Books
In the Black
20.02.07 Katherine Rushton
Last Christmas may well be remembered as the year of celebrity flops, but for Hannah Black it was a career making season. While autobiographies by the likes of Gary Barlow, David Blunkett and Michael Barrymore underperformed in the light of their acquisition price tags, Black's book from Peter Kay, The Sound of Laughter, became the biggest selling hardback autobiography of all time.
"He seemed to me a really obvious success because so many of his observations of daily life have just become part of the vision of Britain," Black says. "He's got national treasure status. His story isn't extraordinary, and that's what's appealing about him. He's still the boy from Bolton." She pauses: "Except he's got loads of cash."
He certainly has a little more cash now, following 810,000 sales through Nielsen BookScan, but perhaps his overall wealth was why it took Century more than a year to reel the comedian in. When he did come, through entertainment agent Phil McIntyre for an advance believed to be £1.2m plus bonuses, it was offered to RH exclusively--much to the chagrin of rival publishers.
"I'd gone after him the year before and he'd not been interested," Black recalls--then cringes as she remembers the super-cheesy (literally) stunt that sealed the deal. "I did send a cheesecake with the offer written on it—only to discover that his management hate gimmicks. It could have backfired terribly, but it seemed a good idea at the time." Another pause, another quip: "I'm sure they will have found it hilarious as they wolfed it down."
This is typical of Black: she is warm, but gives the impression of being very careful with her words--until a wry one-liner pops out. "She's very funny," says her boss Century publishing director Mark Booth.
One might think she has plenty to laugh about, with the New Year bringing a promotion to editorial director of Century. But her Christmas wasn't all plain sailing. She was also responsible for one of the few Random House misses--ast year's "Celebrity Big Brother" winner Chantelle, whose Living the Dream Century bought for a rumoured £400,000.
A modest 40,000 copies of Chantelle's book have been sold through BookScan, but Black doesn't seem too fussed, taking it in her stride as one of the inevitabilities of the publishing game.
"I'm still really glad I bought Chantelle. She hasn't tried to save the world and she hasn't endured tremendous suffering. She's just a really nice person who became famous, got married and dyed her hair brown. In some ways it's just a bit of a fairy tale." (The fame and romance parts, one assumes, not just being a brunette.)
Observers suggest that the book under-performed because of an over-long gestation period--nine months elapsed between the end of the reality TV show and the title's launch--but Black does not beat herself up about it. "In retrospect you can say a lot of things, but I think we would have been hard pushed to get it out any sooner. [To do so] can be a gamble, given you're pitching to customers who work incredibly far in advance."
Check yourself
Black is altogether fairly relaxed, and identifies an ability not to "take things too seriously" as one of Century's strengths. "Books are important, but they're not that important. It sounds quite wanky to say that, but it keeps you in check."
Her unpretentious approach is the attribute that Booth most admires: "She does everything without fuss," he says. "She has no side." It also helps her keep humanity in her work--both in terms of prizing the life of her authors above the book they produce, but also getting their personality across.
"I'm fascinated by people. I love observing the way they interact, the dynamics, peering into people's lives and helping them find ways of expressing themselves," she says, crediting her psychotherapist mother as an influence. "It's like being a midwife, babysitter, policewoman, agony aunt, big sister--all of those roles."
No doubt Black's sense of perspective also prevents her from getting carried away in competitive bidding wars, and kept her from getting drawn to the likes of Barlow and Rupert Everett. "When we were looking at those books we were thinking about paying around half the sums they went for," she says, stressing that Century doesn't "chuck money at stuff" or buy up big names as PR/brand statements. "It's about holding your nerve--not panic-buying. This time last year we hadn't bought Peter Kay."
She has yet to hear back about two big bids on two big books she hopes to publish this Christmas, but after her 2006 performance the pressure is on: "I just hope I don't fuck it up," she concludes.
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