A rather excellent video featuring Jamie Byng, who’ll be appearing at Mountains To Sea in Dun Laoghaire in September

Upwardly mobile | moving in and what not
And he discusses new digs!
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Book Launch: Renegades: Irish Republican Women 1900-1922
Ann was on Pat Kenny yesterday, interesting book this one.
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Moving on
This really should be read, considered, parsed, filed and re-visited by publishers across the globe. It’s message, however unpalatable, is a vital one!
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Gollancz appoints Nash as digital publisher
On a very selfish level I admire Gollancz as a publisher, if only because they publish some of the finest sci-fi and fantasy.
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Miriam O’Callaghan and Mercier Press title
And why wouldn’t they? (I commissioned Moxie while working at Mercier Press)
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Sell, Socialise and Survive at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Good advice on Frankfurt. IPN will be there so don’t be afraid to send us your stories and releases!
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Edinburgh
Nice note on Edinburgh from Laura!
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Waterstone’s to open bar and restaurants
I think this makes sense, but don’t quote me on it!
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Samsung launches e-reader with W H Smith
When will the ebook and ereading bug bite home here? 
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PW Select: A Quarterly Service for Self-Published Authors to Launch in December
Publishers Weekly will launch a quarterly magazine in December focusing on announcements and reviews of self-published titles. However, listed self-published titles will come at a fee of $149 to the author and reviews will only be on selected titles.
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Publicity for Mercier Press titles
Three of Mercier Press titles were reviewed in national papers at the weekend.
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Reivew: Rules for a Perfect Life by Niamh Greene
IN Rules for a Perfect Life, each of the 27 chapters, like those in some self-help manuals, is headed by a maxim, which will, if followed, apparently change your life for the better.
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Tales of the Burren, and other places
A nice list of new local history titles
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Ireland’s desperadoes of the veld
Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern Africa, 1880-1899, By Charles van Onselen
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Book Club: Tenderwire by Claire Kilroy
An interesting move this!
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Review: Jumping in Puddles by Claire Allan
The Balamory lookalike seaside village of Rathinch may look postcard-perfect to summer visitors. But for locals who live there all year, it is a place of squinting windows, a hotbed of righteous gossip.
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Ireland’s largest bookseller, Eason & Son, lost €10.09 million in the year ending January 31 2010.

The company also experienced a fall in total turnover for all its businesses (including joint ventures and discontinued operations) from €375,355,000 to €313,636,000 or 16.4%.

However the company succeeded in reducing costs in both distribution and administration and had positive cash flow resulting in a €9.5 million cash balance for the year ending 31 January 2010.

At the operating level the company made a small profit of €786,000 and if the loss on discontinued operations is excluded, the firm had an operating profit of €2.3 million on continuing operations.

Although there were exceptional charges in 2009 of €1.65 million associated with the disposal of The British Bookshops Stationers plc, these were considerably lower than the €18.7 million in exceptional charges for 2008.

Among the other details that emerged from their year end accounts is the fact that the deficit of €12.8 million in the pension fund was eliminated by the 2009 rally in stock markets and the fund is now in a modest surplus position of €165,000.

The company also reduced the value of their property assets by €37 million which was the major factor in the value of the assest on the company’s balance sheet falling by 17% to just over €121 million.

Ireland’s largest publisher, Gill & Macmillan, has launched a new website.

The site has improved both the e-commerce abilities and the display options for books.

The e-commerce element is powered by technology firm Cormz‘s product Affino.

Book distributor CMD Booksource is closing its Irish operations effective 30 September.

The company says that ‘the economic situation was such that … [it] … was not possible’ to operate the business in Ireland profitably.

Speaking about the news, Publishing Ireland President Jean Harrington said that she was terribly saddened and that the focus of Publishing Ireland would be working with their ‘affected members to help and support them in finding alternate distribution.’ She also said that it provided an example of how important it was for government to implement ‘polices to help businesses do business.’

Client publishers including Mercier Press, Columba Press, Liberties Press, UCD Press and The Stinging Fly Press will now need to seek alternative distribution from 1 October 2010.

Although the company will stop shipping and distributing books on 30 September, CMD Booksource says it will still ‘collect cash from customers and chase payment of outstanding debt, which will be paid to client publishers in the usual manner.’ This should mean that no client publisher incurs a loss because of the closure.

