The Bookseller.com

21st November 2008

Not so flaky Blakey

03.06.08 Alison Flood

John Blake is looking for the next big thing. The man who brought us celebrity memoirs (Being Jordan), bare-knuckle fighters (The Guv’nor) and Christmas trivia (Red Herrings and White Elephants) is on the prowl for another gap in the market.

“The history of publishing is that phenomena come along when there’s a gap,” Blake says. “The perception was always that it was middle-class women who buy books, so when we suddenly produced a book for working-class men, there was nothing there. Before Jordan, there was nothing for working-class women at all.”

So far this morning, Blake has met with a lawyer (“some bugger’s suing us”) and, following the Champions League final, has decided to put out a paperback of an unauthorised Cristiano Ronaldo biography. “We’ll do it for August—we should be the first one out there with a bit of luck. We can nip in and do well.” He’s considering an Alan Sugar biog, and has Sion Jenkins, stepfather of the murdered Billie-Jo, in the office to discuss his August memoir.

His forward list—he’s publishing around 15 titles a month now—includes the story of a male gigolo (Nice Work If You Can Get It), misery memoirs, unauthorised biographies of Lily Allen, David Tennant and Bernie Ecclestone, true crime, and trivia. “If I do nice novels about middle-class women having affairs, there’s millions of them [already out there] so they’re never going to be that huge,” he points out.

Blake set up in publishing 19 years ago after he lost his job as editor of the Sunday People. His first titles included a book on women who kill, Hell Hath No Fury, something he’d written on the Rolling Stones, a David Jason biography and a Piers Morgan book of interviews with the stars. He knew nothing about publishing but his time in newspapers (including launching the Sun’s Bizarre column) meant he had his finger on the pulse of popular culture.

Hell Hath No Fury went to number four on the bestseller lists, a paper paid £80,000 for serial rights in the Jason biography, and £30,000 for the Morgan. “I thought this publishing malarkey was as easy as pie. The shops liked it—they saw something new, very commercial—but the trade, and people like The Bookseller, just thought God, well this is just a flash in the pan, he won’t be around long. They didn’t take us very seriously.”

For as long as rival publishers kept this attitude, Blake hoovered up gangland tales and biographies of stars. Then in 2004 everything changed, when he took a punt on the autobiography of a certain glamour model, Jordan.

The concept had been to aim the book at men, with the author pictured in various sexy poses; Blake offered £10,000, after the book had been turned down by every publisher out there, and realised that it was women who would be interested in Katie Price’s story.

“We got the idea to say that the monster coming out of nightclubs, and indecently assaulting little boys, that was Jordan the character. Behind it was Katie Price, the mother with the horses, so we called it Being Jordan. Now it’s history, and everyone says it was so bloody obvious. But at the time the News of the World agreed to buy the serial, then cancelled the deal because it wasn’t called Jordan: My Story.”

For a time the book was the biggest selling autobiography ever, turnover doubled to around £3m, and Blake won a Nibbie. London publishing moved to rectify its error—most galling for Blake was Century swooping on Price’s next books. “Once we had that huge hit they were like a Russian fishing fleet, they came along and hoovered up every celebrity there was—it got very difficult to find people.”

He’s hopeful the wave is passing, after a series of flops for which big money was paid—principally second-rate TV personalities and footballers. “Big publishers are now thinking 'been there, done that—let’s go back to doing proper books'. I’m going along after the Lord Mayor’s Show with my bucket and shovel picking all the books up again.”

This autumn he has a second autobiography from Jade on his list (“gorgeous pouting Jade . . . people want her to come back”) as well as Christopher Biggins (“a great national treasure”). Business is “steady”, with turnover at around £5m. “We’re ticking along, but you do need a bestseller every so often to sweep everything along before it.”

He’s trying a bit of cosmic ordering to help out. “If you believe in yourself, you’ll do it—I do sound like Noel Edmonds but it’s true.” The only problem is he’s not quite sure what he’s after because life is good. “I’d like a hit book but that’s a fairly wishy-washy ambition.”

Initially feeling like a hack adrift in the books world, Blake is now firmly in the publisher camp. “I think I’ve grown up and am now a publisher,” he says. “I’ve been around so long that I’m part of the furniture—some people still look down their noses, but when I started off people thought I was some sort of gangster. They don’t realise that I’d no more want to read these true crime books than fly.”

So what does he read? “Well-written fiction—I’m a voracious reader, but I like novels. I don’t really like very much non-fiction, which is funny.”

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