Frontier Publishing in New South Wales, Australia, observed that “the fair was alive with a buzz it hasn’t seen for fi ve years. Th is was in stark contrast the fl at vibe of the fair last year. Th is year was the opposite. Publishers are trying to fi nd new avenues to drive their content into the hands of readers, and all seemed ready to jump on the ebook, epub, iPad, ‘I-don’t-know-what-is-coming-next’ electronic bandwagon.”

All in all, it was a true pleasure

to be back in Bologna, where fair manager Roberta Chinni puts on a wonderful week, and to see old colleagues such as Nancy Gallt or Dick Robinson and enjoy their generous hospitality, and make new acquaintances such as Markus Dohle and Jack Jensen. ■

was about books in the old fashioned sense of the word.”

Lippo Luukkonen, publisher of children’s books at Finland’s WSOY, echoed his sentiment, saying: “For all children’s publishers Bologna is the key event, as well as the most beloved event of the year. Two years ago the fair was quiet; last

year there was a huge hype around Th e Emerald Atlas, which was the book everybody wanted to have and some got. Th is year there wasn’t anything that extraordinary going on, but it looked quite healthy, with more people coming from many European markets, which are recovering after the recession.”

Turning to the digital outlook, Luukkonen noticed that many publishers were only for the fi rst time “actively promoting their fi rst proper enriched ebooks for tablets. I fi nd it quite amazing how relatively late this whole branch, internationally, has awakened for this change. For the fi rst time now it looked as if this change has been accepted broadly everywhere.”

Th e Asian publishers had no larger presence than the Korea stand, refl ective of their highly acquisitive children’s publishers. Nearly 30% (11,681) of all Korean titles published each year are translations, with Japan being the number one trading partner and US number two. Hyo Jin Kim, programme coordinator for the Korean Publishers Association, producers of the upcoming Seoul Fair (15-19 June), reported that last year’s fair had 194 exhibitors (32%) from 23 countries refl ecting their increasing importance. She, too, spoke quite favourably about the activities at this year’s Bologna Fair.

Yuko Nonaka, foreign rights manager for Kaisei-sha Publishing of Japan, noted how “active and strong” the Korean publishers have

F or my fi rst visit to Bologna in 17 years, I roamed the halls seeking to re-familiarise myself

with old friends and a new world order. Th e size of the fair felt similar, the tone just as spirited and intimate as I had remembered, but lacked the big book frenzy. Th e new agents centre is now brightly lit, well placed and quite abuzz. So, I tried to resist my tendency toward introspection and sought the opinions of folks from around the globe.

Italian publishers held a meeting where results of the Associazione Italiana Editori study were released. For the fi rst time Italian publishers sold more children’s titles than they bought; a 25% increase in sales to 1,607 titles paired with an 11% decrease in purchases to 1,283 created a unit gap of 324. Not surprisingly only 4% of Italian title/sales were to North America. Fiammetta Giorgi, editor-in-chief of Mondadori’s children’s division, shared that “even local bestselling authors like Licia Troisi do not sell

into the US market”. Troisi has nine titles translated into 17 languages; in an eff ort to make an English-language sale, Mondadori plans to translate her work on spec. “In fact,” Giorgi reports “we have not sold any title to the US”.

On the other hand, Claudia Mazzucco, CEO of Atlantyca Entertainment, has created a worldwide phenomenon with Italy’s own Geronimo Stilton, for whom they launched a seven-country web and social media platform, with many more to follow. Commenting on this year’s event Luisa Bianchi,

her publicist, stated that “everything is becoming extremely hectic, opportunities are multiplying, content digitisation has forced all of the publishers, even the most conservative, to accept the new situation”.

Bastian Schlueck of Th omas Schlueck Literary and Art Agency reported that “over the last years, more German publishers/editors/agents are coming – more foreign clients either added juvenile literature to their list or expanded their YA lists and are coming now, too. So

the number of our agency meetings improved. Over the last two or three years German adult publishers are now here as well and are looking for the same material that pure YA publishers are interested in. So there is more competition.”

John Erik Riley of Cappelen Damm, Norway’s largest publisher, noted, “For us, every book fair is a good

one, but some are more exciting than others. Last year’s acquisition of Th e Emerald Atlas comes to mind. “All in all,” Riley said, “Bologna always blows me away, particularly when it comes to illustration. Th ere’s always a lot of good stuff out there. When it comes to innovation, things go in waves. Th ere seemed to be less innovation this year. Th ere’s a lot of talk about digital publication and things are certainly changing. Most publishers are working hard to get things in place. We saw a few apps here and there that sparked our interest. All in all, though, the fair

Revisiting Bologna


The Fair was busy, with more people coming from many European markets, which are

recovering after the recession.


George Slowik Jr on his fi rst visit to Bologna in 17 years

Visitors from 65 countries attended the 48th annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Kate Wilson of Nosy Crow with Markus Weber of Motitz Verlag

Accelerate Your eBook Business

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hide the keyboard; it’s really a laptop that converts into a tablet, with a dual core processor, webcam and both physical and virtual keyboards.

Dell Streak 7$200 (with 3G contract; 4G to come)Ships with Book Stage, Dell’s online bookstore, and access to hundreds of thousands of books through

the Android Marketplace7-inch backlit screen/Android OS 2.2Smaller than the iPad or the Duo, the Streak has front and back cameras and supports Flash. A handy size at a great price.

HP TouchpadNo pricing yet; scheduled to arrive this summer with Wi-fi ; 3G and 4G to followHundreds of thousands of titles through Blio and Kobo; 800,000 titles available through an Amazon/Touchpad ebook app9.7-inch backlit screen/HP webOS

HP shows off its acquisition of Palm and webOS, offering a much-anticipated, updated webOS powered tablet with dual core processing and true multi-tasking.

Samsung Galaxy Tab7-inch ($250, 16GB with 3G contract); and by June: 8.9-inch ($469, 16GB), 10.1-inch ($500, 16 GB)More than a million titles through Android marketplace and multiple e-readers (Kobo, Kindle, B&N, Aldiko) supporting Android OSBacklit screens; the new 10.1-inch and 8.9-inch run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) optimised for tablets

The 7-inch Tab came fi rst, now Samsung is releasing two larger screen devices with optimised Android OS; back and front cameras, dual core processors, Flash support and very competitive prices. Look out Apple!

Toshiba “Honeycomb” TabletNo Price or availability information yet. Maybe summer?Millions of titles through Android Market (Blio, Kindle, B&N, Kobo etc.) and the new Toshiba App Place store10.1 backlit screen with “adaptive” display

(readable in sunlight); Android Honeycomb 3.0 optimised for tabletsMuch buzz at CES; lots of specs but no hands-on sightings of this much anticipated tablet. Fast dual core processor, front and back cameras, Flash support, replaceable battery and, of course, the Honeycomb updated Android OS. We’re waiting Toshiba.

T hanks to Steve Jobs and the iPad, this is the year of the tablet, a device some observers believe will change the way consumers use computers. To be sure, the US e-reading market is still dominated by dedicated e-ink reading devices such as the Kindle3 and the Sony Readers. But tablets are cool, off ering multimedia functionality and the ability to consume a vast array of content from books to movies

to games. Th e tablet market has attracted new hardware players (such as HP, Blackberry and Toshiba) looking to compete with Apple and its platform; and Google’s much anticipated Honeycomb OS, optimised for tablets, is about ready to drop, powering several new tablets. Tablets completely saturated the news coming out of January’s Consumer Electronics Show and the crop of devices showcased there are starting to appear in the marketplace now, with the rest to be available by the summer. A selection of the major devices is below.

iPad 2Still $500 (Wi-fi only) to $826 (3G/Wi-fi )150,000 titles or so via iBookstore and more via Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Copia ebook software9.7-inch backlit colour/iOS4Better than ever. Lighter than iPad 1, with a faster processor, back and front-facing cameras and now the iBookstore has Random House

titles. Lighter, thinner, faster. What’s not to like?

NookColor$250 (Wi-fi )500,000 titles7-inch. backlit screen; Android OS (maybe 2.2 in April)The surprise device hit of the year, B&N is reported to have sold more than 3 million units. An April software update should add access to more Android apps, email, Flash support and – thanks to

a lot creative hacking – who knows what else?

Motorola Xoom$600 (3G only with contract)Ships with Google ebooks (2 million titles), with more available via Amazon, Kobo and B&N for Android10.1-inch HD screen; Android OS 3.0 (Honeycomb)

One of the fi rst tablets with Honeycomb, Android’s tablet OS; with front and back cameras, Flash support “soon,” and fast dual core processors. Wi-fi only model still to come.

RIM Blackberry Playbook$500 with Wi-fi (16GB), $600 (32GB) and $700 (64GB)Ships with Kobo (200,000 titles) and access to books via Android marketplace7-inch backlit screen/QNX OS (reportedly

will run Android 2.3 apps)Available in April. Hands-on impressive at CES; very responsive, fast dual core processor, true multi-tasking; swipe-gesture bezel; front and back cameras. Could make RIM a tablet player.

Dell Inspiron Duo Convertible$550 (Wi-fi only)Ships with Blio (several hundred thousand titles), Dell Book Stage (online bookstore powered by B&T) and more than 1 million titles via Amazon, Kobo, Copia, B&N for Windows 7 OS

10.1-inch backlit screen/ “Genuine” Windows 7 OSThis device is a clever transformer, designed to fl ip the screen and

Digital readers: Th e tablets are coming!


