The long-delayed wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles was announced during the week PW was making the rounds of British publishers, and seemed to symbolize the prevailing mood we found in the U.K. trade: long-simmering rivalries and enmities appear to have died down, and a mood of cautious celebration was in the air.
Usually there is a sense of anxiety about the constant battle between the need for higher margins and the rapacious discount demands of the supermarkets, of much more importance to the British trade than here in the United States. There has been a undercurrent, too, of worry, as in the U.S., about an apparently shrinking book market; and in the past, one often had a sense, despite the brave talk about promising past-year results, that the business, dependent as it is on sometimes erratically managed chain retailers, is on shaky ground. This year, the clouds seem to have dissipated to a remarkable degree—and if not everyone could claim the Random U.K. group's sterling performance (helped, of course, by the overwhelming success in Britain, too, of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code), there was a general sense that the year had been a strong one, aided by a profitable Christmas season.
BookScan figures are very keenly followed in Britain, and a recent analysis by the Bookseller magazine confirmed the reasons for confidence and optimism. Actual book sales increased by 6.4% in 2004 over the previous year—which had been a strong one, aided of course by a new Harry Potter. Even more remarkably, volume sales increased by a solid 7.7%. The fact that volume sales outstripped value growth was attributed to ever-more frenetic discounting: the average selling price of a book actually declined year to year. Bestseller sales continued to soar—11 titles sold more than half a million copies in 2004, compared to only five the previous year, and some of those, like Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat and Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea, were dark horses. There were indications, too, that backlist titles were gaining, always a good sign of industry health.
The pecking order among the major trade groups, closely watched by its participants, had a major shift during the year: France's Hachette group, which already owned Orion, acquired Hodder Headline and thus leaped over Pearson's Penguin Group and HarperCollins to the number two spot after Random. Hachette's UK Book Group CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson let it be known that "in the spirit of friendly rivalry," he was gunning to overtake Random.
In fact, at the time of the new merger, he seemed only a fraction of a percentage point behind in terms of market share: Random's year-end results, however, were so sterling that it moved up from a 13% share in 2003 to 14.4% in 2004, leaving the Hachette group, at 12.9%, not within easy reach.
One of the very welcome innovations in 2003 and 2004 was the development of Richard & Judy, a daytime Channel Four TV talk show that gave a huge boost to book visibility by offering its millions of viewers a regular series of selections from among current books; imagine something like the impact of Oprah spread among several new books a month. Much to publishers' relief, the show has not only continued to flourish but shows no sign of lessening its attention to books, as Oprah has done. One of the pairs' most recent choices was an American hit, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Now there are signs that the BBC, with a new show called Page Turners, and, later, ITV, will be joining the book-promotion bonanza; the mass-circulation Daily Mailhas also launched a book club.
PA and BA: Working Things Out
There is in fact a very active drive to promote reading in Britain, spearheaded by the Publishers Association but pushed ahead with the help of the BBC and with government support—a development that seems unlikely in the present climate in Washington (British publishers seem universally appalled at what they see as an antirationalist strain in the current U.S. zeitgeist).
Publishers Association president Ronnie Williams is an enthusiast for what he calls "generic marketing," and rejoices that publishers seem to be waking up to its possibilities. World Book Day, for instance, has been in the past an occasion in Britain for helping to promote children's literacy, with an ambitious government-backed scheme to give away millions of books to encourage children to read. Now the idea is to focus more in the coming year on adult literacy. A program will be launched next year whereby an adult who achieves a certificate in literacy then gets a voucher for a series of free books specially created for the newly literate. "We're getting a good idea of what works," Williams said. "Now what to try next? Maybe a big 'Give a Book for Christmas' promotion." He is delighted at the Richard & Judy phenomenon, which he sees as having a significant impact on people who don't normally read.
The PA is closely involved with the Booksellers Association in a liaison committee, composed of senior executives in both publishing and retailing who are working on a series of initiatives designed to make the British book supply chain function more smoothly. A "Returns Initiative," designed to help smooth the process by allowing, among other things, for online returns authorization, thus reducing the cost of returns to both sides, is proceeding apace, with growing publisher adherence; the Random group recently lent its full support. Another idea toward which the trade is moving, spurred by players on both sides, is for a generally agreed Monday launch date for particularly significant books on each publisher's list, so as to better coordinate marketing and promotion efforts.
