Another busy fortnight for Irish Publishing News. We crossed the 100 article point mid-week.

Please keep us up to date with news and events so that we can post them on Mondays and Thursday.

Editor

Amazon and Macmillan have reached an agreement over ebook pricing. The buy buttons which Amazon had removed as part of a dispute concerning new pricing arrangements have been re-instituted for all Macmillan titles.

The dispute arose when Macmillan CEO John Sargeant informed Amazon late January that he was proposing a new model for selling ebooks through Amazon. This new model would change the way that books were priced as well as shifting to an “agency” basis whereby Amazon instead of receiving a discount and selling the book at a price of their choosing, would sell books at a price set by the Publisher and receive a commission of 30% on that price.

The “Agency Model” emerged as a point of discussion during discussions between industry players and Apple in the run up to the lauch of Apple’s iPad on 26 January 2010.

RESOURCE READING
~ The Financial Times carries a piececovering the issues in the dispute today that is worth reading.

~ Macmillan placed a statement on US industry website Publishers Marketplace explaining their actions:

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.

~ Amazon’s response is freely available too:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.

Although he was the strong running favourite, Colm Toibin's Brooklyn has missed out on winning the 2009 Costa book of the Year.

Poet Christopher Reid was the winner, his victory was announced at a dinner on Tuesday 26th February. His book, A Scattering, was described as highly praised by the Costa Judges.

You can read more here:

The Costa site
The Irish Times
The Guardian

A comment in response to my column in The Bookseller today caught my eye:

There is another strand to the issues facing Irish publishing, though, in that aside from fiction, Ireland, and I am troubled by saying this but believe it is true, behaves provinicially. There is a lack of books published by Irish publishers that stand alone on the international market, books that are not specifically related to Ireland. Obviously the Irish market is important, but in the wider scheme, it is small. Bookshops do support Irish titles, but they are also filled with books by UK and US publishers that are not specifically related to the UK or US. It would be good to see an Irish published non-fiction book do as well as some of the fiction produced. There seems no reason why there should not be more ambition to this end, and a drive to look beyond Ireland’s own shores.

And got me thinking. I wanted to find out what people thought, so here, is a poll with a simple question and answer! Let us know what you think!

When you strip away the foreign based publishers and look at Publishers based in Ireland that is publishers whose books are listed at being published in Ireland on Nielsen the list of Ireland's Top ten Publishers is very interesting.

Company ~ Market Share

1) Gill & Macmillan Group ~ 14.5%
2) Edco- The Educational Company of Ireland ~ 10.5%
3) Penguin Ireland ~ 9.0%
4) Folens Publishers ~ 8.1%
5) C.J. Fallon ~ 5.3%
6) Poolbeg Press ~ 5.3%
7) Transworld Ireland ~ 4.9%
8) Hachette Ireland ~ 4.7%
9) O’Brien Press ~ 4.2%
10) Mercier Press ~ 2.6%

Nielsen released an analysis of the Irish Consumer Market for 2009 today. You can read the press release here on BookTrade.info:

Nielsen BookScan measured a total of €156.5m in value sales with a total of 14.6m units (volume) sold in the Irish Consumer Market down 5.4% in value but up 4.4% in volume year on year. Best selling titles include Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture which, sold 74,233 units pipping Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol to the post by just over 4,000 copies. Stephenie Meyer’s continued success is reflected in the Irish charts with titles from the Twilight series taking positions 3 and 4 followed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson.

Some not too surprising news is that Hachette Group (including Hodder Grp, Headline Grp, Little Brown, Hachette Ireland, Orion and Octopus) is the biggest publisher in Ireland, followed by Random House (including Transworld, Transworld Ireland) and then Penguin (including Penguin Ireland, DK & Rough Guides).