Calvin Reid reviews a selection of the new tablets due for release this spring


onto a winner with Dickens – the author, then as now, the basis of the industry. Th ey might have lived in a time more conducive to single-minded concentration (still a building block of book publish-ing), but then they had much lower literacy rates (another building block of publishing). Paying attention to the lived experience of reading, the day-to-day, reality of picking up a book, or iPad, and concentrating on it, is important. Th is is still the sine qua non of reading and selling books, and it is getting more diffi cult over time, a process exacerbated by digital. We need then to think hard about how we are going to keep on deliver-ing the kind of experiences taken for granted in 1857 – long form reading – while adapting to new markets and a new economy of attention.

Michael Bhaskar is Digital Publishing Director at Profi le Books. He can be found on Twitter as @ajaxlogos. ■

you might say, but we just have to get on with it, make it work. Quite right. Mostly, this is what has been happening. Publishers are making strategic alliances with developers, IP owners and media producers from across a spectrum of businesses, at the same time redefi ning their business goals in wider terms (not just as a producer of books, but as curators of experience, etc). An initiative such as World Book Night was clearly an attempt to articulate the case for reading, to underscore once again the value of this quiet, largely solitary, often diffi cult activity. So on the one hand we are moving out beyond the boundaries, taking the fi ght to these new competitors, and on the other we have a robust argument for why reading is still unbeatable in the age of Call of Duty, Foursquare and even My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

We’ll never know what chal-lenges Bradbury and Evans faced in 1857, but they knew they were

Imagine the year is 1857, writes Michael Bhaskar. Charles Dick-ens and his publisher, Bradbury

& Evans, have just published the fi nal instalment Little Dorrit. Come the evening you can settle down in front of the fi re, comfortable in the knowledge that the servants will take care of the washing up, secure that very little will interrupt the pleasure of the story. It’s you, the book and the fi re (assuming that you are of the better class of persons, naturally).

Fast forward to 2011. You slump onto the sofa, iPad in hand, ready to fi nish that Dickens novel you downloaded for free. Quite apart from the nagging call of the washing up – servants having become expen-sive in the intervening years – you are faced with the seductive embrace of the television. You switch it on, one eye on Th e Apprentice, the other on Dickens. Somewhere on the edge of your consciousness, or perhaps creeping up beneath the words, comes an awareness of “Angry Birds”; of mounting emails; wittily phrased tweets; and a host of fun entertain-ment. It’s you, the book and the fi re... and every other media producer in the world.

Being alone with books is getting rarer, and on convergence devices becomes impossible. Publishers have always competed vertically among themselves and horizontally between other information and entertainment sources. Yet with each technological advance this gets harder and the op-portunities for grabbing attention and money comparatively fewer. Brad-bury & Evans never had to contend with television, let alone a television literally sitting in the same physical space as the book, as on a tablet.

When books exist in digital for-mats they begin not only to confront the two-screen situation (where we sit watching the television, laptop on or book in hand, our attention divided between the two), but even have a one-screen problem: as we read a book we are aware of a multitude of possibilities available at the touch of a button. Surfi ng the web has given rise to continuous partial attention, where we fl it gnat-like between 10 emails, fi ve browser tabs and Tweetdeck, never really there but never absent, our attention moving constantly between the diff erent

openings. Now on tablet devices we have a new mode of attention, what I call fractured partial attention. Unlike a desktop, tablets do not generally allow for the easy moving between open elements; apps still tend to run one at a time, or at least many work best when used in that way. We concentrate on one app, but always with an awareness of everything else, and often we then switch between bouts of concentration on one app, then on to another, and so on.

Why does this matter? Mainly because it means trade books at least are fi ghting competition on three fronts: fi rst with other books, secondly with other forms of media, and lastly, within new systems such as app stores, with other media on the same platform. Headspace and consumer spend are being squeezed more than ever, making our job of convincing people to spend time and money on books correspond-ingly harder. Moreover, when we are competing directly with other media on the same platform publishers contend with a lack of experience and comparatively puny develop-ment budgets. We compete on a level playing fi eld, but one where the terrain is unfamiliar, diffi cult and expensive to traverse.

For a century healthy trend growth demographically and economically has meant that, even as its absolute position in the media landscape has shrunk, publishing has managed to maintain long-term growth of revenues and unit sales. Yet as the boundaries blur we cannot rely on this: others can move easily into the spaces occupied by publishers, even as consumers are enticed out of the reading experience.

Pointing this out is all very well,

Publishing for multi-taskers

Michael Bhaskar


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settlements between and among major corporations. “Th at is not how it is supposed to work.”

Certainly, major questions loom for the parties, and for the prospects of a meaningful

digital library. For one, Chin’s rejection of the settlement’s forward-looking business eff ectively removed the parties’ only common ground – the settlement was only struck, the parties admit, because they could not settle the simple question at the heart of the initial lawsuits: whether Google’s digitisation for indexing and its display of “snippets” was fair use under the copyright law.

From the outset, the parties defended the settlement almost exclusively on its public benefi ts. But the public benefi ts were in fact a mechanism to help the parties avoid the intractable disagreement at the heart of the matter. After Chin’s rejection, it remains to be seen if either side will budge from their unyielding original positions.

One thing is certain, however: the public will now see exactly how committed the parties – as well as the objectors – are to realising the digital library and the public benefi ts they’ve touted since 2008. “Will Google start putting together a coalition to push for a legislative solution?” asks New York Law School’s James Grimmelmann. “Who will sign up? What will the proposed compromises look like? Who will oppose it, and with what arguments? And, is this the route by which we will get a national digital library?” ■

have been so signifi cant, they thought it was worth a shot. Maybe they thought they’d get lucky. But to jam this into a class action settlement box was extraordinary, and

inappropriate, and the Judge’s ruling refl ects that.”

Other settlement critics agree, including media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the recently published Th e Googlization of Everything. Vaidhyanathan suggested the settlement’s rejection was a humbling rebuke of Google’s strategies. “Google fi gures that if it creates good products and they get popular, the courts and Congress will be less likely to undo them,” he said in a recent interview, “but that is an

arrogant, audacious perspective on the legal and legislative system, and it’s fundamentally anti-democratic.” If the law does not permit a digital library, he explains, the public mobilises to change the law. “And we make those arguments in public,” he says, rather than having “major information policy” being made by judges, via class action

Imagine a comprehensive digital library of millions of books destined for the

dustbin of history, a literary treasure suddenly saved, made searchable, viewable, accessible and again viable for sale, all within a decade’s time. Th at’s what’s been lost, critics say, after Judge Denny Chin rejected the controversial Google Book Settlement on 22 March. A status conference is set for 25 April, in New York, where we will learn more about what the future holds, but as it stands, the Google Book Settlement is history – and the questions have now begun. Who is to blame for derailing the great digital library we were promised – and what happens now?

In legal terms, lawyers agree that the volume and scope of objections put the fi nal nail in the settlement’s coffi n. “Th e ultimate basis for the rejection was the class’s negative reaction to the settlement,” observed Jonathan Band, a Washington-based lawyer and library consultant. “In other words, the ASA (Amended Settlement Agreement) was found not to be fair, reasonable and adequate because a signifi cant number of class members opposed it strongly.” Scott Gant, an author, objector and a veteran class action attorney, agrees. “If there hadn’t been an outpouring from objectors, this probably would have been approved,” he suggested. “It was the third parties who came in and helped educate the court about the problems. If this had been a non-adversarial proceeding, with no objections, the same merits, and the same arguments, this probably would have snuck by.”

In the aftermath of Chin’s rejection, “tech” writer Ryan Singel, blogging at Wired.com, was among a number of commentators that questioned

the ultimate wisdom of the objectors. Singel suggested that “the paranoid and the curmudgeonly” essentially exercised a “veto over the library of the future”, and he expressed doubt that legislative eff orts could achieve in decades what Google’s largesse was poised to do so quickly. “Killing off the one promising digital library at the behest of copyright maximalists and jealous competitors is no way to get a dithering Congress to make a decision that will benefi t the public,” he wrote.

Th e objectors may have derailed the settlement, but they reject the idea that they snatched away the great digital library that was so tantalisingly close. Rather, they focus the failure squarely on the parties for attempting an ill-advised end-run, and question whether it was ever reasonable to think that a plan so sweeping and international in scope, involving public resources and private concerns, crafted in secret by a few major organisations, could

be pushed upon the broad universe of authors via a district court. “Th is never belonged in the class action forum,” Gant says fl atly. “I’ve asked myself many times if Google really thought it had a meaningful chance of making this work. Perhaps because the costs were so low measured against their resources, and the payoff would

Who killed the Google Settlement?

The public will now see exactly how committed the parties – and

objectors – are to realising the digital library and the public benefi ts they’ve

touted since 2008



Judge Denny Chin rejected the controversial Google Book Settlement in March. Andrew Albanese looks at how it was derailed, and wonders ‘what next?’

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lected as a Best New Illustrator “was great for me, because despite having been an illustrator full time for eight years, I really felt that for one reason or another I was embarking on new things... Th e television work (and hopefully linked books) really feels like the coming together of all I’ve learnt over the past decade.”

David Lucas said that his selec-tion was “hugely important to me – it is vital for me to know that my work has connected with people. My career has progressed steadily since – and although I was probably the oldest of the 2008 Best New Illustrators I do feel that I am just at the beginning.”

Like several of her peers Polly Dunbar has embraced media be-yond the world of illustration – her successful Long Nose Puppet company stages versions of her picturebooks, including Shoe Baby and Fly Away Katie. Most recently, she has taken her version of Penguin (shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway medal in 2008) to the Edinburgh Festival, and she has been a Book-trust online writer in residence.