In such matters, Williams is a confident pragmatist, impatient with philosophical differences that get in the way of a better flow of books. "There'll always be booksellers, for instance, concerned about supermarkets selling books and undercutting their market, but the way I see it, it's a free market, and the more outlets the better for everyone," he asserted. Issues that catch Williams's attention are what he calls "libel tourism," in which books that can be published without legal problems in the United States—and he cites recent ones on some noted Middle Eastern figures and developments—cannot be done in Britain because of the very different burden-of-proof requirements. He keeps a wary eye on attempts within the European Union to standardize contingency law, meaning in effect that it would then become possible to be sued in Britain for what is not an offense under British law. And he sees physical book piracy on the rise in Britain; the PA has always been active in pursuing world piracy in combination with the AAP, but now "it's a new front on our own doorstep."
According to Tim Godfray at the Booksellers Association, booksellers have been doing better than many other retailers in recent sales figures—a pleasant turn of events that would certainly be unfamiliar, and highly desirable, to their American counterparts. "But we're not altogether wreathed in smiles," he noted. There are problems in academic bookstores, with academics providing course packs of their own, and students increasingly researching on the Internet, making it harder on reference sales. Independents, under combined pressure from supermarkets and the expansionist chains (Waterstone's plans to open no fewer than 10 new stores in the coming year, in a country that seems already over-bookshopped), are struggling. To help them, the BA launched its Small Business Forum, a gathering where indies can learn from each other about possible solutions to mutual problems.
The two big hurdles the business had to leap in the past year were both electronic system—related: Penguin's widely publicized difficulties in reconciling its systems when it moved distribution to Pearson's Rugby warehouse; and VNU's problems with integrating BookScan. The Book Token scheme, a British specialty, raked in no less than £31.5 million last year, though now that the big chain stores have their own vouchers, this may decline. All in all, Godfray believes, bookstores are working "better and better," and learning to specialize more effectively.
Random's "Spectacular Year"
Gail Rebuck, Susan Sandon and Richard Cable jointly described a year that all agreed had been spectacular. Not only did they have the Dan Brown original, but also his previously ignored backlist; plus the much admired and strong-selling Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon in paperback; Bill Bryson's Short History;the latest John Grisham; Monica Ali's Brick Lane; andJoseph O'Connor's Richard & Judy hit, Star of the Sea. All in all, the lineup gave them eight out of 10 places in the Guardian's roundup of the year's paperback "fastsellers." They also had Bill Clinton's memoir; Christopher Paolini's Eragonand the ever-popular Jacqueline Wilson in children's; Philip Roth's The Plot Against America;and were starting the new year with Ian McEwan'salready bestselling Saturday.Rebuck said Random is now taking "a much tougher stance on protecting our flow of income," which is Brit publisher speak for not giving the store away by offering discounts that are unrealistically high. There are, she noted, "winners and losers" among retailers, but she hopes, like most interviewed by PW, that this will be another strong retail year. Asked about chain booksellers doing their own publishing, as Barnes & Noble so notably does in the States, Rebuck noted that Ottakar's is now doing some self-publishing of its own, though not on a similar scale. Speaking of self-publishing: the Random sales reps are being asked to look out specifically for self-published titles that can be brought into the fold: A Year in the Merde and the children's Princess Poppy were recent examples of successful transitions.
Upcoming books of which great things are expected include Marlon Brando's co-authored novel Fan Tan, which Knopf is doing in the States; a new book by Douglas Kennedy; a "great" new Julian Barnes; and notable new books from Salman Rushdie and Sebastian Faulk. It's hoped that Thomas Harris will have his new thriller ready by the end of the year—and his jacket is ready in any case.
One cloud Rebuck perceives is the "scary hyperinflation" among author advances, especially for nonfiction with some kind of celebrity TV link, suggesting that some publishers use such books—and pay too much for them—to pull up their results near the end of the year. "I keep hoping they'll come down," she said.
The Random folk spoke amid a clamor of power tools and a wilderness of painters' drop cloths and stray heating ducts. The Vauxhall Bridge Road building that is home is being thoroughly refurbished, with a new staff restaurant opening soon. Meanwhile, Random has bought the West London building occupied by Transworld, a move that seems likely to keep that arm in its comparatively remote location.
The Big Change at Penguin
The dramatic development at Penguin—the sudden and unexpected departure of Anthony Forbes Watson as the group's U.K. chief—was heralded dramatically at PW's scheduled visit to him at the group's lavish quarters in Shell Mex House, overlooking the Thames in the middle of the Strand. We were told via a last-minute call that he would be unable to see us "for personal reasons," and were offered instead some time with Penguin worldwide CEO John Makinson.
