Guide Books

The FT carried an article last week, which drew on information from Nielsen BookScan about the decline in guidebook sales in Britain and concluded “if the current rate of decline continues, the final guidebook will be sold in less than seven years’ time”.

It also quoted that The Rough Guide to France, which sold 11,493 copies in 2008 fell by 45% to a sale of 6,561 in 2009 and the article went on to point out that the average sale of each guide book title from the leading five publishers was around 1,500 copies.

More and more, apparently, people are finding their info online or in Apps and some publishers (such as Nota Bene) have decided as a result to abandon print formats for their publications altogether.

Why am I telling you all this?

Clearly we are watching developments in the travel book business with interest, because of our own growing success with our Speak the Culture series. We seem to be bucking the trend and achieving some success with title sales. Fortunately, they are not guide books as such, but are a different way of exploring the culture of a country.

What we will do is pursue online, e-book and other applications, which will bring the fascinating mix of cultural information that is packed into each of the Speak the Culture books to as wide a range of people, in as wide a range of formats, as it is prudent and effective so to do.

eBook market finally gets interesting

As you may have followed, we’ve been dipping our toe in the waters of eBook publishing, with varying results – trying to figure out which books to publish, which will appeal to our customers. Ideally, I’d like to publish our entire catalogue, but as a small publisher it’s not so easy, given that there is some work (and cost) involved in converting each title to an ePub. Especially as the market has been limited, until now having really only two options for consumers looking for eBooks in the UK:

• Waterstone’s & WH Smith, who sell DRM-ed (don’t get me started on that) books in ePub format, usable on a Sony reader, or a number of other devices;

• Amazon, whose Kindle is becoming very popular in the US but has been available here via an odd model; requiring you to buy it from the US, and go back there for eBooks.

Neither of which I have seen as particularly tempting; the former typically being too expensive and without wide exposure; the latter prompting too many logistical doubts for those outside the UK.

Now, however, it seems that the game is afoot! We have, in short succession, been presented with two very viable alternatives:

• Apple’s iPad – not a dedicated reader device, and perhaps without the readability of the e-ink devices; but versatile and aided by the iBookstore, bringing the ease of use of iTunes to eBooks. As with all things Apple, they have a way of making folk want it, and have sold millions already – so a definitely a lot of promise!

• The imminent arrival of the Kindle store in the UK, with UK pricing – an the accompanying announcement of the latest Kindle device, at an impressive price of £109 (for the wifi-only version). Having said that, contrary to Apple, Amazon seem more focused on selling eBooks themselves, allowing you to read Kindle editions on your Mac or PC, iPhone or iPad, as well as, of course, the Kindle.

Our eBooks are already available on amazon.com’s Kindle store, and (very nearly) on the iBookstore… given the renewed impetus, I’m off to make some more :) We started with a selection of our general interest books (including the very popular Letting Go, by Robert Lindsay), but next up are some of our bestselling business books. Please let us know in the comments if there are any particular titles that you’d like to see as eBooks!

Books on Film Studios

The recent publication of the splendidly entitled book, ‘The Men Who Would be King: an Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies and a Company Called Dreamworks’ by Nicole Laporte gives us a story, according to one review, of “unbridled egotism, vengefulness and bad behaviour” starring Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. It is about the rise and demise of a film studio.

It reminds me what a terrific book, Michael Kuhn’s ‘One Hundred Films and a Funeral’ is. This brilliantly tells the story of the attempt by an Englishman to set up a studio in LA and how, but for the sale of Polygram to a competitor, it would probably still be with us. Along the way, of course, some great films got made, including the one alluded to in the title of the book (‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, doh!).

It is a book which not only deserves to be compulsory reading for all media students and on the reading lists for all film courses, but for all those interested in the film world or the running of a creative business, as it provides a fascinating account of trying to break into the closed shop of Hollywood, battling with international distribution, taking on new media and outlets and trying to make worthwhile films in the process.

The author, Michael Kuhn (a quiet legend in the film world) knows all about the tangled legal and financial aspects of the film world too and this makes his book a real insider’s story. Good though the Dreamworks book is, it was written without any direct input of the main protagonists. Not so ‘One Hundred Films and a Funeral”, it was written by the man who had been there and done it, a gifted businessman who had a vision and managed to realise it against huge odds, only to have it snatched away.

The Scilly Season

You don’t have to be going to the Scilly Isles this summer to read Mike Williams. His books, Secret Channel and Channel of Invasion, are set on those magical islands at the time of the Second World War, when secret operations were carried out from them.

These are exciting stories of dangerous raids and missions and the action takes place in the English Channel and in Northern France as well as on the Scilly base. The key to the success of the novels, besides the story-telling element, is the characterisation and understanding of people and how they interact and behave. The author revels in his portrayal of the passion and intrigue, of the people and places as well as of the dark and sinister and the cowardly and courageous.

We, the publishers, know Mike Williams as a thinker, lecturer and writer on leadership. This gives extra depth to his exploration of character, but it’s his military background (he was in the Special Boat Squadron and Naval Intelligence for a time) that gives his work grit and authenticity.

I believe in Tremayne (the hero), he has created a classic and enduring fictional persona and his development as a character and leader is fascinating to see unfold. In Commander Enever, he has given us the type of leader (or boss) we would have liked to nurture us. There are plenty of other inspirational characters in the books as well as the ones you love to hate who make our lives hell from time to time.

The two books published so far are the first two in our planned Channel Trilogy. Watch out next year for Mike’s Channel to Freedom, which will complete the series.
(Oh and by the way, reading the books will give you a longing to go to the Scillies or to go back there, if you have been already).

Jerry Coe

Thorogood on the telly – Robert Lindsay!

Robert Lindsay is a guest author on The TV Book Club to be shown on Sunday 11th July 2010 on More4 at 7.30pm and on Monday 12th July 2010 on Channel 4 at 12.05pm. So try to catch it as it happens, or set the Sky+ immediately.

It is really significant that his autobiography Letting Go has been selected for this show (which grew out of the original Richard and Judy Book Club) as Amanda Ross is the person behind both and she has high standards. She has been described as the ‘most influential person in British publishing’.

There is intense competition to feature a book on the show and, besides their own researchers seeking out new titles, many many hundreds of books are submitted by anxious publishers. From thousands then, Letting Go has made it. And, before you ask, they approached us, which believe me, is an even better feeling than making a successful approach to them. The book’s selection is a real endorsement, a feather in Robert’s cap and, hopefully, a structural support in Thorogood’s fascinator.

The quality throughout the range of Thorogood list is becoming more and more widely recognised. Onward!

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