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Neill Denny

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.

Blogging LBF - Day Two

15.04.08

Day two of LBF and two highlights. The first was a panel put together by the PA's Simon Juden which was notable for the presence of Margaret Hodge, the government minister responsible for libraries. Coupled with the appearance of Gordon Brown at the Fair yesterday, it seems that finally the Government has woken up to the importance of publishing.

Hodge reeled off some pretty impressive stats: the creative industries account for 7.5% of GDP, employing two million people. Publishing - books, magazines and newspapers - was a £20bn slice of the pie, making it by far the biggest single area. Coupled with Gordon Brown popping up at the Nibbies, it's been a good week for the book trade commanding national attention.

Weirdly, the thing that stuck in my mind was an anecdote from Hodge in which she revealed that when she was leader of Islington council, the Mayor--by then half way through her [the Mayor's] year-long term of office--could not read. Only in London.

A more touching moment was Peter Mayer, the legendary Penguin boss, picking up the LBF's lifetime achievement award. He's been out of the UK for ten years in the US, running Overlook, but his name regularly pops up in London publishing circles even now. Ed Victor handed over the prize (a rather Terry and June ceramic bowl) and Mayer made a witty and touching acceptance speech.

As the child of wartime emigrés, he was raised on a diet of Arthur Ransome and Beatrix Potter, whom he would one day publish. He still flourishes his British passport with pride at Heathrow, despite looking and sounding every inch the big hitting American publisher.

Indeed, a recent trip to London alerted him to the power of Sudoku: a cabbie told him that he did them while waiting for the red lights to change, and on the strength of that recommendation Mayer became the first publisher of Sudoku in the US.

Simon Master, who was unable to present the prize due to illness, once rescued Mayer from Sydney Harbour, but Mayer told us no more than that.

And the overall feel of LBF this year?

More room, same number of people, no big books, better rights centre, everyone pretty upbeat, thank God we're not in Exhell.

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By Clive Keeble

It would be interesting to know if anybody who attended the PA seminar - where Margaret Hodge gave her glowing soundbites - was able to remind the Minister about the closures within the UK printers. Outsourcing production to Asia is all very well, as indeed is the sale of specialist (older) printing machinery to the likes of South Africa, but there has to be a day of reckoning. How many skilled jobs have been lost in UK printers during the past 11 years ? (Perhaps they are all reduced to working in Tesco - a la MG Rover) Mention libraries and of course "we" are all very concerned about the local budget changes which have often meant a vastly depleted book stock. Margaret Hodge, following Gordon Brown yesterday, must have felt nice and safe with their middle class chums at the LBF who would not dare to rock and boat and will willingly recycle songs of praise from the politicans crib-sheets. Margaret Hodge is certainly no Jennie Lee.

15 Apr 08 16:54

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