It will be interesting to see whether the work of the 2011 Best New Illustrators has been infl uenced

by the innovative illustrative techniques and sophisti-cated themes that many of the class of 2008 employ. One thing is for certain – if the new generation can capture the imaginations of their readers half as

well as their 2008 peers have done, they will take their place in a rapidly expanding and rich tradition of UK-based picturebook makers.

Th is is an edited version of an article commissioned for the Booktrust website.

Drawing Out New Talent: Booktrust’s Best New Illustrators 2011 takes place in the Children’s Th eatre at 1pm on 13 April. Chair Nicolette Jones, and with panellists including Anthony Browne, Lauren Child, and Polly Dunbar. ■

story about a young hare taking his fi rst steps towards independence. Rayner has continued to produce delightful, animal-inspired picture-books, the most recent of which is Iris and Isaac, a tale of friendship and polar bears.

Animals are also the primary subject of the work of Vicky White, who was one of the two debut illus-trators selected in the 2008 cohort. White’s detailed wildlife illustrations for Ape (written by Martin Jenkins), captured the attention of the judges, and she has since gone on to produce a second picturebook with Jenkins, Can We Save the Tiger?

White’s fellow debut illustrator was Lisa Evans, whose sensitive illustrations for Th e Flower brought John Light’s story of a boy’s quest for beauty and colour to life. Evans has since illustrated versions of Th e Nutcracker and Th e Snow Princess for Templar, as well as Holly Webb’s Rose series.

For Alexis Deacon, whose books such as Beegu and Slow Loris had already received glowing praise, selection brought welcome attention at time when ill health had left him unable to work. He says: “Happily I am working again now and have had a very busy two years. I have begun teaching on the MA course in children’s book illustration at Anglia Ruskin University. I have also been for a fi ve week residency in the Galapagos Islands and taught illustra-tion students in Iceland.”

Mini Grey had won the 2007 Kate Greenaway medal for Th e Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon. Selection gave her, she says, “an ongoing glow of excitement... Since then I’ve been a judge for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and realised how tricky prize-judging really is, and had several picturebooks published including Traction Man Meets Turbodog, Jim (by Hilaire Belloc) and most recently Th ree by the Sea.”

Joel Stewart is designing, writing and directing a new animation series, which he hopes will be broadcast in autumn 2011. He says that being se-

T wo prestigious Kate Greenaway Medals and a BAFTA award

are among the achievements that have been notched up by the inaugural group of 10 Best New Illustrators, selected in March 2008. Th e list was greeted with excitement by the publishing industry, and the illustrators’ work was celebrated in features in national newspapers and by an exhibition at the Illustration Cupboard in London.

Nicolette Jones, the Sunday Times children’s books critic who chaired the 2008 selection panel, recalls: “Th e coverage of the fi rst Best New Illustrators campaign was huge, and all of the participants noticed an increase in interest in their work, in

some cases includ-ing, for instance, more foreign rights sales. At home there was a splen-did programme of events, involving winners and other illustrators, which

stimulated discussion about picture-books in many arenas.”

Booktrust set up Best New Illus-trators as part of its Big Picture cam-paign, which sought to reawaken public interest in picturebooks and help to stimulate the then unhealthy UK picturebook market. Th ree years later there has been something of a revival in picturebook sales – according to the Nielsen Bookscan data for 2010, the pre-school and picturebook market is growing steadily in an otherwise declining children’s book market.

For many of the illustrators, being named one of the Best New Illustrators marked a turning point in their careers. Oliver Jeff ers, whose Lost and Found was turned into a

BAFTA award-winning anima-tion, says: “Being in the select group of Best New Illustrators 2008 was an honour of the highest proportions and a huge milestone in my career.

“Since 2008 I feel that my career in picturebook publishing has grown beyond any realistic expectation I ever had, and I believe being a recipient of the award was integral to cementing my reputation. British publishing is some of the fi nest in the world, and to be considered in such high regard among such a stable of talent is very humbling.”

Emily Gravett, whose beautiful illustrations can be seen adorning Booktrust’s online reading journey, echoes Jeff ers’ pleasure: “I loved be-ing one of the Best New Illustrators. It was an honour being part of a group of such fabulous illustrators, many of whom I was and am a big admirer of.

“Th ere have been many highlights since, but the greatest thing has just been being able to carry on doing what I do – and feeling like my career has become established.” Gravett went on to win her second Kate Greenaway Medal in 2008, for Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears.

In 2009 Catherine Rayner followed in Gravett’s footsteps by scooping up the Kate Greenaway Medal with Harris Finds His Feet, a moving and ultimately uplifting

Best New Illustrators



As Booktrust promotes a new set of Best New Illustrators, Rebecca Wilkie looks at the careers of the original 10

Anthony Browne, Children’s Laureate, revealed the names of the Best New Illustrators 2011 at an event at the Illustration Cupboard on 22 March.

The judges – Anthony Browne, Antonia Byatt, Lauren Child, John Huddy and Ken Wilson-Max – also highly commended Susan Steggall.

They are:Joe BergerClaudia BoldtKatie CleminsonChris HaughtonAlice MelvinSara OgilvieLevi PinfoldSalvatore RubbinoViviane SchwarzKevin Waldron

2011 Guest of Honour, Iceland. Around 60 Icelandic authors are expected to be on-hand in Frankfurt and by October, around 120 new titles will be published in the German language alone.

Th omas Minkus was Director of Marketing for the Frankfurt Book Fair, and later also directed the Fair’s Press and Corporate Communications departments. In April 2010, he moved to the Frankfurt Book Fair’s New York offi ce to further expand the strategically important fi eld of exhibitors from the English-speaking world. He is now Vice President Emerging Media and English Language Markets.Katja Böhne joined the Frankfurt Book Fair team as Vice President of Marketing and Communications in April 2010. ■

the StoryDrive media conference. Th e goal of the initiative is to develop new and sustainable business models for content (www.frankfurtsparks.com). Th ere will also be information about the

Katja Böhne: Th omas, you now live in the United States. Has this changed your

perspective on publishing?Thomas Minkus: I relocated

from Frankfurt to New York exactly one year ago. I’m fascinated by the speed at which publishing here in the US is changing because of digital innovation. While it is interesting to follow the current digital gold rush in the US, with all of its optimism and energy, I think that the US doesn’t hold all the answers. Th e market forces are not the same in every country. Fixed book prices in some European markets, distribution challenges in emerging markets and widespread mobile reading in Asia are examples of various forces that don’t apply to every country, and the publishers working internationally need to keep things like that in mind.

Katja: Even though digitisation has created a lot of new opportunities for publishers, it also presents new challenges, especially in terms of rights.

Thomas: As new technology emerges, defi ning and separating digital rights (ebook, enhanced ebook, interactive, digital content licensing, etc) and deciding what rights publishers should include in their contracts is increasingly complicated. Th ere is a need for publishers and agents to learn about the latest technology and digital content developments, not necessarily from a “tech” perspective, but from a book publishing perspective, to help them identify new rights opportunities.

Katja: Th at is exactly right and that is one of the reasons why we launched StoryDrive last year. Our goal with StoryDrive is to bring all branches of the media and entertainment industries together under one roof. In 2011, we will focus on

connecting television, fi lm and games with book publishers and agents. We will also add a Business Centre featuring information events on cross-media licensing, as well as networking and matchmaking events. We want to bring key market leaders together to facilitate the buying and selling of rights across various media industries, and to create lasting partnerships and business relationships.

Thomas: Another way we are bringing technology companies and digital leaders to Frankfurt is by off ering them special exhibition opportunities in our Hot Spots, which we introduced last year and will expand this year. Th ese collective stands off er a hands-on look at the available and emerging technology directly related to book publishing. Th e focus of the Hot Spot in Hall 8 will be on mobile technology and devices.

Frankfurt in LondonFor more about the Frankfurt Book Fair, go to Stand F 605. Visitors can learn more about the German book industry and the latest news from the Frankfurt Book Fair, including Frankfurt SPARKS. Th e digital initiative Frankfurt SPARKS off ers new exhibition formats, conferences and events for thought leaders in the international media industries in the form of the Hot Spots and

Looking forward to Frankfurt


Thomas Minkus


Thomas Minkus and Katja Böhne look ahead to the next Frankfurt Book Fair, and explain how the Fair is responding to changes in the publishing landscape

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devices, mediocre devices, e-ink and four-colour devices, phones and tablets.

Another welcome development is that prices of dedicated ereaders have dropped signifi cantly from almost $400 in 2007 to a little more than $100 since late 2010. Th e reduction in price is a “game-changer,” causing a seismic shift from niche early adopters to signifi cant ebook market penetration. Th is follows the pattern set by other recent technology products like fl at screen televisions and blue-ray DVD players. Some end-of-year estimates suggest that more than six million ereaders were purchased in 2010, an 80% increase over 2009. Th is fi gure does not even include non-dedicated ereading devices such as iPhones and iPads. Great for those of us involved in electronic publishing.

It has been an exciting year, but it has been extraordinarily challenging. When I began working in the ebook space I was the nerd and career outlier. Co-workers would ask me how I could give up managing sales for big growth accounts such as Amazon.com to attend library conferences and trade acronyms such as SITB and FTE? (Amazon’s Search Inside the Book and the insititutional measurement “full time equivalent”). I began my transition to digital in a fairly static, moderate revenue-generating ebook market where I could carefully assess and revise our internal workfl ows with limited fi nancial/human resources. But that was then.

Now, nothing is the same; I have become an even bigger nerd, but instead of being an outlier I am fortunate to be in the centre of the action. Everyone wants to know what is going on with ebooks. Editors

had become a diff erent person with new roles and responsibilities, which had forever changed me and John Wiley and Sons – for the better.

