EDITORIAL
(from February 03 issue)
London Book Fair upon us
As I talk to publishers it is obvious that the
London Book Fair has already started to dominate most people’s
agenda. Which reminds me, LBF has asked us to point out that
the early booking discount deadline for ePubLondon is imminent.
In this issue we include more pages of news than ever with Chrysalis
announcing new distribution arrangements and the re-structuring
of this fast-growing company within the space of a week.
Here at Book People we are getting used to these larger issues
and they are becoming easier to fill as every month goes by.
With regard to editorial we are currently on the look out for
some more regular contributors. If you think you have something
to offer Book People, I would be pleased to hear from you.
Paul Thorne
Audited
circulation for 6 months to 31st December 2001. Average circulation
per issue of 5,370.
Book
People is published by Chappell Thorne
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Sub
Editor: Paula Arkell
Production: Liz Bingold
Advertising Sales: Jenny Kearl
© 2003 by Chappell Thorne. All rights reserved. No part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
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HARPERCOLLINS
WINS CHRYSALIS DISTRIBUTION
HarperCollins
Supply Chain wins the contract to provide full third party distribution
services on behalf of Chrysalis Books.
Andrew Love (l), HarperCollins Supply Chain director with
Richard Samson, head of sales and marketing at Chrysalis
Chrysalis Books chairman John Needleman says: “We are
pleased to be joining forces with such a prestigious publishing
and distribution group, a move which can only enhance our position
in the UK book trade. Macmillan, Integer and Littlehampton have
provided Chrysalis Books with an excellent service during a
period of rapid expansion. However, the current size of Chrysalis
Books calls for an integrated approach with all the imprints
housed under one roof, a service that HarperCollins is ideally
placed to provide. We look forward to working with HarperCollins
for many years to come.”
HarperCollins supply chain director, Andrew Love, says: “This
agreement enables two key publishing houses to enjoy the synergy
of combined logistics to the marketplace and further recognises
our continued commitment to deliver a customer-focused supply
chain solution for the book trade.”
Chrysalis Books is one of the UK’s leading independent
publishing companies, and the fastest growing. Its adult imprints
include the acclaimed illustrated imprints Pavilion, Collins
& Brown, B T Batsford, Salamander, and the newly launched
Chrysalis Impact; literary celebrity publisher Robson Books;
science fiction and fantasy titles from Paper Tiger; the mind,
body and spirit imprint Vega; and the world’s leading
publisher of authoritative military, maritime, naval and aviation
titles under the imprints of Brassey’s, Conway Maritime
Press and Putnam Aeronautical Books. Chrysalis Children’s
Books includes the educational imprint for schools and libraries
Belitha Press; picture and pop-up titles from David Bennett
Books; an interactive range of Big Fish books; and the prestigious
Pavilion Children’s Books.
Chrysalis Book ceased to be distributed by Macmillan Distribution
Ltd and Integer on December 31st 2002, and such will be the
case by Littlehampton Book Services on 31st August 2003. Further
announcements concerning arrangements for returns, etc. will
be made in due course.
The contract to distribute 10m books a year is worth £1m
and will run for a period of three and a half years. It will
contribute greatly toward the growth of the 500 staff HarperCollins
distribution centre at Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, which currently
handles around 76m books a year, sending them to more than 50
countries.
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VARIETY
OF BIDDERS FOR BERTELSMANN'S SCIENCE AND BUSINESS
German media group Bertelsmann has received 14 offers
for its science and business publishing arm, BertelsmannSpringer.
The bidders include other publishers as well as financial investors,
the spokesman said. He declined to name the bidders or the price
of the offers. About half of the interested parties would be
selected for the next round of the bidding process, in which
they would receive more detailed financial material, he added:
"We have received 14 offers."
Sources told Reuters last week the bidding line-up includes
other business publishing peers including Canada's Thomson,
Anglo-Dutch Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer. However, regulatory
issues could force strategic buyers to settle for only part
of the business, and possibly team up with a private equity
investor.
Groups of financial buyers include London-based Candover Partners
and Cinven, which are preparing a joint bid and aim to merge
the business with Kluwer Academic Publishing, purchased from
Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer NV in October for b600m. European
private equity firm Apax Partners is bidding with UK publisher
Taylor & Francis, while US firms Texas Pacific Group and
Soros Private Equity Partners are also preparing to indicate
their interest, according to sources.
Bertelsmann, which is looking to raise some b1 billion from
the disposal, could still abandon the sale if final bids fall
short of that target.