It was not until the end of the interview that Makinson handed us a terse company announcement, being issued that morning, that Forbes Watson was leaving the company in the light of "genuine differences of view on the way forward for the Penguin and Dorling Kindersley businesses." Makinson went on to say that he was replacing Forbes Watson himself, adding to PW that this meant he would probably not be spending as much time with the worldwide branches, including the U.S., as before.
The reaction of the rest of the trade to this abrupt development was akin to the American frisson following the departure from Random House of Ann Godoff, though at a yet higher level. Some speculated that Forbes Watson had been asked to fall on his sword as a result of Penguin's well-publicized warehouse problems in the latter part of the year. Others speculated that he had been unable to adequately ingest the Dorling Kindersley operation—which everyone seemed to agree had been bought at too high a price, and probably at a time when its particular approach was no longer current. There was even some sly speculation that Makinson was making sure he has enough to do. Forbes Watson had spent 15 years with the company, more than half the time as its CEO, and it was felt that it would be difficult to avoid replacing him in some way; some tipped publisher Helen Fraser as an eventual likely successor.
As to what Makinson himself had to say about the company's progress in 2004, he said was "more cheerful than I'm accustomed to being." The experience at the Rugby warehouse, though difficult and troubling, had served, much as in wartime Britain, to "bring us all together" in a common effort against adversity. At one point, sales reps had manned a fleet of vans, each filled with cartons of "core stock," and serviced hungry bookstores themselves. Now, the electronic problems of reconciling Penguin and Pearson software, which caused the meltdown, have been overcome, and as of the second week of February, everything was functional once more.
Big hits for Penguin during the year included Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat, a surprise No. 1 bestseller that will be followed by a cookbook; the ever-reliable Jamie Oliver had come through again; and a new Nick Hornby novel, A Long Way Down, is on its way in May. Penguin Ireland was successfully launched, and corporate owner Pearson just landed a huge U.S. government education training contract—with the prospect of a big year of school adoptions ahead.
Makinson had his own views on the retailing picture, though he felt Penguin was not as exposed to heavy discounting as some, because of its comparative lack of major commercial fiction exposure. He felt the High Street stores need to be more responsive to pricing pressure by offering a better balance between frontlist and backlist, but he said the pendulum has begun to swing back toward them from the superstores because of their better positions on stock and service. The often-reviled W.H. Smith seems to be rediscovering its feet in books, he thought, and "I'm more optimistic about it than I've been in some years."
As for Penguin in the U.S., he said the mass market there was a big problem, and that the company was "way overweight in terms of our size" in the number of imprints in the area and their great reliance on commercial fiction. One way forward, he felt, will be a new format, midway between mass and trade paperback, and priced at just $10—and he showed a sample of a first release in it, Minette Walters's Disordered Minds (see News, Feb. 14), whose sales will be monitored very closely.
Looking Up at S&S
Ian Chapman at Simon & Schuster U.K. had just celebrated his 50th birthday, his 25th year in publishing, and a year in which he saw the company results escalate from a loss of £1 million in 2003 to a profit of £1.5 million this past year. "For the first time I felt we had everyone in place," he said, after years of struggling to reshape the company. The first quarter was driven by Jarhead and Adriana Trigiani's latest in paperback; the third by very high sales of Bob Dylan's memoir—just chosen for the BBC's new Page Turners. "What's perked us all up is the new life in TV," Chapman said.
Traditionally, S&S in London has depended heavily on imports from the U.S. parents, but "they're now beginning to trust us with some of our own babies," and domestic acquisition is growing. Chapman was delighted to note that the company has finally made it to the top 10 among BookScan's largest trade publishers.
Bullish at Bloomsbury
At Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton is bullish—as well he might be, with another Harry Potter installment on the way this summer; but he takes pains to point out that the company, in a Potterless year, has done well enough. Susanna Clarke's mammoth novel Dr. Morrell and Mr. Strange, of course, due out in paperback here soon, was the book that made the difference in 2004. And, in fact, the company had a number-one bestseller in each of its main markets: Clarke for fiction; Sheila Hancock's The Two of Us, about her life with late TV actor John Thaw in nonfiction; and Sammelsurium, the German translation of then bestselling Schott's Miscellany, in Germany, where Bloomsbury now participates via BerlinVerlag.