Th e year 2010 has been called the year of the tiger, the tablet, or the “app.” To me it was simply the year of “more”. More ebooks sold (we ended 2010 with triple-digit growth), more ebook retailers (worldwide), and at times, more headaches. None of this surprised me, nor did it occur without the calculated eff orts of my talented and committed

team of global peers.A few things happened in

2010 that had a signifi cant impact on the market – representing a tectonic shift towards digital that I had not seen before. Th e fi rst is increased content digitisation. More publishers have put more ebooks into the marketplace than ever before. At the end of the day (or perhaps more appropriately at the beginning of the day), we must begin with content. Why does every ebook platform tout the number of titles they have? It is because size does matter when it comes to content off erings. Without a critical mass of off erings producing a robust selection of available titles, we would repeatedly upset and disappoint our readers.

After readers invest in a new device they are frustrated when an ebook is not available for a print title that can be shipped to their doorstep in 24 hours. But since most publishers release ebooks on the same day as print editions (having now digitised their backlists and with “windowing” fairly dormant), readers who have transitioned to digital can be assured of a robust title selection. Th ey can make choices based on their individual needs and can choose from great

Y esterday, I sat down with my assistant to review this year’s London Book

Fair appointment diary. Like seasons past, the day would start early and end after dinner with little time for lunch in between. And yet, something was peering out at me between the appointments with Google, Apple, Amazon, Waterstone’s, WHSmith and EBL… was it excitement, exhilaration, a sense of accomplishment? Identifying the emotion was less important to me than the realisation, for the fi rst time, that things would never be the same again – not our customers, our product formats, nor our retailers and intermediaries. What really gave me pause was the awareness that

in the short 12 months since I last laid eyes on Earls Court, I

Th ings can never be the same


Peter Balis


Peter Balis looks at the events of 2010 that represented a “tectonic shift towards digital”, and looks forward to more change in 2011

Continued on page 20 ➝

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be a greater global reach for ebook platforms with increased multi-language off erings. Th e US and UK have made deep in-roads into ebook retail markets and we have opportunities to penetrate international, English language markets around the world. We can deliver ebooks on the same day of publication to a customer in Singapore and Canada – a challenge in print. And as the market grows, so too will multi-language off erings in ebook format. I hope that this year emerging nations will be able to gain more access to robust digital off erings in areas where shipping delays and inventory issues limit access to physical books.

Enhanced ebooks, not mobile applications, but narrative ebooks with additional capabilities like audio and video, began appearing at the end of 2010. But few accounts could sell them and consumers often failed to “discover” them. Th is year will see a signifi cant increase in enhanced title off erings with more platforms capable of supporting these ebooks. Th is expansion coupled with increased marketing and merchandising eff orts will increase purchases of these value-added products.

Lastly, I think 2011 is going to see continued growth in truly interactive elearning products, such as WileyPLUS, which off ers interactive learning materials, tools and resources for higher education classes, the workplace or the home. Analog to digital does not end with the conversion of content to a refl owable text format. Where appropriate it must be and do more.

So as I review my appointment diary for the 2011 Fair I look forward to seeing great industry friends. We are going to celebrate the incredible success of the past year and toast 2011, which is already on track to be even better!

Peter Balis is Director, Digital Content Sales, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ■

this landscape, with short-term and long-term strategies to keep up with print while investing in our digital production and distribution capabilities. Th is includes continuing to invest in content management systems that will satisfy our need for more granular levels of content creation, management and distribution for our digital future beyond ebooks.

Despite the challenges it has been one of the best years in my career. I have witnessed all of our global investments in education, training, systems and business relationships result in signifi cant sales growth, while sharing this success with great people and dynamic companies. How thrilling it has been to still learn so many new things, after so many years in the industry.

One important thing I learned this year (and I am not certain that my peers or co-workers will confi rm this) is the ability to exhibit patience. Change does not happen instantly or painlessly even if everyone is welcoming it. Years of creating and selling books have established successful practices. Ebooks, as much as they appear to be simple digital facsimiles of print books, are not. As such, they require unique processes from

end to end. As many if not more changes are taking place in ebook bookselling as in publishing. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Patience however does not negate the drive or need to develop and change. I expect to see a few important developments in 2011. Th e fi rst digital improvement will

through to marketers are now engaged and interested in our ebook business. I could not be happier.

But the biggest change is how my role and responsibilities have evolved. When I started in this industry I sold print books, I was a salesman; give me product and a customer and I would sell. I didn’t have a clue how the physical product came into being, I just needed to know the ship date and the number of units the account needed to buy.

Today in my current role I have to know the diff erence between an epub fi le and a mobipocket fi le. ONIX compliance issues can keep me up at night. I frequently begin my day speaking with a production manager in Australia and end it with someone from a metadata processing company in the US. I am actively involved with twice the number of Wiley colleagues around the world than I was last year. I need to understand all of the parts of our organisation that aff ect digital content. Wiley’s global interest in and commitment to digital products has evolved and grown. At the close of 2010 we had vibrant, indigenous ebook programmes in all of our global publishing locations including Singapore and Australia.

And agency/commissionaire terms? I never imagined that I would have to know the intricacies of tax nexus. Now, I work closely with our corporate fi nance and taxation group to ensure that we are receiving the appropriate remittance reports from our global retailers. Th ere are days when I spend more time with our in-house counsel than with my sales team.

Our industry is in transition. For more than two centuries we lived and breathed print. At Wiley, we began to adjust our journals business to a digital workfl ow more than a decade ago. Th is was followed by the creation of our online book platform and our digital

textbooks/elearning system WileyPLUS. Our internal systems were originally created to service print products. We are in the process now of creating scalable solutions for a rapidly growing digital world. We are beginning to replace existing analog-based systems that have been hobbling along with work-arounds. Th is remains a major, but surmountable, challenge.

Our increased focus on digital products and services also aff ects long-established roles within the organisation. Editors are becoming multi-format project managers working with authors and agents to develop various products from plain-vanilla ebooks to enhanced products and mobile applications. Production managers are hiring programmers who know as much about HTML5 as they do about Creative Suite. Our industry has had to become more nimble and creative as we seek to hire and retain in this new era.

A frustrating challenge outside of any one company is the lack of industry standardisation in ebook fi le formats, ISBN and other metadata standards, sales reports etc. Some accounts take ONIX, some take ONIX with a twist – making living in the ebook fast lane a bit of a traffi c jam. Scalable

systems are based on rules and standards that fail to function properly when anomalies are introduced. Sometimes I fear that Sisyphus had a better chance getting the rock up the hill than the publishing industry has in reaching 100% global standardisation. I hope that I am wrong.

We are navigating through

The reduction in price [of ereaders] is a game-changer, causing a seismic

shift from niche early adopters to signifi cant ebook market penetration



Continued from page 18

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Interactive features: A feature called Voice Command lets users speak simple instructions, which allows for hands-free use of the iPad while cooking.

Vegan with a VengeancePublisher/Developer: MobiFusionAvailable: Updated 9 FebruaryPrice: $9.99Background: Da Capo published Vegan with a Vengeance: Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes Th at Rock by Isa Chandra Moskowitz in 2005.Interactive features: Users can scroll through recipes individually, or search recipes by keywords and mealtime themes.

Recipes from Harvest to HeatPublisher/Developer: Taunton InteractiveAvailable: Updated 20 December 2010Price: FreeBackground: Taunton released Harvest to Heat: Cooking with America’s Best Chefs, Farmers, and Artisans by Darryl Estrine and Kelly Kochendorfer, with a foreword by Alice Waters, last fall.Interactive features: Th e app is a useful promo for the book; it features 12 recipes for starters, soups, main dishes, sides and desserts from chefs including Daniel Boulud, Johnny Iuzzini, Th omas Keller and Nancy Silverton. It also has an interactive map to restaurants, farmers and food artisans across the US.

Cheese PlatePublisher/Developer: ChronicleAvailable: December 2010Price: $4.99Background: Th e app is based on two Chronicle books: Th e Cheese Course and Cheese and Wine, both by Janet Fletcher.Interactive features: More than 150 identifi cation photos; search for cheeses by country, type of milk, country of origin; instructions on buying, tasting, handling and storing; social media out-messaging with thumbnail photos to email, Facebook, Twitter.

The Seriously Good Gluten Free LivingPublisher/Developer: MS Internet Limited/Spots Consulting LimitedAvailable: November 2010Price: $6.99Background: Th e app is based on Phil Vickery’s Seriously Good! Gluten-Free Cooking, which Kyle Cathie published in the UK. (Th e book has not been published by an American house, although Firefl y Books released Vickery’s Gluten-Free Baking in the US in February.)Interactive features: Recipes for meat, fi sh, vegetarian dishes, baked goods, snacks, desserts and kid-friendly food, plus a section on “basics”, such as gluten-free fl our mixes, shortbread. Tapping on certain paragraphs within a recipe turns them bold, making them easier to read. Videos off er instructions on making fruity sherbet slush, almond and blackberry feather cakes, and more.

How to Cook Everything VegetarianPublisher/Developer: CulinateAvailable: Mid-AprilPrice: $4.99, with a probable short-term discount at releaseBackground: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman came out from Wiley in 2007, a vegetarian spin-off of the bestselling How to Cook Everything. HTCE’s app, which was updated in February, has consistently ranked among the top apps in the iTunes app store.Interactive features: Th e app will have 2,000 vegetarian and vegan recipes, all searchable.

iCookbookPublisher/Developer: Publications InternationalAvailable: 16 MarchPrice: $4.99Background: Th e app comes with more than 2,000 recipes, many from brand names such as Campbell’s, Crock-Pot slow cooker and Hershey’s. Each month, users can download more free recipes.