BertelsmannSpringer posted core earnings of b26m on sales of
b359m in the first six months of 2002. It is one of Bertelsmann's
more profitable divisions, but is dwarfed by its larger peers
such as Thomson or Wolters Kluwer on a market that is still
not fully consolidated.
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OUP
GO WITH INGENTA TO BUILD WEBSITE
Scholarly publisher to provide online subscription-based
access to its books collection.
Ingenta, the first choice for academic and professional publishers
looking for online solutions, has been appointed to build a
scholarly books website on behalf of Oxford University Press.
The website will offer the best scholarship in the humanities
and social sciences and will be online and cross-searchable
towards the end of 2003. www.oxfordscholarship.com. The site
will feature:
m 750 current and selected backlist titles available in full
text at launch, equivalent to 250,000 printed pages.
• Comprehensive coverage of four key disciplines:
- Economics and Finance;
- Political Science;
- Philosophy;
- Religion and Theology.
• Value-added material such as specially commissioned
keywords, as well as book and chapter abstracts written by original
author wherever possible.
• Regular updates with important new and recently published
books.
• Navigable and fully searchable abstracts that will be
part of a global body of online academic resources, accessible
from a variety of research sites.
Access to all of the abstracts and keywords in Oxford Scholarship
Online will be freely available alongside journal abstracts
through a wide variety of services, including ingenta.com, offering
exciting new research opportunities for scholars and students
in the humanities and social sciences.
Kate Jury, project director for OSO and marketing director for
the Academic and Professional Book Publishing group at OUP said:
“Oxford Scholarship Online will make OUP’s scholarly
books publishing program available to users directly at their
desktops. It will be fully searchable and will integrate with,
and link to, other online resources, such as journals."
Mark Rowse, chief executive, Ingenta, said: “For the first
time, a major scholarly books publisher will be providing online
subscription-based access to its collection — both for
selected backlist and new titles — in a series of subject-focused
collections.”
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KARIN
SLAUGHTER SECURES RANDOM HOUSE DEAL
Kate Elton, associate publishing director at Century,
has secured a new contract with thriller writer Karin Slaughter.
Slaughter's first book, Blindsighted, was published in September
2002 to widespread critical acclaim, and was seen as the biggest
launch in crime thrillers since Random House's own Kathy Reichs.
photo by Jerry Bauer
Elton acquired Indelible and Faithless, the fourth and fifth
books in the Grant County Series, for a high six-figure sum
from Victoria Sanders and her foreign rights agent, Chandler
Crawford.
Slaughter's second book is published next month and she will
be visiting the UK for publication. September 2003 will see
the publication of her third book, A Faint Cold Fear, along
with the Arrow paperback of Kisscut.
Kate Elton says: “I'm thrilled to have signed up Indelible
and Faithless. When I first met Karin nearly two years ago,
she told me she plotted out the first five books in the Grant
County series before she even started writing Blindsighted,
and told me a little about them. Blindsighted was a fantastic
debut, but Slaughter just gets better and better.”
Michael Connolly on Karin Slaughter: “With Blindsighted,
Karin Slaughter left many thriller writers looking anxiously
over their shoulders. With Kisscut, she leaves most of them
behind.”
Contact Charlotte Bush on 0207 840 8613. E-mail cbush@randomhouse.co.uk
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PIRA
- CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
A
One Day Pira International Seminar For Publishers taking place
on Tuesday 11th March, featuring case study contributions from:
# Cambridge University Press; John Wiley & Sons; Nature
Publishing; Palgrave Macmillan; Pira International; Taylor &
Francis Books.
Topics
covered:
• Successfully outputting for print, web and new media
platforms
• Working with XML
• Indexing and storing data and content management
• Automating cross media workflows
• New production technologies
• Trouble shooting workshop
About The Seminar
Publishing in new media beyond the boundaries of conventional
print is providing publishers with a prime avenue for improving
competitive edge by cutting costs whilst increasing market exposure.
However, getting the most from diversification across different
media requires well considered planning and investment to ensure
that this is achieved with minimum input of cost and resources
whilst maintaining maximum returns.
This seminar, comprising case studies and workshop, will explore
in detail the issues involved in setting up an effective cross
media workflow to help you ensure that you are exploiting your
content efficiently.
The benefits of “create once, output many” will
be investigated along with ways of integrating this methodology
into the workflow to ensure data is created and stored in a
format easy to repurpose for different output media.