Recently, Bloomsbury expanded its American presence beyond Karen Rinaldi's Bloomsbury USA with its acquisition of the venerable family firm of Walker & Co., and Newton professed himself delighted at the purchase, worked out over a period of many months. "It's a great company, with great goodwill, and I'm sure it will continue to flourish under George Gibson," he said. He also hinted there might be other, probably smaller, U.S. purchases in the company's future, as it continues a policy of "cautious growth."
Being Bloomsbury, there are new books and authors on the horizon, including Peter Prince's Adam Runaway, a big picaresque novel in the vein of Henry Fielding, about a boy making good in 18th-century Lisbon at the time of the earthquake. John Irving's next, Until I Find You, will continue his long association with the house in Britain. In an unexpected flourish, Newton declared, "We're blessed with our retailers," meaning there's a suitable home to do well with each of it's the house's major titles.
Hodder: Moving Up
Attention has already been paid to the new number-two ranking of the Hodder group, now consisting of Hodder, Headline and the recently acquired and venerable John Murray—to whose legendary home on Albermarle St. in Mayfair, including the very fireplace where a Byron manuscript was burned over 200 years ago, we were conducted for a party introducing the new list, after the obligatory interview.
Murray's Roland Phillipp was naturally keen on the company's recent unprecedentedly large (for them) advance for Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night, a huge and as-yet-unfinished novel that has been 30 years in the mind of its author, a former OUP editor, who began writing frantically when he recently learned he is likely to lose his sight. (It went to Norton in the U.S.) Murray relaunched a fiction list last year, and already has stars like Jacqueline Winspear (with her Maisie Dobbs novels, recently in a deal with Holt) and Neil Jordan (Shade). In nonfiction there's a new memoir by James Frey and a book called War Reporting for Cowards by Chris Ayres, as well as a book called, intriguingly, The Moneypenny Diaries, anonymously composed by someone purporting to be James Bond's celebrated secretary at MI5.
At Hodder, Jamie Hodder-Williams, a descendant of the founder, describes a house that has increased sales 44% since last year, based partly on U.S. bestsellers—Jeffery Deaver, Sondra Brown, Jodi Picoult (only just launched in Britain) and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It's also planning the new book on Venice by John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and a bio of John Lennon by his first wife, Cynthia, for which it will be selling rights at the London Book Fair. It was Hodder that put together a TV tie-in book called Supernanny, about an American family that depends on an English nanny. Hyperion has bought the project in the U.S., and has already made it a bestseller there, though it hasn't appeared in Britain yet—awaiting the arrival of the TV show.
Now that the Hodder group shares ownership with Orion, a bidding wall has been put in place, as at large groups like Random in the U.S.: different imprints can bid against each other as long as an outside competitor remains, but once it's between two Hachette lines, agent and author choose between them, without further bidding.
Martin Neild speaks for Headline, now nearing its 20th anniversary as a Hodder imprint, heavy on genre commercial fiction, in which James Patterson is preeminent on the list. Martina Cole, still a dark horse in the U.S., is a great success in Britain, just graduating to hardcover with The Graft, a quarter-million-copy seller that was a Richard & Judy choice. An author tried in the U.S. (most recently by Overlook) but who resolutely fails to duplicate her British success is Penny Vincenzi. A recent discovery, Andrea Levy, has won both the Orange and Whitbread prizes with her Small Island, now zooming in trade paperback. The other Headline specialty is big international properties on the order of Hillary Clinton and Jack Welch, and it also does well with star sports books, particularly in such English specialties as tennis and rugby football.
Like many English publishers, Neild has been dazzled by the colossal success of Dan Brown's TheDa Vinci Code, which proves, he says, that "the universe of potential book buyers is much larger than we had imagined."
Patrick Janson Smith at Transworld, which reaped the very considerable rewards of being Brown's publisher here, remains somewhat bemused by it. When it was first presented, he said, the sales reps were unenthusiastic, despite the stories of gargantuan U.S. sales. And in his jokey way, he has a question : "Has anyone actually met Dan Brown? No one here has, and we're told he's much too busy working on his next ever to talk to anyone."
He had just been dining with one of his favorite and most successful authors on both sides of the Atlantic, Bill Bryson, who is working—alas, for another publisher—on a study of Shakespeare for James Atlas's series Brief Lives. For Transworld he is doing a memoir of his Midwest childhood.
