London Book Fair: The Espresso Book Machine

Anyone for an Espresso? The Espresso Book Machine was drawing crowds at the London Book Fair. Who isn't tempted to have one's manuscript churned out in five minutes? Blackwell's unveiled one at its flagship Charing Cross store last week.

The books fly out of a slot on the side of the machine:


Here's a video U took with my mobile phone of the Espresso Book Machine at work:

Treasure from Manila: Pieces of Me

MANILA -- On the flight to Manila to visit my mother, I read Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (thanks to Daoud for lending it to me), and it was just as dazzling as one critic described it. A blurb from the Observer said:

“Mister Pip is the first of Jones’ six novels to have travelled from his native New Zealand to the UK. It is so hoped that it won’t be the last.”

Discovering that there are more novels by an author you've just fallen in love with is like winning the bonus question in a game show. How wonderful that Lloyd Jones has more treasure for me to uncover ... IF of course UK publishers deign to bring them over.

I went to Bologna last year to attend the SCBWI Conference that precedes the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I was stunned by the number of book stores, stuffed with books in Italian. Books I will never read unless I find a way to become proficient in the language.

Makes you think, what a disadvantage it is to have just one tongue and access to just one canon of publishing. All those books waiting to be read out there ...

I count myself lucky to have access to an ‘other’ world of books in my native Philippines –although bookselling sensibilities here definitely deserve the description ‘Developing’ in Developing World.

Charging around Manila visiting bookstores, I was at first disheartened by the thick wallpaper of Stephenie Meyer at shop entrances, the thicket of American titles in front and a puny selection of Filipino books hidden away in a corner. At several shops, I was escorted to the Filipino book section by staff who seemed bemused that anyone should be interested in local writing.

But at one book store, I was excited to find Filipino authors mixed in with Western authors, instead of hidden away in a dusty exotic corner. The display tables that other bookstores reserved for Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling were given over to picture books that starred water buffalos and monkeys instead of fluffy bunnies and red-breasted robins, there were Filipino thrillers and romance novels, and even children’s historical fiction. Bravo, Power Books.

Here is some of the treasure I’ve amassed from trawling the bookstores:

Tiger on the Wall by Annette Flores Garcia, illustrated by Joanne de Leon
The Very Good Carabao by Rosario Calma and illustrated by Liza Flores.

I must have read these books a hundred times to my three year old nephew. These are published by the pioneering children's book publisher Adarna Books (someday I hope to become one of their authors!).

The graphic novel scene in Manila is exciting, with ranks of local graphic novels on display everywhere. I picked Martial Law Babies by Arnold Arre - because I was a child during the Martial Law years in the Philippines.


I was so excited to find young fiction by Carla M. Pacis - a middle grade chapter book Owl Friends that described the friendship between two refugees of the Pinatubo volcanic eruption, a tribal boy and a little girl. Enrique El Negro imagines the story of a Filipino boy named Enrique who is recorded by Pigafetta to have travelled with Magellan as a translator before Magellan's death in the Philippines in 1521.

Owl Friends, Illustrations by Yasmin S. Ong
Enrique El Negro, Illustrations by Mel Silvestre

I also found this beautifully designed book about the use of fruits and vegetables in folk medicine - it will be a treasure trove of research for my novels which always have Philippine folk elements.

Medicinal Fruits and Vegetables
by Jaime Z. Galvez Tan and Rebecca Marana-Galvez Tan

And then there was this fantastic fact book about the Aswang, a Filipino vampire monster - another great character to add to my bestiary. The Aswang Inquiry based on a report by Frank Lynch, retold and illustrated by Gilda Cordero-Fernando, one of my favourite Filipino authors. I also acquired collections of Filipino folk stories and legends, books on superstitions, DVDs of classic Filipino movies - all in the name of research ... and fun.

I stocked up on books by Jose Y Dalisay - a fabulous writer who really ought to be writing more short stories intead of newspaper columns. I am at the moment reading Killing Time in a Warm Place and it's brilliant.


In Mister Pip, a girl in Papua New Guinea is read the story of Pip from Great Expectations by her English school teacher:

Mister Watts had given us another piece of the world. I found I could go back to it as often as I liked. Not that I thought of what we were hearing as a story. No. I was hearing someone give an account of themselves

Bringing these books back from the Philippines is just like bringing back pieces of me that I had left behind long ago.
 
 

Desperately Seeking A New Model for Selling Books

I am extremely busy, coping with the pre-Christmas rush.

But not too busy to comment on some potentially industry-changing news from across the pond.

Last month I attended a Children's Book Circle event at which booksellers representing the supermarket, the chainstore and the independent explained how the business of selling books worked.

Here they are being very friendly with each other despite the title of the event: "High Street vs Supermarket - the Gloves are Off"

From left to right: independent, Borders and supermarket. At the end of the panel discussion the three booksellers on impulse picked up some props that the supermarket bookseller used in his talk. The cards read (l to r) "They only take bestsellers", "They get huge discounts", and "They are evil".