Interestingly, Fiction and Non-Fiction sales were down, though Current Affairs was up a phenomenal 210% (driven according to the release by Fintan O’Toole, Shane Ross and their peers) and Sports did well. As it has for the last number of years, children’s books did well:

Children’s book sales have had a remarkable year due to the buoyant effect of Stephenie Meyer. Value sales have shown an increase of 6.1% on 2008. It looks like J.K. Rowling’s popularity has been replaced by keen interest in anything by Stephenie Meyer.

photo credit: psd

On the face it might seem like a crazy suggestion that Penguin Ireland, less than a decade after being set up could possibly be the largest Irish-based trade publisher.

When you look at the headline figures for sales from the Irish Consumer Market as compiled by Nielsen Bookscan*, that seems to reinforce that impression. Gill & MacMillan, who are clearly the largest Irish-based publisher had 2009 sales figure of 284,827 units and €4,601,032.25 in value spread across 988 ISBNs. See the data in a google spreadsheet here.

Penguin Ireland had in comparison sales in 2009 of 208,467 units and € 2,858,771.43 spread across only 120 ISBNs. See the data in a google spreadsheet here.

Clearly Gill & MacMillan, as a publisher, is bigger. BUT that is for the whole market. If we wanted to see the figure for just trade sales we’d need to subtract the titles that fall outside the trade (which for Gill & MacMillan is a substantial chunk of their sales) the results are quite different.

As can be seen in the spreadsheet I have gone through each of the 988 G&M titles and assigned a T for Trade or E for Education to each one. Feel free to check the titles I’ve assigned to Trade and those I have assign to Education, where I was in doubt I checked the Gill & MacMillan website, but errors can happen in large data-sets like this. It would require a large error for the result to change markedly.