Cookbook apps heat up



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M ore and more publishers are investing in apps, and cookbooks seem to off er some of the best opportunities for experimentation, writes Lynn Andriani. Th e most successful cookbook-related apps right now are tied to big-name authors such as Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Martha Stewart. But later this year and in 2012, developers are planning to unveil a slew of new

cookbook apps from a range of authors big and small. For example, David Chang’s forthcoming journal from McSweeney’s will have a companion, and apps are also due for Houghton Miffl in Harcourt’s bestselling cupcake books, Hello, Cupcake and What’s New, Cupcake?, developed by Culinate; as well as apps from Dorie Greenspan and Eric Ripert from CulinApp, a new company focused solely on culinary apps.

Here are some of this spring’s new apps and newly updated apps based on cookbooks.

works created in Italy, authors and publishers can register copyrights in Italy with the Italian Society for Authors and Editors (SIAE).

Market entry strategiesBuilding a strong relationship with an Italian publishing house is important when approaching the Italian market. Ideally, a partner should have experience in translations and an established distribution network. Issues to negotiate will include the licensing of texts, images and graphics as well as licensing fees, advances and royalties. Publishers are strongly advised to seek local legal counsel before entering into an agreement. In the Italian publishing fi eld, perhaps the best place to identify an international partner is the annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the world’s largest trade show for the children’s publishing industry. Another key venue is the Turin Book Fair, Italy’s largest event covering the entire publishing industry, held every Spring.

Publishers may also consider exporting English language titles to Italy to take advantage of the global trend of increased reading of original English language works. In this case, publishers may want to work through some of the larger international book distributors based either in the US or Europe that supply English-language bookstores and English sections of large retail chains. In Italy, Feltrinelli, Marzocco, Mondadori and other booksellers have stores dedicated to foreign language works with much of the shelf space dedicated to English titles.

Anya Sarkisov is Commercial Specialist for Education, US Commercial Service at the American Consulate General in Florence. To fi nd a US Commercial Service trade specialist go to www.export.gov/eac, or learn about Publishing Team activities at www.export.gov/industry/paper.

PW is working with the Commercial Service to publish a report that provides an overview of the publishing industry in 25 countries, available at BEA 2011. ■

Another issue publishers should consider when thinking about doing business in Italy is the protection of intellectual property. Despite the implementation of the 2000 Copyright Law and increased enforcement actions, piracy and counterfeiting rates in Italy remain among the highest in Western Europe. Piracy continues in virtually all copyright-based sectors.

Italy is a signatory of both the Berne Convention and World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Th erefore, the author or creator of any original intellectual work is protected in Italy, even without registration. However,

US copyright registration is advisable. US registration through the US Copyright Offi ce of the Library of Congress provides documentation of date and originality and is an important safeguard in case infringement occurs and legal action is necessary. In Italy, copyright protection is automatically provided for during the life of the author plus 70 years after his or her death. For

T he Italian publishing market has experienced several years of slow but consistent

growth. Th e Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori) reported that, in 2009, the overall cover price turnover of the Italian publishing market (including digital publishing) was $4.7 billion. Although this fi gure represents a 4.3% drop from 2008, the market is starting to see improvement, with an increase of 2.1% in the fi rst six months of 2010. Italy published more than 58,800 titles in 2008 – the last year for which defi nitive data on production is available – and 64.3% of these were new titles. Th e children’s book market is an area of opportunity, generating sales of $217 million in 2009, up 4% over 2008.

Bookstores are the largest channel for book sales, accounting for roughly 32% of all books sold in Italy. In 2009, bookstores sales were valued at $1.5 billion. Other key distribution channels are the internet, news-stands and large-scale distribution (supermarkets and department stores), generating a total of $561 million in 2009, a 5.5% increase from 2008. As in many other countries, the bookstore channel is consolidating, with 717 of 2,135 Italian bookshops now belonging to chains.

Reading rates in Italy still lag behind those of other EU countries. Of Italy’s literate population (people over six years old) only 45.1% read at least one book in 2009, an increase of 1.1% over 2008. Reading rates in the north of Italy – 51.8% – are signifi cantly higher than in the south – 34.6%. And women generally read more than men: 51.6% of women read a book in 2009 compared to 38.2% of men.

Best prospectsIn a country with a generally low number of readers and a declining number of school kids, one bright spot is the relatively high rate of reading among children. In 2009 an average of 57.2% of school-age children (aged six to 19) read at least one non-school book, putting them

in the “reader” category. Th is puts children more than 12 percentage points above the general population in terms of reading rates. Preferred genres of books among Italian children are adventure stories, followed by fairy tales and comic books. For Italian children under 14 years old, reading a book still wins over internet use.

As a member of the European Union, Italy applies the EU common external tariff to goods imported from non-EU countries. However, no tariff s or import duties are levied on books entering EU countries from the United States. A Value Added Tax (VAT or IVA) of 20% is assessed on products based on their Cost, Insurance, Freight (CIF) value, plus the import duty at the port of entry.

On 1 July 2003, a European Union Directive relating to VAT on digital services came into force. Th e legislation requires any seller of electronically supplied services and broadcasting services from a non-EU member state to charge and collect VAT on those products and services sold online to EU private consumers. Th is includes ebooks and other publications delivered online.

Publishing in Italy

In a country with a generally low number of readers, one bright spot is the relatively high rate of reading

among children



Anna Sarkisov looks at the publishing industry in Italy, the Guest of Honour country at the 2011 BookExpo America

On Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell in RussiaStieg Larsson is indeed popular in Russia: according to the Pro-books bestseller rating5, which accumulates data for the eight leading Russian bookshops, he was fourth in the top 10 bestseller list in Russia in 2010. Th e second place was taken by Dan Brown, whereas the fi rst and third went to the Russian authors (Boris Akunin and Lilianna Lungina respectively).

Henning Mankell is also well-known and well-reviewed. However, neither Larsson nor Mankell are as popular in Russia as in the West. Th ere are two main reasons for this. First, book marketing culture in Russia is weak and book promotion campaigns still do not play such a big role in creating bestsellers as they do in the UK and the US.

Second, Russian literature is pre-occupied with its own internal issues and with ideas that are interesting to the Russian reader and often inaccessible or uninteresting to outsiders. At the same time, Russian writers and Russian readers are often unreceptive to global issues. When commenting in blogs on Larsson’s books, Russian bloggers say they “remain unmoved”and feel indiff erent to problems in Sweden, which seem so far away from Russia’s everyday reality.6

1 www.afi sha.ru/book/1767/2 www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/technology/8345760/Russias-e-book-boom-is-a-page-turner.html3 www.bookchamber.ru/content/stat/stat_2010.html4 www.rusf.ru/english/5 pro-books.ru/raiting/chart/hud/year6 www.afi sha.ru/article/8231/

Th e Russia Market Focus cultural programme for the LBF is organised by the British Council and the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication with their offi cial partner Academia Rossica. ■

Crime, fantasy, science fi ction, chick-lit, romance, horrorCrime is possibly one of the genres that is equally popular in Russia and in the West. Both Russian crime novels and those in translation can be found in the top lines of bestseller ratings in Russia. Th ings get more complicated with fantasy and science fi ction, which are not as clearly divided into two diff erent genres in Russia.4 One of the reasons for this is probably the strong infl uence of the Strugatsky Brothers (the

bestselling 1970s science fi ction writers) on both fantasy and science fi ction writers in Russia.

Another reason is the missionary idea of Russian literature as a whole: in Russia, as it used to be in the West in the 19th century, literature is still much more about understanding and/or changing the world then about amusement. Fantasy writers are no exception, and as fantasy has a reputation as a somewhat light genre, “serious” writers do not like identifying themselves with it. Th us, the Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy website gives a list of authors and presents a Russian Science Fiction Award (notably, there is no separate Russian fantasy award), but does not off er any demarcation between the two genres.

Chick-lit and romance are comparatively new genres for the Russian book market, and they are not taken seriously by the literary opinion-makers. Modest attempts have been made to incorporate them in the Russian literary canon, but they still have to struggle for success. Last but not least, a horror genre appears to be missing from contemporary Russian fi ction. If it does exist, it is probably extremely marginal.

P opular genres in modern Russian literature are similar to those in the UK

and the US. Th ere is, however, one important diff erence, and that is in how the audience and the market in Russia are structured. In Russia literary means “intellectual”, mass market means “other”. Consequently, mass market books would not be considered as prospective winners of any signifi cant book prizes, would not be reviewed in reputable media and would have little or no chance of being promoted by publishers or literary agents as potential rights bestsellers.

A good example is the recent (2006) City Tariff by bestselling Russian crime novelist Alexandra Marinina, which is in essence a powerful anti-corruption novel. It could have received attention and media coverage comparable to Stieg Larsson’s or Henning Mankell’s novels if only Russian intellectuals had read it. Th e critic Lev Danilkin, of Afi sha online magazine, in his review of one of Henning Mankell’s books writes: “Swedish people en masse… are so concerned about fair play that even crime fi ction writers write about it too: what is really happening in the world and who exactly in one place or another is trying to make money at somebody else’s expense. Can you imagine Alexandra Marinina writing a crime story in which, in order to identity the murderer, one has to understand the essential features of Chinese- Zimbabwean relations?”1

In fact, Marinina, a former Russian militia sergeant, has written a crime story in which, in order to identify the murderer, one has to fi rst accept that it is impossible to bring a guilty party to justice if the state stands behind the criminal – but Russian intellectuals do not read Marinina, so who cares?

