I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. Two of the largest UK bookselling chains are in the news today, and I felt they deserved a quick word of comment.
Waterstone's parent group, HMV, has reported its full-year figures for 2008. Annual revenues for the group rose to almost £2bn – which means, obviously, a lot of DVDs, videogames and movies, and quite a few books too. Profits before tax were about £61m, i.e after giving Caesar what is Caesar's, less than 3% of total turnover. Mmm.
Waterstone's performance was even less impressive: £6m profit on a turnover of £548m (calculator, please! – that's less than 1%). Mmmmmm. A friend of mine, a stock-broker by trade, summed it up thus: "Busy fools." I take his comment was not so much – or not only – addressed to Waterstone's, but to the thousands of publishers, including us, who are oiling this wasteful machine. I am starting to see more and more the benefits of digital publishing...
Which brings me to the other chain, Borders, who announced an interesting diversification of their business, an online dating system called "Happily Ever After". If you are coming cold to this, I swear I am not joking – read the full story (and the comments) here. Another Borders news today is the launch of yet another e-book reader, the ominously named Elonex. I can see it's getting pretty busy in that market – and it looks as though there are going to be as many e-book readers' brands as there are books if we continue at this rate.
AG
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
One Magazine - John Calder Blog
Just a quick post to alert you to an Edinburgh-based prize-winning magazine called One, valiantly edited by Martin Belk. As well as publishing interesting articles about literature and the arts, they have managed to secure John Calder as their Monday guest blogger – their "Man for Monday". If you want to read his latest political or literary rants, here's the link. I'll try to get John to contribute again to our blog too.AG
Friday, 26 June 2009
Yesterday, Twitter-style
Woke up, had breakfast with family. Took Eleonora to school, went to office and worked for three hours.
Went back home and had lunch with Elisabetta and Emiliano.
Went with them to pick up Eleonora from school, drove them to Stansted airport, dodging the traffic resulting from two car accidents.
Drove back to Richmond, worked for an hour, went to Sheen to return some videos, went back to the office, picked up William and Christian.
Drove to the station, parked the car, got on the first available train. Went to the TLS party in Knightsbridge.
Met a few friends and fellow publishers, glimpsed AC Grayling, Eric Hobsbawm and AN Wilson.
Left at 8:00, went to the Waldorf in Aldwych, picked up two friends and had dinner with them. Ate fish, drank Armagnac.
Ran across Waterloo Bridge to catch last train back to Richmond.
Caught fast train by a whisker, reached Richmond, got on first bus and arrived home before Midnight.
Checked my email, replied to a couple of messages, checked the Guardian online and found out that Michael Jackson was dead.
Read news reports on Wimbledon, read Canto VI of Aeneid in CH Sisson's translation.
Went to bed and slept eight hours – first time in many years.
You see? It's easy to do it, but I think it's also meaningless, and let's be frank: no one cares about what someone else is doing or has done. Any story, to be interesting, must to be told in a proper way, using language for what it was invented for: expression. And I firmly believe that reducing everything to a Twitter message – including classics apparently – is one of the most moronic regressions dreamt up by mankind.
AG
Went back home and had lunch with Elisabetta and Emiliano.
Went with them to pick up Eleonora from school, drove them to Stansted airport, dodging the traffic resulting from two car accidents.
Drove back to Richmond, worked for an hour, went to Sheen to return some videos, went back to the office, picked up William and Christian.
Drove to the station, parked the car, got on the first available train. Went to the TLS party in Knightsbridge.
Met a few friends and fellow publishers, glimpsed AC Grayling, Eric Hobsbawm and AN Wilson.
Left at 8:00, went to the Waldorf in Aldwych, picked up two friends and had dinner with them. Ate fish, drank Armagnac.
Ran across Waterloo Bridge to catch last train back to Richmond.
Caught fast train by a whisker, reached Richmond, got on first bus and arrived home before Midnight.
Checked my email, replied to a couple of messages, checked the Guardian online and found out that Michael Jackson was dead.
Read news reports on Wimbledon, read Canto VI of Aeneid in CH Sisson's translation.
Went to bed and slept eight hours – first time in many years.
* * *
You see? It's easy to do it, but I think it's also meaningless, and let's be frank: no one cares about what someone else is doing or has done. Any story, to be interesting, must to be told in a proper way, using language for what it was invented for: expression. And I firmly believe that reducing everything to a Twitter message – including classics apparently – is one of the most moronic regressions dreamt up by mankind.
AG
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Barbers’ Wars
Richmond is a funny old place – a place where a pint of lager will cost £4.20, or the price of an Asda frozen turkey, and where having your hair cut can cost you only £4.00. But only in credit-crunch, homo-homini-lupus times.
There’s this honest chap round the corner from where I live. He’s a foreigner. Let’s say he’s Swedish – although he’s not. Well, this Swede opened a tiny barber shop two or three years ago, from the back of a larger ladies-only hairdresser. This hairdresser was empty most of the time, except on Saturdays, when hords of candy-floss-haired dames descend from their dens on the hill. The Swede’s barber shop thrived: over time, he renovated it and even hired a couple more Swedish hair-stylists.
Then his lease comes up for renewal, and he realizes he's paying over the odds. He tells the hairdresser, from whom he’s renting the place, that he can get five times the square footage he’s got now for half the price just round the corner from where he is, and in a better location. So he gives the hairdresser his notice. The hairdresser goes potty, and advertises on the shop windows: MEN’S HAIRCUTS £5.00 (the Swede was charging £10.00).