In any case, when you complete this task (You can see the calculations here) and sort for Trade, Gill & MacMillan had trade sales in 2009 of 179,559 units and €2,686,016.04. Penguin’s titles are all Trade books. That means that Penguin’s sales are 28,908 units and €172,755.39 larger than Gill & MacMillan’s trade business, making Penguin Ireland the largest Irish-based Trade Publisher.

~~~
Note: Nielsen Bookscan does not reflect sales of all books sold and depending on the title can reflect anything for 30-80%, the more commercial the title, the more likely it is to be recorded with accuracy.

Note: Irish-based may seem a strange way to analyse the Irish market, but considering the massive impact the UK based publishers have on the Irish market, I think it is a reasonable standard to use.

Mr Darcy, Vampyre

Having published our first children’s book just before Christmas, I had more reason than normal to look closely at what is being promoted for children through bookshops and equally what is best selling. I have to confess as I wandered through the bookshops that I guiltily pondered how easier it might be to get publicity and the attention of older children if our book only contained a vampire.

Now don’t get me wrong our book was based on the wonderful folk tales collected by Douglas Hyde over a hundred years ago and the pure joy I got from those stories was the driving reason we decided to publish. The book was also a storybook and our intention was never to aim for a teenage market but when you see the sales that Stephanie Meyer is driving through the charts and the publicity vampire books generate you think, well, what if? What if one of those original stories had contained a vampire wouldn’t it make a nice addition to your sales pitch.

Again we got great coverage and support for our title, helped by the very well received illustrations that Paul Bolger contributed to the book, but it got me thinking on a larger scale. What if I was trying to make a book appeal to teenagers how easier it would be if the book contained a minimum quota of one vampire. The more I thought about it the more logical it seemed. A classics list recently placed a sticker on its books saying ‘does not contain zombies’ but how effective would a sticker be that said ‘contains a minimum of one vampire.’

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is surely a struggle for the average teen living on a diet of love lorn teenage vampires. All a clever publisher need do is change Mrs. Havisham into a vampire. She, with curtains always drawn, is a prime candidate. With a little stretch we could have her die with a wooden stake through her heart, hardly acceptable in the original but a very valid end for a vampire. Sacrilege I hear you cry but the change required is so small, would we not be happy with teenagers reading 90% of the original text, to allow us get a sticker on the front saying ‘contains a minimum of one vampire.’

There are no end of books that could benefit from such a sticker, creating countless appeal for teenagers. Instead of shooting a rabid dog Atticus, in To Kill a Mockingbird, could hammer a stake through the heart of a marauding vampire and instead say ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man driving a stake through a marauding vampire’s heart. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.’ A whole new generation would open up to that key message, again only the slightest change is required.

Another great benefit would be that key works of literature would find themselves drifting to the front of bookshops. When the inevitable ‘vamp lit’ sections are put into action, beside their forerunner the ‘misery lit’ section, literature will find itself in a key position with their now readily recognisable vampire stickers.

Please feel free to post your suggestions of how to turn a serious work of fiction into a vampire book with only the slightest of change. I will send a free copy of Ancient Folk Tales of Ireland to the most original. The judge’s decision will be final and we accept no responsibility if any publisher is crazy enough to follow any of the suggestions above or any of those posted by you.

Colm Ennis is Publisher at Hawk Hill Publishing Limited and a former head of buying at Hughes & Hughes one of of Ireland’s largest booksellers.

Love Knot By Sheila O'Kelly

About the author

Sheila O’Kelly is the author of Love Knot which is available at Smashwords for your Sony or other e-reader; and on Amazon.com for your Kindle.

Well, that’s the theory. Unfortunately, by December Whispernet stopped working on my Kindle and I am due a replacement any day now. I delayed doing anything about it over Christmas because I had downloaded quite a few books anyway and was too busy to chase it up. Amazon’s customer service was extremely courteous and obliging, but quite confusing to use. I kept getting emails with different instructions from different people, but anyway a new Kindle is now on its way to me. I can keep the old one for 30 days before sending it back so meanwhile I can keep on reading.

Whispernet aside, I love the Kindle. I usually read several books at once and I really like having them all in one place. I still read paper books – I got some books for Christmas – but I now prefer reading on the Kindle.

I find it easier to hold the Kindle than a paper book and it is child’s play to change the font size. The layout is good and navigation is intuitive. There is a page-turn button on each side; and a back button that will bring you back to the previous item. There is also a previous-page button.

Overall, I love it even though there are many things that I would change about it. Would I buy another one if this one went missing – definitely.

Good points:

Easy to read – paper ink works very well and there is no noticeable eye strain.
Easy to turn pages.
Easy to download free sample chapter from Amazon.
Easy to buy books from Amazon.
Most books relatively cheap, about €7.
Easily fits in handbag.
Print size easy to change.
Great having a selection of books to choose from.
If someone else in your household has a Kindle, you can share your book library.

Bad points

Many Amazon books are not available to readers outside the US.
I found Whispernet internet connection to Amazon store was frequently unavailable and then failed altogether on my Kindle.
No cover supplied.
Shipped from US with US type plug – come on!
Cries out for touch-screen. It would make the space used by the keyboard at the bottom available for the reading screen.
Cannot lend books bought to other people unless they are one of your four nominated Kindle users.
Because there is no backlight you need the same type of light that you do for a paperbook. But a clip-on light works very well.
No free books available from Amazon outside the US.

photo credit: Jeroen Onstenk

Apple has invited a selected group of journalists to a 27 January event where they will launch at least one new product. According to Wired:

Apple has sent out press invitations for a product event to be held at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater.

The invitation reads, “Come see our latest creation.” The event is scheduled to begin 10 a.m., Jan. 27.

Rumour concerning the product they intend to launch has been rife. However, now that the event is confirmed, it seems foolish to ignore some of the more credible stories. The Wall Street Journal reports today that:

HarperCollins Publishers is negotiating with Apple Inc. to make electronic books available for the introduction of a new tablet device from Apple, according to people familiar with the situation, posing a challenge to Amazon.com Inc.

HarperCollins is expected to set the prices of the e-books, which would have added features, with Apple taking a percentage of sales. Details haven’t been ironed out.