“Intellectual” readership is strong in Moscow and St Petersburg, so literary publishers

target this audience, while the mass market publishers look to the provinces. Of the 70 million people (about half the population) who read books in Russia, 20 million live in Moscow and St Petersburg, and 50 million live in the provinces. However, according to the booksellers Bookmate and Ozon.ru, 80% of the books they sell are sold in Moscow and St Petersburg and only 20% in the rest of Russia.2

So the 20 million people living in the two capitals purchase 80% of published books, while the 50 million readers in the provinces purchase the rest. As a result those 20% have much wider readership and become bestsellers. But most of the readers in the capitals know nothing of these books, which are considered to be trash and of no true literary value.

It comes as no surprise then, that when the Russian Book Chamber makes public the list of most published authors3, it includes names that well-read people in Moscow and St Petersburg have hardly heard of, such as Tatiana Lugantseva, Oleg Roi, Daria Kalinina, Yulia Shilova, and A and C Litvinovi. And it does not include many domestic and foreign authors widely read in the two Russian capitals.

Crime pays


Seamus Murphy


Seamus Murphy, of Murphy Literary Agency, examines genres in modern Russian literature

multiplicity of tongues. A staggering number of diff erent languages feed the Indian writer working in English. We are interested, not least, in those who can best harness the riches of those languages and make of them something new.

Finally, don’t mistake us. We believe there is life left in the old markets yet, and we are as fi ercely committed to them as ever. And who knows, when Europe and the US emerge from this period of transition, thrilling times could be ahead. But, for now, much of the fun is to be had elsewhere, in the places where new ideas are being both devoured and born at a dizzying rate. We want all of our writers, not just those we source from the Subcontinent, but also those we sell into it, to be part of that fun. ■

lifting this burden from publishers, we can free them to concentrate on addressing the invigorating challenges of selling into that market.

As for how that market gets its books to readers, in the UK and US, the vulnerability of the traditional retail sector is all too apparent, and painful, to behold. And of course there is the giant called “digital” throwing its ever-longer shadow. In India though, there are new ventures springing up monthly, both on-line and on-the-ground, with a few major and potentially game-shifting developments soon to be announced.

So, what are we looking for? Aitken Alexander wants to fi nd writers whose voices, in one way or another, rise above the fray. Th is could be about seeing the world with fresh eyes. It could also be about a

L ast month Aitken Alexander Associates became the fi rst British literary agency to

open an offi ce in India. Since then, what has been most surprising is just how many people have asked, “OK, but why?” To us, the reasons could not be any more obvious or abundant. Th ere is an English-language Indian readership growing at a rate one can only just get one’s head round – and it is a readership hungry for books that work in all the ways books are supposed to: as entertainment, certainly, but also as unique and vital sources of new ideas, which mediate our relationship with the world.

Much of the current emphasis in the UK seems to be on “concept” books that can be pitched in a single line and digested in a single sitting, which is probably just a matter of a particular culture at a particular time running its course. But as an agency with a long tradition of nurturing all kinds of writing – of valuing great storytelling, but equally relishing the challenge of bringing the less obvious into the light – we see other parts of the world as being open to and engaged with books in a way that interests and excites us.

What’s more, the genres that are “working” in India include literary fi ction, history, reportage, self-help, travel, cookery, celebrity, business, dieting, fashion, pet-care, romance, politics, thrillers, fi nance, horror, poetry, fi lm, manifestos, crime, religion, adventure, health, biogra-phy… and that’s just for starters. In other words, books in India are alive and well, in whatever form, whereas an equivalent list for thriving genres in many other parts of the world would, sadly, be much shorter.

So, this growing and infi nitely curious readership is reason alone to look to India. But even more importantly, from a literary agency’s point of view, there is the question of authorship. If the 19th century could be said to have belonged to Europe and the 20th century to the US, as writers brought urgent news from rapidly changing societies, transforming that news into vivid

reportage or urgent polemic or art (sometimes all three), then the 21st

century could well be Asia’s (and Russia’s and Brazil’s and, perhaps, the Middle East’s and Africa’s too). Th is has forcefully been borne out already by many of the most successful books of the last decade. Good writing will continue to come from all sources, both old and new, but there is no question those sources are more abundant than ever before.

India is at a turning point, both culturally and economically. Th ere are a number of very fi ne writers producing important work (and indeed, Aitken Alexander, which has a long association with the Subcontinent, already represented more than two dozen Subconti-nental writers before the opening of the Indian offi ce). Th ey are young and old, dedicated and hopeful, and some of them are destined for greatness. Th ey are working to pres-ent, chronicle, report on, catalogue, grapple with, call it what you will, this fascinating part of the world.

Th e fact that almost every English-language publisher now has a presence in India – a process that began with Penguin 25 years ago – is evidence enough that exciting things are happening. But the rate of growth in this evolving and sometimes confusing market is such that publishers alone cannot be expected to keep on top of the discovery and curation of new talent. By positioning ourselves to go straight to source and so, in part,

Into India

The Mulji Jetha Fountain in Mumbai, which features this boy in a dhoti with a book.


Andrew Kidd and Shruti Debi of Aitken Alexander Associates explain why the literary agency has opened an offi ce in India


E xponential growth in the number of people buying ebooks in the US

may soon be followed in the UK, the latest research shows, writes Jo Henry. BML’s Books & Consumers survey revealed that, in January 2011, more than 3% of book buyers had bought an ebook in the month, up from just under 2% in December 2010. In the US, Bowker’s PubTrack Consumer panel showed nearly 13% of book buyers purchasing ebooks in January 2011, causing a “hockey-stick” growth curve

from the 5% purchasing ebooks in October 2010. Th e UK ebook market has just passed the point that the US ebook market was at around 12 months ago (in red on the chart).

Two specialist ongoing studies undertaken by BML and Bowker (Understanding the Digital Consumer in the UK and BISG’s Consumer Attitudes Towards E-Book Reading in the US), have given us a greater understanding of the emerging ebook consumer, revealing that in the UK, despite the growth over the past few months, ebook users still exhibit an early adopter profi le; they are much more likely to be men, and from the younger age groups. In February 2011, around 10% of the population claimed to have ever paid to download an ebook – up from 7% in September 2010 – with 15% of men saying they had done so, compared to only 6% of women; and 22% of 16-24 year olds compared to only 6% of those aged 45-54. As of February 2011, nearly 60% of the current ebook buyers in the

UK are under 34 years old.In the US, the profi le of ebook

buyers has changed dramatically over the past two years as the market matures, so that the primary buyers of ebooks are now females – accounting for 59% of ebook purchases in February 2011 – and older, with those aged 45+ now responsible for 56% of all ebook purchases.

In the UK, students are helping keep the ebook buyer profi le young, with 20% saying they had paid to download a complete ebook in February

2011. In the US, educational qualifi cations are also an important factor, with 66% of ebook buyers being college graduates.

Among the key drivers encouraging ebook usage in the UK are the portability of this format (25% of downloaders said this was important to them), price, the fact that ebooks take up less space in the home and their environmental benefi ts. Also of importance is the fact that, with free extracts and even free complete ebooks available, book buyers can try for free fi rst. In the US too, free content is an important factor in the market growth, one of the top fi ve reasons for buying an ebook. And, as in the UK, a low price is another key component of choosing to buy digital.

It is clear that the proliferation of suitable devices is also driving the market, particularly in the US where the Kindle is now the preferred device for two out of fi ve ebook readers, having overtaken computers some time ago. In the

ebooks increase, then the value of the overall book market will see a decline as consumers move to digital formats.

Th e second factor is one of discoverability. Around 47% of purchases in bookshops in the UK can be classifi ed as “impulse” purchases, and it is a similar percentage in the US too. However, in the online environment, less than a quarter of purchases are made on impulse. It is more diffi cult to see the full breadth and depth of the books available for purchase in an online bookshop than it is in a physical bricks-and-mortar store, so how will any title that is not heavily marketed fi nd its audience if online channels continue (especially as digital develops) to gain share of consumer book purchasing?

And a third factor that may have a bearing on the growth of the ebook market is the issue of gifting. In the last two years, according to Books & Consumers fi gures, the purchasing of books as gifts has increased while other types of book purchases have declined. It is as yet unclear how gifting of ebooks will develop.

Jo Henry is Managing Director of BML, the dedicated book market research agency (www.bookmarketing.co.uk). She will be speaking about Understanding the Digital Consumer at the 12th LBF Supply Chain Seminar in the Cromwell Room this morning. ■

US, the Nook is now in second place, with 15% preferring this device to read their ebooks on, with the iPad preferred by 10% of US ebook users – compared to 5% in the UK.

Among British ebook readers, the computer was still the device used by more ebook readers (45%) than any other in February 2011, but the Kindle had increased in popularity, preferred by 14% of ebook users, and up from 9% in September 2010. Smartphones are also important devices for the UK ebook market, preferred by 7% of ebook readers in February 2011. Th ey are more likely to be owned by the younger age groups, while penetration of dedicated ereading devices is greatest among the older age groups: 56% of all dedicated ereading devices are owned by those aged over 45 years, compared to only 19% of Smartphones (see below).