I suppose I'll have to report back what I learned: that most booksellers are nice people, including supermarket booksellers who are only doing their best considering they've got such limited display space. That they are all crazy about books and that's why they sell them. If they're crazy enough about a book, a book really stands a chance of success. That supermarkets can't afford to stock losers, chains have to compromise and independents take the road less travelled - they try not to discount despite commercial risks.

I had expected the audience to ask some sharp questions (I didn't ask any ... I'm only an author). But I was taken aback at how docile and polite the editors and publishers were. I suppose at the end of the day, the booksellers hold the whip hand when it comes to the success or failure of a publisher's books.

Well there has been some interesting news from the United States where Borders has accepted to accept books from Harper Studio on a non-returnable basis.

Nathan Bransford, the blogging agent, describes the problem:

The returns model has long been a problem for publishers, who often end up having to print (and pulp) twice as many copies as actually sell, an economic and environmental mess. While it allows bookstores to be flexible with ordering and theoretically allows them to take chances on unknown commodities without being stuck with the bill if they don't sell, some have called the process, well, sloppy and inefficient. It's a system that few people have any affection for, and now Borders is signaling a willingness to tweak the model (of course, at a steeper discount). Read the whole thing

Earlier this year I had listened to Barefoot Books publisher Tessa Strickland describe how focusing their sales on gift shops had freed Barefoot Books from this wasteful tyranny.

Literary agent Richard Curtis wrote the definitive piece that declared the returns model:

As a student of publishing history, I'm aware of all the "death-of-publishing" prophecies that have proven false in our time. But I don't think I'm risking much by stating that the publishing industry cannot endure much longer the way it is being run. The need to change our ways is particularly acute in light of revolutionary developments in electronic publishing. Read the whole thing

The fact that he wrote this editorial in 1992 (just one year after the birth of the world wide web) is a chilling reminder of how long it has taken for the industry to take baby steps towards saving itself. The recent slashing and burning in major US publishing houses led Curtis to republish his essay on December 4 (way before Borders announced the deal with Harper Studio). He ended the re-posting with: "It gives me no pleasure to say I told you so."

But if Borders - a MAJOR publisher - is willing to dump returns, surely, there is hope? Will other booksellers follow suit? Will the practice travel across the Atlantic to the UK? Will this result in a natural cull of the "overcapacity" that characterises the writing world as described in the other day's New York Times essay?

Nathan Bransford writes:

It's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out, particularly if it is adopted in a more widespread fashion. But BRAVO for experimentation in a time when we desperately need to see some new ideas in action.

Which leads me neatly to the story of this one bookseller who has found other techniques of pulling customers:From the blog of Eric Stone who visited the naked bookseller in Quartzite, Arizona.

Writers Need Two Brains

I've been a member of SCBWI (the Society for Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators) for donkey's years but last year I decided to join the Society of Authors. The SOA is only for the published author (I got in on the basis of a non-fiction book and my radio work)and the difference between SCBWI - which supports both published and non-published - was veeeery interesting.

Whilst at SCBWI there is clear emphasis on craft and (naturally) getting published, the focus at SOA is on sales, rights, taxes - all the stuff that many SCBWIites have yet to dream about.

It became clear to me that to call yourself an author, you need two brains.

The brains of an artist, dedicated to his/her craft.

And the brains of the entrepreneur, building his/her brand and getting the books sold.

Weirdly there was a lot of stuff out there today about the process of selling books.

A New York Times essay by Rachel Donadio described the shift from writing the book to seeing it in bookshops as akin to "a sudden change in cabin pressure"

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher’s publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

It doesn't sound like a picnic.

Shelfstalker, a children's bookseller's blog, described how independent bookstores augment the bestseller sales of publishers by handselling titles they have a personal liking for. Here's a quote from bookseller Karl Pohrt speaking at the Beijing Book Fair:

When we do our job properly, independent booksellers act as an early warning system for publishers. We help publishers launch books. It should also be noted that the 150 to 500 range of titles is where publishers are making money, because they haven’t made huge investments that they have to recuperate in contracts with best-selling authors and large ad campaigns. So we also augment sales from the top 150 to 300 titles.

And here's Scott Pack, former Waterstones big guy (now The Friday Project publisher), analysing the stuff going on at Borders (nutshell: one boss has left - will Borders still meet its potential?):

What next? If Borders continue to prove value for money for publishers and carry on with their support for indies as well as offering a decent alternative on the high street then presumably there is no problem. If the new regime start tinkering, and you would guess they will, then hopefully it will be to improve and progress. If their planned review of the business can strengthen the work already done then great. If they get it wrong then their rivals will give them a thumping.

It's been a newsy day for booksellers.

Writers ought to look up from their keyboards and pay some heed.