CMD Booksource was formed in April 2009 when Scottish-based Booksource, which is 90% owned by Publishing Scotland, took over Columba Mercier Distribution a joint venture between Columba Press and Mercier Press.

The Scottish operations will be unaffected.

A spokesperson for the company said that ‘CMD BookSource was set up as a completely separate company to BookSource, therefore [there] will be no impact on BookSource. Luckily for BookSource the downturn in the UK hasn’t been nearly as severe as that in Ireland.’

The Bookseller reports that 20% of the books in WH Smits’ new terminal two stores will be Irish.

The company has also hired Alison Scanlon as a dedicated Irish buyer.

THe Bookseller also features a quote from Dermot O’Dwyer, m.d. of Gill & Macmillan:

“The market is different to the UK and there’s generally more interest in Irish books. Easons is a dominant player so the arrival of someone else is a good thing providing the economy’s recovery continues.”

Walsh Colour Print the Kerry-based printer has started an educational imprint. The company has started trading under the imprint Educate.ie.

Educate.ie launched with six text books and will debut an exam papers series in August.

The series features ‘detailed analysis of the examination papers and helpful hints’ and will be written by ‘teachers with concrete experience in preparing students for exams’.

Educate.ie will compete with established educational publishers Gill & Macmillan (who earlier this year acquired Carroll Education’s Primary list), Folens and CJ Fallon.

The 2009 Publishing Ireland Survey indicated that respondents in the educational book sector had revenues of €54.12 million in 2008.

Joseph O’Connor is still going strong with Ghost Light, I wonder how much longer he can keep that up. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Jod Picoult’s Picture Perfect round out the top three. Only one other Irish writer makes the Top Ten, Maeve Binchy.

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,977
2: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,788
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,690
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,597
5: Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Meyer, Stephenie, 1,430
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,347
7: The Return Journey, Binchy, Maeve, 1,281
8: Play Dead, Harlan Coben, 1,271
9: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,781
10: The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker, 1,190

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 3rd July 2010

Following Simon Fox, CEO of HMV’s, call for Waterstone’s stores to become more locally focused, Cork University Press has created a local title promotion for Waterstone’s Cork store.

The promotion features 15 titles and the Press has been assigned an island in the irish interest section and a face out shelf at the front of the shop and involves discounts for Cork University Press titles.

The experiment will run through the next two months and will be reassessed at the end of the summer.

The promotion was announced on the blog Cork University Press’ publisher, Mike Collins.

The full list of titles:
9781859183809 Atlas of Cork City
9780955226113 Jack’s World
9781855942141 Truly Tasty
9780953535385 Cool Waters, Emerald Seas
9780955226151 The Last Days of the Cork Docklands
9781859184394 The Natural History of Ireland
9780953535309 Cafe Paradiso Cookbook
9781859184110 Blarney Castle
9781859184622 Aloys Fleischmann
9780955226144 Cornucopia at Home
9780953535316 Fish Stone Water
9781859184301 The Iveragh Peninsula
9781855942110 Sisters
9781859183922 History and the Public Sphere
9781859184547 Out of the Earth

Day jobs and writers (4)
I think this is a great series, one to read!
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Luke Johnson Agrees With Me
Some Thoughts On bookshops that somepeople didn’t like!
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Amazon Start Taking Pre-orders on New Kindle DX
A fancy new Kindle DX
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Salmon Poetry presents the Galway Launch of ‘Where’s Katie?’ by Elaine Feeney & ‘Invitation to a Sacrifice’ by Dave Lordan
Salmon Poetry invites you to celebrate the publication of two new collections of poetry
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Darren Shan Q&A
Nice Q&A with Darren Shan
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Old stories prove new hits as Binchy takes top spot
Maeve is doing well in the UK as well as in Ireland!
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The IMPAC Dublin Literary Award win for Gerbrand Bakker‘s The Twin has catapulted the book into the Irish top ten this week with just under 1,500 units sold in the week ending 26th June 2010.

According to Nielsen Bookscan, the organisation that collectes data on book sales in Ireland, sales for the year to date now stand at 3,142 units and have generated €27.276.72 at the till, giving an average selling price of €8.68.

The news provides evidence of IMPAC’s success in promoting the sale of books and comes on the back of several significant media appearances by Bakker following the win.

Bakker beat off competition from seven other writers, including Irish author Joseph O’Neill, to win the award.