Working with XML will be discussed, highlighting such issues
as adapting your workflow to get the best from XML, encouraging
authors to write in it and training production staff to work
with it. Content management systems will also be examined through
a practical case study from a publisher on its implementation.
Why Attend?
Keeping abreast of all new developments in such a fast moving
area as cross media production is essential to staying ahead
of the competition. Attending this seminar will give you insights
into the key issues concerning publishers in cross media and
will showcase how globally recognised publishers are solving
the implementation difficulties associated with outputting to
several media.
Practical case studies from leading companies from all sectors
of the publishing industry will provide you with a broad perspective
on the hottest topics in cross media publishing this year along
with insights into the trends of the future.The knowledge you
will gain from the presentations and the practical workshop
at this event will in turn be invaluable when making your production
quicker, more efficient and cost effective.
Who Should Attend?
This seminar has been tailored to the needs of publishers throughout
all sectors of the industry, in STM, academic publishing, newspapers,
magazines, journals, books and more. The content is aimed particularly
towards: Production Technology Managers, Production Managers,
Publishing Directors, Content Managers, Systems Managers,Advertising
Production, IT Managers and editorial production staff.
The Organiser
Pira International is a leading supplier of strategic and technical
consultancy with major publishing and seminar activities. Pira
provide innovative business solutions to companies in the publishing
and new media, printing, packaging and paper & board industries.
Our high profile international events regularly attract senior
level delegates from leading companies around the globe to discuss
and learn about new technologies and best business practice.
Venue
Pira International, Randalls Road,Leatherhead, Surrey, UK.
For more information please e-mail: lyndsayr@pira.co.uk
telephone : +44 (0)1372 802166 or see the website where you
can also make on-line booking: www.piranet.com
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BOOK
FAIR NEWS
A brief update on some of this year's
LBF events at Olympia, London March 16th - 18th
The
electronic publishing event of the year
ePub London is the largest and most important e-publishing event
of the calendar. In last month's issue, Tony Feldman covered
the format of the event and the themes to be addressed.
The following is a brief update of the themes and the list of
key speakers:
• Key Markets in Publishing – e-learning; business
and academic publishing; B2B markets.
• Putting the E in Publishing Processes – content
management; digital rights management; e-marketing.
• Supply Chain Impacts – overview of current impacts
on supply chain dynamics; future of online bookselling; getting
content into the pipeline; evolving relationship between publishers,
author and agents.
• Future Landscape – impact of e-commerce on publishing;
e-publishing on mobiles; the 21st century net
Key speakers include: Tony Feldman (Tony Feldman Associates),
Christopher Woodhead (Ingenta), Christy Lally (business development
manager, Oracle, EMEA), Kate Worlock (director, Electronic Publishing
Services Ltd), Ken Brok (junior president, Publishing Dimensions),
Helen Bailey (production director, John Wiley), Jonathan Glasspool
(product director of Electronic Media, Bloomsbury), Adrian Laing
(AMS) and Barry Flynn (director, Media and IT Services)
Check out the website, www.lbf-virtual.com for details of the
early booking discount. Time is running out.
Zoning
in on specialist interests
Due to popular demand, three new areas of "specialist interest"
have been added to the 2003 London Book Fair.
The new zones, which will help raise the profile of the sector
they represent, are Art, Architecture and Design; Travel and
Maps; and Christian publishing. They will be set up alongside
the established zones of Children’s, Academic STM, Remainder
and Promotional Books, Publishing Solutions and Retailing Solutions.
Stephen Briars of STL Marketing, will be exhibiting in the Christian
zone, and Kevin Mayhew and Scripture Union Publishing are among
those who will also have stands. Representation from publishers
of books relating to other religions are also encouraged at
LBF.
Several companies new to the fair will be exhibiting in the
Art, Architecture and Design zone, including the Colophon and
Scala Group, Links International and Atrium International. There
will be expanded presence from German publishers Te Neues. Cornerhouse,
Tate Publishing, Art Data, Natural Trust and Powerhouse are
among those also returning and who will be represented in this
zone.
Geonext will be present at the event for the first time, and
will be among those in the newly-formed Travel and Maps zone.
Portfolio has increased the size of its stand, and will be joined
in the zone by established LBF exhibitors Thomas Cook, Footprint,
GeoCenter, Insight Guides, Berlitz, AA Publishing, Lonely Planet,
Time Out, Netmaps and Weldon Owen.