Future books Janson Smith is specially keen on include Q&A, by Indian diplomat Vikas Suarup, about an illiterate Indian boy who win s a rich quiz prize (sold to Scribner); One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding, about a lawyer on a South Sea island involved with natives in a Shakespearean puzzle; and a forensic thriller, by a man this time, The Chemistry of Death by Simon Becket—the latter two to be sold at or before the London Book Fair. Upcoming celebrity books, another Transworld specialty, include studies of Goldie Hawn and John Travolta.
Upbeat at Canongate
Jamie Byng at Canongate was his usual ebullient self, with some new arrangements and, as usual, a new book discovery to trumpet. It had been a "gratifyingly strong" year for the Edinburgh-based house, which had budgeted for a decline from 2003 (the year of Life of Pi) but things turned out better than expected. Revenues were just under £6 million, "with a decent profit." For years he had been copublishing with Michael Heyward's Text Publishing in Melbourne, Australia, then he and Heyward bought Text from its corporate owners, and now they plan to use it as a base to expand there, with its first catalogue due in the fall.
Another change is that Canongate and Atlantic (with which Byng has a close relationship) have joined with Profile in a new distribution arrangement with Faber, both in the U.K. and Europe, assuring this group of high-profile independents stronger visibility and access to the Faber sales force.
The book Byng is all agog about is a remarkable novel, set in Siberia in 1919, The People's Act of Love by James Meek, a former Moscow correspondent for the Guardian who is also the author of a book of stories, The Museum of Doubt. "I'm more excited about it than by almost anything I've done," said Byng, adding that he has already more than recouped his larger-than-usual advance through foreign sales—and to European publishers who in turn have supplied ecstatic blurbs for the novel, an unusual touch. Canongate, run in the U.S. by Tad Floridis, will publish here.
Byng's other big news is that his Myths series, which he has been working on for six years, will launch this fall just before the Frankfurt fair, with Margaret Atwood on Penelope and a couple of others (the concept is to have major authors retell their favorite myths). There are 26 publishers lined up around the world for the series, which will be issued at the rate of three titles a year.
Macmillan's Mixture
Richard Charkin and David North describe a mixture for Holtzbrinck-owned Macmillan of academic, educational and trade publishing, with a strong children's element. The house has been one of the leaders in the Returns Initiative and, in fact, has seen returns drop by 18% over the previous year. Issues in academic publishing, according to Charkin, are that the market for used textbooks, now developing rapidly in the U.K., forces up the prices of new ones, which inspires more trade in used, in a vicious spiral; and reference publishing is punished by the ease of Internet research. Still, the upmarket, semi-academic Palgrave line enjoyed "a spectacular year."
North said the trade side had done well, driven by Picador and children's publishing. In the latter, The Gruffalo's Child sold 300,000 copies, and Bella Pollitt's Eating Unicorns, aided by Richard & Judy, also did very well. On the crime fiction side, stars were a medieval crime series by C.J. Sampson and a series of psychological thrillers by Peter James.
The new Macmillan Science imprint, run by science journalist Sara Abdulla, has just published its first list, the star of which is Michael Hanlon's The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an account of the scientific know-how that went into Douglas Adams's celebrated series. It is typical of her list in that it's serious science done in a popular way—and her unusual approach, which eschews author advances for higher royalty participation, and demands all rights, seems, Abdulla said, to be working fine.
Discounting Out of Hand?
What is not working fine these days, according to leading agent Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown, is the whole publisher-retailer relationship, which seems to him to involve publishers "giving everything away." They have given away all their power to the retailers, so that discounting—three for the price of two, or half-price promotions—is removing the possibility of real profit. "Nobody in the publishing chain is taking responsibility for what's going on," he said. "If I were a big publisher, I'd buy a book chain."
Publishers complain about high advances demanded, he said, "but we have to keep them high because the authors don't get anything back on royalties." And he agonizes about a new timidity in buying: "What are the editors doing? A year ago, I sold 17 debut novelists. Now I'm down to two. New novelists are being told their books are 'works in progress.' I feel powerless; the energy and love for books is growing in this country, but the product isn't."
Something at the forefront of Geller's attention at present is his brainchild, New Beginnings, a book designed to aid worldwide tsunami relief, with all proceeds going to that cause. He has put together a stellar list of authors who are contributing first chapters of their next books for free to a kind of anthology of tempting book trailers. Bloomsbury is doing the book in the U.K. and here, is up to 300,000 orders, and hopes to reach half a million.