Two factors are causing particular concern as the ebook format gains followers. Th e fi rst is pricing. It has already been seen that keen pricing is attracting ebook buyers into the market, but BML’s Books & Consumers survey reveals that, in the last quarter of 2010, the average price paid for an ebook was £4.35 – around half the average price of a hardback (£8.50) and two-thirds the average price of a paperback (£6.12). Unless unit sales of ebooks outpace those of physical books, or the prices of

Understanding the digital consumer



Source: BML’s Understanding the Digital Consumer (UK)

Source: Bowker’s PubTrack Consumer (US), BML’s Books & Consumers survey 2011 (UK)

2.8%1.9%

3.3%

4.9%

12.7%


up the costs in CFA cases to unac-ceptable levels). We look forward to fi nding out whether these proposals have been taken on board by the Government later this year.

While the threat of libel action clearly aff ects freedom to publish in the UK, ultimately it is the treat-ment of libel under our law that has inspired the image of the UK as an easy jurisdiction in which to mount a defamation suit. Th e draft Defamation Bill represents real pro-gress in addressing these problems. We strongly support many of the draft Bill’s proposals, including the introduction of a “public interest” defence and the requirement for claimants to demonstrate substantive harm infl icted by the alleged libel before they are able to sue.

We also welcome the draft Bill’s proposal to introduce a “single publication” rule, so that new libel actions cannot be brought each time an online article is accessed or an epublication downloaded by a new individual. Th is is essential as pub-lishing increasingly becomes a digital endeavour. Notwithstanding these proposals, we recognise that we have some way to go in ensuring that this draft Bill truly refl ects the needs of the publishing industry and enhances fairness and justice for all.

It is clear that the libel laws, and the fi nancial instruments that are in place to enable individuals to access justice, must be reformed, as they currently create signifi cant barriers to the freedom to publish. Th is impinges upon freedom of expression, endangers the integrity of academic research, and very often hampers the release of information that the public interest demands should be made available. Th e draft Defamation Bill is currently open for consultation, and we shall be responding, and monitoring its progress through Parliament. It is scheduled to be implemented by May 2012, so this year will be crucial in putting our stamp of ap-proval on the fi nal legislation.

Richard Mollet is Chief Executive of the Publishers Association ■

ants are left extremely vulnerable and facing prohibitively high costs while defending themselves. Th e risk of action is borne almost entire-ly by the publishing community.

I believe wholeheartedly that those who have been defamed should have full recourse to court proceedings, and that there should be mechanisms in place to enable those with scant fi nancial resources to defend themselves against false-hood. However, it is surely absurd that a system that is meant to assist justice (the original reason for creat-ing CFAs was to open up access to justice to those without fi nance for legal fees) should result in published works being withdrawn, modifi ed or refused for publication without the facts of the cases ever being

heard before a court.Defence should be open to all

and should not be placed out of any party’s fi nancial reach. It is question-able as to why these concerns are not addressed directly in the draft Defamation Bill, but they have been substantially dealt with in Lord Justice Jackson’s Review of Civil Costs, to which the PA responded in February of this year. Th e Review put forward a number of signifi cant reforms to CFAs, including the pro-posal to prevent the recovery of suc-cess fees and after-the-event insurance premiums from the losing party (the two elements that normally drive

F reedom of expression is among the fundamental free-doms that lie at the heart of

liberal democratic societies. Without it, creativity is stifl ed, knowledge hoarded rather than disseminated, and opinions unshared and untested. Th e United Kingdom’s libel laws un-fortunately come into direct confl ict with this right, as one person’s freely expressed view is another person’s unjustifi ed calumny.

Th is tension is exacerbated, indeed perhaps occasionally deliberately ma-nipulated, by those who hide behind the cloak of libel in an attempt to suppress legitimate debate and airing of opinion. Th e current structure of UK libel law allows this to hap-pen, because it sets the debate about libel with the wrong tests and at the wrong level. Th e result is an imbal-anced and distorted system, whereby the risk of litigation is borne almost entirely by the publishing sector due to the absence of any meaningful disincentives to bringing a libel ac-tion. Th is imposes signifi cant fi nan-cial burdens and -- most disturbingly of all -- leads to self-censorship, borne out of the fear of anticipated costly li-bel actions. Th e recent publication of a draft Defamation Bill for England and Wales by the UK Government’s Ministry of Justice in March of this year is therefore welcomed by the industry as a signifi cant step towards resolving these issues.

Th e PA recently ran a survey on the impact of libel on publishers, which found that:

• 100% of the responding pub-lishers had modifi ed content or language before publication in light of the risk of libel action

• 60% had avoided publishing about people or companies who had sued for libel in the past

• 40% had withdrawn a publi-cation as a result of threatened libel action

• A third avoided publishing on controversial subjects

• A third had refused work from authors for fear of libel actions

Th e fi nancial impact of even the threat of libel can be huge, with

the cost of actually being sued for libel in the millions of pounds. Th e publishers who responded to our survey spent on average £83,000 a year per company on libel insur-ance alone, with many reporting that they simply could not aff ord to take the risk of fi ghting libel threats because of the resulting increase in libel insurance premiums that this would create.

Very few of the libel threats that publishers receive ever result in suits, and very few suits end up being heard in court. Th e upshot is that courts are not making the fi nal decisions on what should or should not be published, and what is or is not libellous. Rather, fi nancial considerations and imperatives are dictating which views and opinions

see the light of day. Th is, more than anything else, has a chilling eff ect on both freedom to publish and freedom of expression.

It is not just the threat from mul-tinational corporations that is able to create this eff ect: Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs) have ushered in an era of exorbitant legal costs across the board and, as our survey revealed, the claimant’s legal fees were 200 times greater than the damages actually received by the claimant after settlement. Claimants are exposed to very little fi nancial risk themselves in bringing a case under such agreements, but defend-

Reforming libel law

This year will be crucial in putting our stamp of approval on the fi nal legislation


With the draft Defamation Bill under discussion, Richard Mollet looks at the effects of UK libel laws on the industry’s freedom to publish

Richard Mollet, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association

It is no use being neutral, or fair, or even nice about all the books they sell. Th ey need to celebrate being opinionated, because it is this more than anything else that enables them to make such fantastic recommendations.

Stop being so independentIndependents need to stop being so damned independent. Success will come from joining together – not in the real world, but digitally. For all the value of being opinionated, it only impacts upon the people who enter the store. Independents need to express their views on books beyond these confi nes in order to seduce new customers. Th e best way to do that is on the web.

“Opinion” is the fuel of the internet and because of this, rather than being a threat to the independents, the web should be one of their favoured (and most powerful) platforms. Some independents have grasped this, and have set up Facebook groups or use Twitter, but (almost without exception) they are failing to reach beyond their existing customer bases.

A better strategy would be for the independents to get together to create a social network presence that actually has critical mass and scale – the kind of scale that can make or break a book once more and make publishers take them seriously again.

And of course, once a digital collective of independents is using opinion to shape the views of the public about certain books, it is not a big step to start selling some of those books online too. Re-investing the profi ts into the site and continually expanding its potential. Th en the game gets interesting…

To sum up, the indies are at a crossroads. Th e traditional and the stubborn are going to suff er (merci-fully fast) deaths. Th ose that want to survive will have to embrace funda-mentally diff erent ways of thinking about what they do. Th is will shake the very foundations of how the indies have worked for decades (even centuries), but those that do adapt will thrive. Good luck to them.

Damian Horner is a freelance marketing strategist specialising in books, music and the arts. www.damianhorner.com ■

this leads to thinking about their stores diff erently too. Instead of regarding it as a bookshop, think of it as a creative hub – a place where like-minded people can be stimulated, meet, learn, create, relax, debate and generally buzz together. Books are just one aspect of this.

Most bookshops have taken this only as far as opening a café or forming a reading group, but the most interesting (and usually the most successful) are going further. Th ey are holding “Philosophy Breakfasts”, creating “Reading Spas”, setting up music concerts, developing Scrabble clubs and knitting groups or in addition to books, selling antiques, art and housewares. Some even operate as the ticket offi ce for local theatre events.

Whatever they are doing, they have all recognised that more important than books are the people who love books. What they are creating are environments where more of these people come together, more often. Again, it cannot be copied by Amazon or the supermarkets and more visits by more people means more sales.

Stop thinking that service is your competitive edgeGood personal service is not enough to keep the independents afl oat – otherwise people wouldn’t be buying from supermarkets in such large numbers. It is a nice point of difference but not a competitive edge. Th e real strength of the independent booksellers is that they are opinion-ated. Th ey have a point of view about almost every book they sell.

Note that being opinionated is very diff erent to being knowledge-able. Knowledge is cheap. Th e internet is full of “knowledge” about books and that is exactly the problem. In a world of informa-tion overload, what customers crave are navigators – experts who can tell us what they think.

Being opinionated is a symbol of the independent bookseller’s expertise – without it they are just retailers fl ogging printed paper. Booksellers have to exploit this. Everything from their displays, to their promotions, to their hand-selling needs to deliver a point of view. And the more subjective the better.

N owadays, when asked to think about marketing independent bookshops,

one starts to consider which colours and fonts are best to use on the “Closing Down” posters, writes Damian Horner. Bookshops are getting killed. No matter what country they operate in, sooner or later they are gong to be run over by the twin juggernauts of supermarkets and online retailers.

Th e problem is that (bizarrely) there are far better ways to buy books than from bookshops. Supermarkets are cheaper, more convenient and focus on just the books that most people want to buy. Online is also cheaper, also more convenient and off ers an even greater range. Th e public aren’t complaining either. Light readers continue to be drawn to the supermarket bestsellers, while heavy readers are being seduced by the increasingly acceptable wiles of the Kindle.

And if all this wasn’t bad enough, the twist of the knife for independent booksellers is the fact that even the publishers no longer need them as much as they did. Th e independents can no longer “make” an author because they simply can’t deliver the numbers. Th is means that publishers are reluctant to give them the levels of support that they used to – no matter how much they deny it. Th e brutal truth is that publishers would far rather put their faith in the marketing weight of the supermarkets and the online power of Amazon.