London Book Fair director Alistair Burtenshaw said: “Responding
to the specific needs of individual groups is very important
to us and we believe that these three new zones should create
a real buzz at the 2003 Fair and more business for the exhibitors.”
New
Masterclass Series
London Book Fair announces a new consumer event for 2003. Sponsored
by the Daily Mail and organised in association with English
PEN, the three Masterclasses will take place on Sunday March
16th at the Olympia 2 Conference Centre, and will be open to
members of the public.
Featuring top name authors and writers, the Masterclasses will
focus on three core areas: Children’s Fiction, Biography/Autobiography,
and TV and Film Scriptwriting.
Each session will last for 2hrs 15 mins and will be chaired
by a leading broadcaster. The first Masterclass will cover Children’s
Fiction and feature the Children’s Laureate, Anne Fine
and best-selling author of the Dilly the Dinosaur series Tony
Bradman. The session will be chaired by Francine Stock, author,
and co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.
The Biography/Autobiography Masterclass will follow with guest
speakers, Blake Morrison, bestselling author of Things my Mother
Never Told Me, and Victoria Glendinning, award-winning biographer
of Trollope, Jonathan Swift and Edith Sitwell.
Concluding the day will be a TV and Film Scriptwriting Masterclass
featuring the best-selling author and award-winning scriptwriter,
Debbie Moggach and BAFTA Award winning screenwriter, Andrew
Davies.
Alistair Burtenshaw, exhibition director of the London Book
Fair says, “The Masterclasses offer a wonderful opportunity
for London Book Fair, the Daily Mail and English PEN to come
together to provide an excellent series of specialist, interactive,
working sessions from the acknowledged masters in their fields.
It is our hope that the Masterclasses will provide a great way
for those interested in writing to get professional advice in
a complimentery setting to London Book Fair’s business
forum”
Jane Mays, literary editor of the Daily Mail says of the event,
“The Daily Mail is delighted to be associated with the
London Book Fair Masterclasses for aspiring biographers, childrens’
authors and screenwriters.”
Diana Reich of English PEN added “The London Book Fair
is all about writing. What better way to celebrate this than
for PEN, the only international writers association, to showcase
its talent by means of Masterclasses in creative writing open
to all book lovers.”
The cost of each Masterclass is £35 (includes a donation
to English PEN).
For more information visit www.lbf-virtual.com
PLUS
NEWS FROM BOOK EXPO AMERICA:
Editors
announced for Buzz forum at BEA
Industry leaders Mehta and Mayhew to address booksellers.
The panelists for this year’s Editor and Bookseller Buzz
Forum at BookExpo America (BEA), which will be held at the Los
Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, May 29 to June 1,
2003, have been selected. Leading industry editors and publishers
pitch their key titles to booksellers, book reviewers, and other
industry professionals at the forum, which has become a focal
point for BEA conference activity when it was launched at last
year’s BEA in New York City.
The panelists this year include: Sonny Mehta (president and
publisher, Alfred A. Knopf); Starling Lawrence (vice-chairman
and editor-in-chief, WW Norton & Co.); Susan Kamil (vice-president,
editorial director, Dial Press); Alice Mayhew (vice-president,
editorial director, Simon & Schuster); Claire Wachtel (executive
editor, William Morrow & Co.); and Julie Grau (vice-president,
co-editorial director, Riverhead Books).
“We are enormously pleased to see the calibre of people
participating in this year’s Buzz Forum,” notes
Greg Topalian, industry vice-president and show manager for
BEA. “The convention has a long history of being a place
where major titles are launched, and so it was with this tradition
in mind that we created this venue. The Buzz Forum is the perfect
place to hear and see what publishing executives think will
be the most important and significant books on their respective
lists.”
Last year, at the first Buzz Forum, a standing-room-only crowd
gathered to hear editors discuss their feeling and passion for
upcoming titles, several of which went on to become bestsellers
later in the year. Among the books presented were Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides; Take On the Street: What Wall Street and
Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know, by Arthur Levitt;
You Are Not A Stranger Here by Adam Haslett, and My Losing Season
by Pat Conroy. Editors who participated included Nan Talese
(Nan A. Talese Books), Erroll McDonald (Pantheon), Jonathan
Galassi (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Morgan Entrekin (Grove
Atlantic), Leigh Haber (Hyperion), Geoff Shandler (Little Brown
& Co.), and Jennifer Barth (Henry Holt & Co.).