The Swedish barber moves into the new place round the corner, but he still has the use of the older place until the end of the month, so he advertises MEN’S HAIRCUTS £4.00. Obviously, a lot of guys have had their hair cut at both places over the last few days.
But why did I mention this? For two reasons – the first is that this is a good time to have long hair in Richmond, and the second is that the same wars were waged between the local butchers, greengrocers and booksellers against the overpowering supermarkets over the last twenty or thirty years. Without any regulation, the result will be the same: no one will be making money, and the barber will have to close down his shop and go back to Sweden.
AG
There’s this honest chap round the corner from where I live. He’s a foreigner. Let’s say he’s Swedish – although he’s not. Well, this Swede opened a tiny barber shop two or three years ago, from the back of a larger ladies-only hairdresser. This hairdresser was empty most of the time, except on Saturdays, when hords of candy-floss-haired dames descend from their dens on the hill. The Swede’s barber shop thrived: over time, he renovated it and even hired a couple more Swedish hair-stylists.
Then his lease comes up for renewal, and he realizes he's paying over the odds. He tells the hairdresser, from whom he’s renting the place, that he can get five times the square footage he’s got now for half the price just round the corner from where he is, and in a better location. So he gives the hairdresser his notice. The hairdresser goes potty, and advertises on the shop windows: MEN’S HAIRCUTS £5.00 (the Swede was charging £10.00).
The Swedish barber moves into the new place round the corner, but he still has the use of the older place until the end of the month, so he advertises MEN’S HAIRCUTS £4.00. Obviously, a lot of guys have had their hair cut at both places over the last few days.
But why did I mention this? For two reasons – the first is that this is a good time to have long hair in Richmond, and the second is that the same wars were waged between the local butchers, greengrocers and booksellers against the overpowering supermarkets over the last twenty or thirty years. Without any regulation, the result will be the same: no one will be making money, and the barber will have to close down his shop and go back to Sweden.
AG
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Publishing Law Guru
For hardcore publishing bloggers, may I recommend this new blog, called Publishing Law Guru. It's been launched by, er, a copyright lawyer – so do NOT expect gossip, but well-informed and impartial comment on the latest copyright palavers, including the Salinger saga and no doubt the Google Book Settlement, the Harry Potter plagiarism case etc. etc.
Just as a quick coda to yesterday's post, my IT guru had a peep at the referrers, and the people who have Googled "porno men" are at... number five.
"Nice," was his comment. "Depressing," was mine. That will give you a good idea as to what kind of traffic our little Alma and Oneworld Classics shop front is getting on the information highway.
AG
Just as a quick coda to yesterday's post, my IT guru had a peep at the referrers, and the people who have Googled "porno men" are at... number five.
"Nice," was his comment. "Depressing," was mine. That will give you a good idea as to what kind of traffic our little Alma and Oneworld Classics shop front is getting on the information highway.
AG
Monday, 22 June 2009
Something to cheer about
I have had enough bad news today to be depressed for a month, but after speaking to one of our authors today, who sounded on the verge of suicide, and after talking to John Calder on the phone and listening to his depressing (but probably true) assessment of the publishing industry, life and the universe, I think I could read Sartre's Nausea for good cheer.
There's nothing but bad news around us at the moment, but if there's one reason to celebrate, then this is that we are – really – under the spotlight of the whole world. How? Because we published a book called Salmonella Men on Planet Porno. Maybe for the wrong reasons (just maybe), we are getting thousands of hits every week, and this is giving us our five-minute celebrity moment in the increasingly fierce environment of the Web, where reputations are made and lost in a twitter, and where Google alerts are the measure of human brain life.
Long live the Internet then, and long live free porn for making us feel alive.
AG
There's nothing but bad news around us at the moment, but if there's one reason to celebrate, then this is that we are – really – under the spotlight of the whole world. How? Because we published a book called Salmonella Men on Planet Porno. Maybe for the wrong reasons (just maybe), we are getting thousands of hits every week, and this is giving us our five-minute celebrity moment in the increasingly fierce environment of the Web, where reputations are made and lost in a twitter, and where Google alerts are the measure of human brain life.
Long live the Internet then, and long live free porn for making us feel alive.
AG
Friday, 19 June 2009
Sigh. . .
The big celebs for Christmas (according to this Bookseller article)
Ant & Dec Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Penguin
Sheryl Gascoigne Loving Gazza Penguin
Aled Jones Aled Jones’ Forty Favourite Hymns RH
Michael Palin Halfway to Hollywood: 1980 to 1988 Orion
Jack Dee Thanks for Nothing TW
Russell Brand My Booky Wook 2 HC
Peter Kay Saturday Night Peter RH
Harry Hill TV Burp RH
Dara O’Briain Tickling the English Penguin
Chris Evans The Autobiography HC
Simon Pegg Out of “Spaced” Hodder
Katie Price Standing Out RH
Leona Lewis Leona Hodder
Jo Brand Look Back in Hunger Headline
Ozzy Osbourne I Am Ozzy Sphere
Well, it's certainly showbizzy, full of pizzazz and chutzpah . . . and the good news is that it's going to beat the credit crunch with its glitz and glamour.
These are the times when I wish the Earth would explode like a small soap bubble.
Happy weekend.
AG
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)