The Bookseller.com

7th January 2009

Philip Jones is the managing editor of theBookseller.com. He will blog with links and comment about the book business.

Still a good time for books

14.10.08

As the Frankfurt Book Fair begins (and I sit in a terminal in City Aiport), I am questioning whether the UK book trade is showing any signs at all of a credit crunch? Sure summer was prickly as Waterstone's recent results showed, but W H Smith defied the high street with its full-year results, and Bertrams is trading well even if its parent Woolworth's remains on the edge.

If Frankfurt-bound publishers are to be believed the market looks strong at the beginning of the publishing process too. As Simon & Schuster's Suzanne Baboneau put it last week. "We're going with all guns blazing," she told The Bookseller. "It seems busier this year, it's later, so perhaps it's because there's been more time. There's an avalanche of scripts and proposals at the moment, with agents trying to tie up deals so they can announce it next week."

One would think the world's financial markets hadn't just been driven to the point of near collapse. But in fact as the trade readies itself for its latest Frankfurt-fest, the business does seem almost embarrassingly healthy (Woolies notwithstanding). Recent deals such as Hodder's seven-figure splurge on comedian Simon Pegg (reported everywhere after The Bookseller scoop last week), and the strong rights trading in Penguin's trilogy The Left Hand of God and the new Nick Cave novel, suggest that money remains on the table--at least for the big books.

Even small deals are in plentiful supply. At The Bookseller, as we make ready preparations and stories for our printed Fair Dailies (Wednesday to Friday, available across Hall 8), we have literally been deluged with rights deals. Sure publishers have become smarter at releasing information before the fair, to catch the awareness of news-hungry book journalists (and despite Publishing News' collapse earlier this year, there still seem a fair few of us), but whereas two years ago there was talk of "crumbs" being offered at the fair, the deals this year look strong. Follow my colleague Victoria Gallagher's "hot books" blogs for the latest deals we know about, or pick up the latest printed daily at the fair (the issues will also be free to view online from tomorrow morning).

If there is a response to the credit crunch: then it is likely to be on the types of books being bought. A few weeks ago Caroline Michel told me that she was swamped with proposals from former Lehman Bros employees, and had seen interest grow in a business title she was touting, from author Dambisa Moyo (Dead Aid), which was under consideration by Penguin.

Publishers are rarely slow at spotting a trend and are now piling into a genre that can loosely be defined as "topical narrative non-fiction".

As former deputy editor of The Bookseller Joel Rickett, now Viking editorial director, told the magazine this week, while announcing his first two deals: "Obviously every publisher is now scrambling for finance and  business  books. That's good because these are areas that the book trade  has grossly under-served for many years - by looking in bookshops you'd never  guess that financial services is London's largest employer (with 1.3 million people, five times as many as the media sector)." Crunch-chat, anyone?.

Away from the frenzy of Frankfurt, Super Thursday has led to an early start for Christmas within bookshops, and the Booker tonight (14th October) provides another timely push for this recession-proof product. It still feels like a good time for books, possibly because of, as well as despite of, the credit crunch.