In conjunction with this year’s Buzz Forum, BEA convention
officials note that there will be several separate editorial
Buzz workshops, dedicated to specific areas of interest. These
will include a Children’s Book Buzz Workshop, African
American Book Buzz Workshop, and a Spanish / Latin American
Book Buzz Workshop.
For more information concerning BookExpo America and registration
for the above events, please call +44 (0) 800/840-5614 or 203/840-5614
(International) or visit the BEA website at www.bookexpoamerica.com
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ROUNDTRIP
1.0 SHIPS FOR MAC AND WINDOWS
Single-source XML publishing is
practical for the first time in QuarkXPress.
Easypress Technologies' Atomik Roundtrip 1.0 enables QuarkXPress
to be fully included in an XML workflow. Roundtrip 1.0 is the
only tool to bring full, bi-directional XML support to QuarkXPress.
By preserving XML structure throughout the pagination process,
Roundtrip redresses the balance between structure and creativity,
taking the design flexibility of QuarkXPress and combining it
with the benefits of an XML pagination tool. This product is
expected to transform print-publishing, enabling a single source
of XML content to be used for both print and web.
Prominent publishers worldwide have been involved in the development
and beta-testing programme for Roundtrip. These include Nature
Publishing Group; Harvard Business School Publishing; Nelson
Thornes; and Holt Rinehart and Winston.
Heather Rankin, project manager at Nature Publishing Group,
says: "By providing seamless conversion from XML to QuarkXPress
and back again, Roundtrip promises to fill a critical gap in
our current production workflows. We have always had to keep
our print and web content separate: now, they are united."
Similarly, Nelson Thornes, a leading educational book publisher
and part of the Wolters Kluwer Group, has looked for a solution
that enables it to move to an XML workflow based on the DocBook
standard (www.oasis-open.org), but which still has full integration
of print-publishing. This has not been possible until now, and
as an Atomik Roundtrip early adopter, the company sees the potential
workflow benefits.
The ability to reuse educational content online and in other
digital media is critical," said Paul Farnworth, publishing
technology manager at Nelson Thornes.
"To do this efficiently, we are moving to a content-centric
workflow where XML is created at source. Atomik Roundtrip is
the only software available that enables full XML support for
QuarkXPress and will bring significant efficiencies to our production
process," he added.
Through XML, QuarkXPress can now be tightly integrated with
content management systems, most of which have XML at their
core. One of the leading companies in this field is Documentum,
which have been working with Easypress Technologies to provide
enhanced print-publishing support in their systems by XML-enabling
QuarkXPress with Atomik Roundtrip.
"Atomik Roundtrip represents a huge step forward for cross-media
publishing," said Mark Arbour, director of products and
marketing for Documentum's Digital Asset Management business
unit. "Documentum's native XML support combined with Easypress
Technologies' XML-enablement of QuarkXPress enhances our ability
to provide customers with an enterprise content management solution
for cross-media and collaborative publishing, eliminating the
challenges typically associated with publishing content to print
and the web."
Content management system integrators have also struggled to
provide this crucial link between print and web publishing.
"Companies have invested heavily in content management
systems that previously were unable to deliver content to print,"
said Joseph Bachana, chief executive officer of DPCI, a professional
services company based in the US. "Atomik Roundtrip adds
value to any CMS on the market by building QuarkXPress files
directly from valid or well-formed XML. Nothing on the market
comes remotely close."
Fully functional demonstration versions and full documentation
for Atomik Roundtrip Mac and Windows are available for download
from www.easypress.com. The only restriction in the demonstration
version is that some of the XML content will be reversed when
imported into QuarkXPress. Otherwise, users can fully evaluate
the product with their own XML files and QuarkXPress pages.
Atomik Roundtrip enables you to place XML at the heart of your
workflow. By providing full bi-directional XML support for QuarkXPress
and preserving XML structures within QuarkXPress documents,
Atomik Roundtrip delivers true integration for cross-media publishing.
Atomik Roundtrip enables users to import XML into QuarkXPress
and faithfully re-export it. With a single click, users can
update the QuarkXPress document if the source XML file(s) change
and update the source XML file(s) if the QuarkXPress document
changes. This ensures consistency across all media, efficient
reuse of content and rapid updates of timely information.
For further information or to arrange a personal web demo
of Atomik Roundtrip, contact Gavin Drake of Easypress Technologies.
Tel: +44 (0)20 7704 0285 or e-mail at gavin.drake@easypress.com
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