The Bookseller.com

20th July 2008

Neill Denny is editor-in-chief of The Bookseller. He will be blogging on the book business and on how the print magazine is produced each week.

150 years of change

04.01.08

When I took this job four years ago The Bookseller's 150th anniversary was a suitably distant prospect, but, in an experience that I fear may be soon visited upon the London Olympics, it has arrived surprisingly fast.

My view is that the fact that we have been around for 150 years is of little real interest to readers, but that what has happened to the trade and the world it serves clearly is.

Accordingly, the main editorial focus for this year will be on a commemorative issue in June, which will contain some of the interesting and quirky stuff from the past but also a look at the state of the trade now and a look forward to what we can expect in the next few years.

Preliminary visits to the ever-helpful staff of the British Library's newspaper arm at Colindale have yielded a range of interesting stuff from our earliest issues. Obituaries that mention duels; bankrupt booksellers transported to Australia; speculation over the gender of hot young author George Eliot; the first mention of The Origin of Species, casually listed in a laconic two-line entry in 'Publications of the Month' (we started as a monthly). The trade issues seem much more up to date: calls for a ban on discounting (this is world that predates the NBA) and arguments with the Americans over copyright.

The staff at the library have very kindly allowed me access to the original volumes, thus sparing me the dreaded microfiche. These are probably the only copies of the early magazine in existence. The Bookseller's office, including its archive, was destroyed along with the rest of Paternoster Row, the historic home of the book trade, in the blitz.

The other major project we're taking on is a detailed bit of consumer research. We'll bring in specialist researchers to ask a pretty big sample of the public for their views around books, bookselling and publishing. It'll be a kind of state of the nation view of the market we all serve, and should be a useful exercise in terms of strategic planning for publishers and booksellers alike.

There'll be a few other activities and events, but I don't want to give too much away in the first week of January. Watch this space...

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