So how do independent booksellers fi ght back? Th e answer is not “to do more of the same – but better”. For most, all this means is longer hours and a relentless quest for “effi ciency”, which does nothing more than erase the nuances and character out of their stores.

Th e time has come for independents to get radical and make signifi cant changes to the way they think and work. Th ere are four major paradigm shifts that might stimulate new debate and a fresh perspective:

Stop thinking that you sell booksWhether we like it or not, books are products. Th ey are not a point of diff erence. Th ey are not what make the indies special. Th ey aren’t the reason why people go out of their way (and pay more) to visit independent booksellers.

Independents aren’t selling books. Th ey are selling the romance of the bookshop. Once they grasp this, everything changes. Success is not about becoming “better” retailers. Th e secret is to fi nd ways of being as diff erent as possible to supermarkets and online.

Most booksellers believe this is all about their knowledge and passion, which is true, but only a fraction of the potential audience engage with staff and actually experience this. As important, is the way booksellers use the store itself to express their diff erences. And the most public medium that the indies have to demonstrate what makes them special, is their shop window.

Th ere is little point in piling books in a window; most passers-by already know it is a bookshop. Instead of trying to sell titles “through the glass”, indies should set themselves the target of stopping traffi c. Get people’s attention and then you will be able to sell them some books.

Stop thinking that your customers are book buyersIf the indies regard their customers only as book buyers they will see them very infrequently. In order to engage with them more often, they need to think about their customers in broader terms and

Independence Day


Damian Horner


no-brainer,” says bestselling author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow. “It’s the fi rst inkling of the real promise of electronic publishing, the realisation of the

ancient and noble drive to deliver universal access to all human knowledge.” He adds, “a situation in which a writer can do good at no cost to himself, no cost to his publisher”.

Th ere are, of course, costs, and Worldreader is always looking for more involvement – including fi nancial support. Each fully loaded Kindle costs about $250, so while the group welcomes donations of ebooks and is open to ideas from publishers and authors, fi nancial support is critical to support its mission. Fully 100% of contributions, offi cials say, go to support reading eff orts, and contributions are tax deductible. Further, by supporting Worldreader, Risher notes, publishers and authors are not only helping the developing world, they are helping themselves, by investing in a reading culture – and building a potential market – where none currently exists.

For more information, and to discuss how you can help, visit www.worldreader.org. ■

With its successful second trial in Ghana concluded last fall, Worldreader is picking up more support. In addition to the success with the iREAD programme in

Ghana and its pending expansion into Kenya, the organisation has now caught the attention of some major players, and international organisations and governmental agencies, including: the World Bank; international publishers such as Random House; African publishers such as Afram Publications and Sub-Saharan; as well as authors such as Justina Chen, Daniel Pinkwater, Janet Wong and Cory Doctorow, all of whom have recently signed on to make a selection of their books and stories available to students and families at no cost.

Overall, Worldreader has made nearly 40,000 books available to Ghanaians in the last four months, and offi cials say they hear “almost daily” from authors who want to help support the organisation. Participating in Worldreader is “a

After two overwhelmingly successful trials in Ghana, Worldreader, the non-

profi t organisation dedicated to establishing a reading culture in the developing world via ebooks and ereaders, has announced that it will expand its eff orts into Kilgoris, Kenya, starting in May. Th e expansion will bring hundreds of Kindles, and thousands of ebooks into the classrooms at the Intimigon Nursery and Primary School.

And if things go as they have in Ghana thus far, many lives will be changed. “Th anks to simple innovation, we can send tens of thousands of books to children thousands of miles away from us, separated by oceans and very diffi cult roads,” notes Worldreader’s Susan Moody Prieto. “It’s mind-blowing.”

Worldreader is the brainchild of David Risher, who was Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Product and Platform Development – certainly no stranger to the potential of ebooks. But it was while on a year-long trip around the world with his family in 2008, after leaving Amazon, that Risher realised the true power of ebooks, and ereaders. “We were in Ecuador at an orphanage, and I looked across the fi eld at a building that I could see had

books stacked up inside it. It used to be a library, but now it was locked up and out of use,” Risher recalled. “Here I was looking at my two daughters, each of whom had a Kindle, and had read probably 50 books that year, and I thought, this could bring life to this part of the world, because we now live in a world where, theoretically, you can get your hands on a book as easily as getting a phone call.”

Together with partners Colin McElwee and Mike Sundermeyer, Risher launched Worldreader in 2009, as a “market-based” not-for-profi t organisation with the aim to put “a library of books within reach of every family on the planet, using electronic book technology.” In its fi rst trial, sixth graders in Ghana took quickly to the Kindle experience. Risher says they were able to use them in a matter of hours; enjoyed the experience; liked the tools such as the built-in dictionary; and they are reading more and more, thanks to the instant availability of titles.

But a key component of Worldreader’s vision is rooted

outside of the classroom: that is using ereaders to jump start a “reading-for-pleasure culture” and to seed a vibrant publishing business in parts of the world that currently lack strong bookstores, libraries and a distribution infrastructure. Ebooks can clear that infrastructure hurdle, Risher insists. “An analogy would be cell phones,” he explains. “In the developing world, cell phones leaped over the whole landline phase, because they didn’t have the legacy of the landline. Ebooks might turn out to be similar.”

Changing lives with ebooks

A key component of Worldreader’s vision is rooted outside

of the classroom: that is using ereaders to jump start a

reading-for-pleasure culture

Deborah Tetteh (middle) reading to her friends in front of her house. Each ereader is being used by three people.


Priscilla Sarpomaa downloaded 21 books and was the top reader over the winter holidays


Worldreader expands into Kenya. Andrew Albanese explains

tech-savvy• People from diff erent

departmentsStakeholder workshops allow

participants to share their ideas with each other.

Talk to your audienceRecruit real people who

represent your audience to take part in individual interviews and group

discussions.Th rough

interviews and group discussions

determine:• What your audience

wants from your business• Where they go online

and what they do online• What they think, feel

and expect from the internet

• Th eir appetite for buying your products online

• What else they want from your website in future

UX is not a cheap marketing gimmickSo, if UX is a process, why do I see a growing trend for using it as a marketing campaign idea? You know the sort of thing: “Hey, we understand you Mr Customer. Here’s a picture of someone like you saying the sort of thing you say! Now buy stuff from us…”

James Edwards is CEO and founder of bpi. It works in the publishing sector for clients such as Hachette UK, Transworld, OUP, Bloomsbury, Orpheus Books, Random House and Oxford University Press. www.bpiagency.com. ■

shown clients how to deliver a more eff ective, effi cient and rewarding online experience for all; one that has pleased their customers and met their own business objectives.

Talk to friends and colleaguesWhen starting a new digital project and you want to know what direction to take the fi rst and the simplest thing to do is talk to the people you work with. Th is could be the people in your department, people from other departments who have a vested interest in what you’re doing or even trusted suppliers and clients.

Run stakeholder workshops to fi nd out what you and your colleagues think. For us, stakeholder workshops are

usually one-day events that involve between 10 and 15 people from across a business, with a wide range of roles and personalities. For example:

• Senior positions and lower tiers of the business

• Strategic people and tactical people

• Tech-savvy and not-so-

E conomic uncertainty means budgets squeezed to within an inch of

their lives. As a result, any good online marketer worth their salt should be asking themselves how to deliver a no frills approach to usability. Here are my top six tips for no nonsense usability.

Think about the destination, not the journeyTh e best way of achieving simplicity is to switch the focus from tasks to deliverables. In other words, fi rst think about where you need to end up before you decide how you’re going to get there.

For example, when learning about the audience, don’t doggedly follow the process of interviewing users, trawling through stats, writing personas, planning detailed user journeys, user testing, etc.

Instead, fi rst think about the fundamentals of what you need to know about your users. Who are they? Where are they? What do they do? What do they need? How can you help them? Th en plan the tasks that get the best answers in the quickest way. For example, is there someone in the business who can eff ectively represent the audience and their needs in an unbiased way?

Accept that we live in an imperfect worldYou may also have to accept that the perfect approach may be compromised because of budget constraints. You should be ready to come up with an approach that is simpler to create but still meets the fundamentals.

For example, you may not be able to build your own e-commerce system, but may be able to build an excellent product

catalogue with clear links to retailers. (Amazon does quite a good job of selling books.)

Ultimately, we should all be prepared to come up with an approach that we can take on small budgets and short deadlines. If we don’t somebody else, who is ill-equipped to do so, will do it for us.

Use the right tools for the jobWe at bpi. use “UX” principles in four ways:

Th rough research and evaluation we explore the business, the audience and the market place so that all our ideas are well-informed.

Th rough planning and information architecture we demonstrate and validate our ideas before we spend vast amounts of time and money building them for real.

Th rough interface design and build we create sites that make sense to users; sites that are not ruled by the infl exibility or technical constraints of the chosen back-end system.

And through user testing we

can learn what users actually do and how they feel so that we can improve what we give them.

Although the tasks we undertake may vary, we apply this process of research, plan, create and test consistently across all our projects, no matter what the budget or platform. In doing so, we have

Making your User Experience work

Think about where you need to end up before you decide how

you’re going to get there



James Edwards, of online marketing company bpi., believes that the online experience should be seamless, engaging, entertaining and relevant. He explains how to achieve this

The PW London Fair Dealer, Wednesday 4/13/2011

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Transcript of The PW London Fair Dealer, Wednesday 4/13/2011