Edwin Buckhalter at Severn House, a small publisher who specializes in the library market, agreed that discounting has gotten out of hand. "I'm not against supermarkets selling books, but not at that rate of discount. It's ecologically unsound—people have no idea of what a book is really worth." And he thinks publishers need a better relationship with suppliers, in order to compete more strongly against other entertainment products.
Severn benefits from the current emphasis on blockbusters, picking up midlist mystery writers dropped by larger houses. A typical press run for the house, at about 2000, ends before a larger publisher's begins, so Buckhalter can afford to give new writers a chance.
HarperCollins: A New Branding
One of the new emphases at HarperCollins this year, as outlined by Victoria Barnsley and Amanda Ridout, has been the rebranding of the Collins reference line. All have been repackaged; there is a new Chinese dictionary aimed at the Chinese market; and a Collins Web site facilitates a direct link with consumers and even offers a forum for exchanging word definitions.
The Thorsons line of mind/body/spirit books have been a winner for the company, with Otakkar's now creating special merchandising zones for them. The literary side, exemplified by Perennial, has also scored, with strong outreach to reading groups. Barnsley noted that Christmas had turned out to be better than expected, with Cecilia Ahern's PS I Love You ending up among the year's top 10 sellers. On the children's side, there's a new Eric Carle; a big year ahead for C.S. Lewis's Narnia books by way of an upcoming movie; and a new scheme whereby authors reach out via an educational TV channel to school audiences.
Barnsley professed herself bewildered by the scope of the Da Vinciphenomenon, but said she's glad it, along with Richard & Judy, is helping to "put books back on the popular culture agenda." Books HC looks forward to in the coming months include Nick Laird's Utterly Monkey; a series of thrillers by Stuart McBride beginning with Cold Granite; and a debut by Malaysian writer Tash An, TheHarmony Silk War.
Speaking for a seemingly imperiled breed, publishers of highly illustrated books, Thames & Hudson's Jamie Camplin insists that international co-publishing, once a mainstay, is not dead. T&H, he says, now has an outpost in China, and did books for no fewer than 16 German houses last year, as well as with 24 foreign countries (customers include Chronicle, Wiley, Rizzoli, Aperture). A huge new book, Art Since 1900, is being launched shortly, and is expected to become backlist mainstay.
Camplin worries about the reduced state of the dollar, not only for its impact on the book market, but also ultimately on the world economy as a whole—and, as a publisher of high-priced books, deplores what he sees as an unrealistic effort to make them ever cheaper. T&H has entered the do-it-yourself market in a big way, and has a Great Hotels series planned, which it hopes to tie in with a major U.S. TV series.
Time Warner: Rapid Growth
David Kent for TimeWarner (speaking for managing director David Young, away in Australia) cited 28% growth in the past year, attributing some of that at least to excellent distribution by Random House (TW is the only major London publisher not have its own distribution).
As last year's Publisher of the Year, TW has a lot to live up to, and has done so partly with the help of Alexander McCall Smith and The Long Way Round by movie star Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, an account of their globe-girdling motorbike trip that did much better in the U.K. than in the U.S. Ron McLarty's Memory of Running just launched, and the author is on tour; and Richard Peltzer's A Brother's Journey is currently Number One. TW, its eye on the charts, has overtaken Penguin as number four in fiction, pursuing Harper.
Finally, at Orion, the other side of the Hachette coin, Malcolm Edwards looks back on a year that included the huge No. 1 hit, Michael Palin's Himalaya, which sold a million copies including book club—the former Monty Python star has become a kind of British institution. Prospects ahead are bright, too, with new books on the way from Maeve Binchy, Ian Rankin and Michael Connolly. And Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind has received a huge boost from—who else?—Richard & Judy.
Orion also has Da Vinci on audio, where it has sold an unprecedented 40,000 copies. But Edwards helps place the phenomenon neatly in perspective, illustrating the odd mix of high and low that characterizes the tastes of the book market on both sides of the Atlantic. "Don't forget," he said," that it may been No. 1, but that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was No. 2."
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It's going to be a "bumper" year for the London Book Fair this year, its last at its old Olympia headquarters in West London, according to fair director Alistair Burtenshaw and his team. Next year the fair moves way eastward, out to a spanking-new convention hall at the soaring Docklands development that has grown up among the old wharves and waterways of the 19th- and early 20th—century heart of London's development as a great port. At last there will be plenty of room—the fair was getting increasingly cramped for space in its old glass-roofed halls at Olympia, and things would only have gotten worse with the upcoming development of part of the complex for a casino.
