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29 Nov 2006: My Christmas Present List
So you know how there's this custom at Christmas time for friends to bestow gifts on other friends? And how sometimes it's hard to figure out what to buy for your friends? Well, my friends, have I got a deal for you, seeing as how I like you so much. If you buy one of the following books, not only is that the best Christmas present you could possibly get for me, I won't even ask for the book! That's right! Think of the savings on gift wrap, postage, or how much lighter your bag will be next time we meet up - none of that cumbersome carrying presents around lark.
So nip into your local Waterstone's / online bookshop / local bookshop and buy one of the following. Then email me and I'll put on a big show of saying how thoughtful and lovely you are, and it's just what I wanted, and I'll treasure it forever. Then you can go home and read it yourself. Everyone's a winner.
posted on November 29, 2006 06:03 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
29 Nov 2006: Lovely lovely reviews
I've been quite enjoying the increasingly apoplectic opinion pieces by salaried reviewers. Sheesh, defensive much. Still, all that goes out the window when someone bothers to write a really lovely review about one of our own books - a "wonderfully funny...enormously satisfying, well-written and perfectly-plotted novel with a main character who's as lovable and funny as Bridget Jones - if a tad more prone to a hot flush..." that was awarded 5 stars by the lovely ladies at Trashionista. Quite right too.
Buy Plotting for Beginners now!
posted on November 29, 2006 05:14 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
28 Nov 2006: The Red Men
James in his wiseness signed up Matthew De Abaitua's debut novel The Red Men a few weeks back, and we've been very pleased to see that already it has generated lots of positive comments. Today it's mentioned in the comments on the Guardian blog. Thing is, it's not published until Autumn next year, but to ensure you don't forget about it, here's a handy button you can click on to preorder it. We'll post it to you at least two weeks before publication.
posted on November 28, 2006 06:06 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
28 Nov 2006: Voucher Mania!
The Guardian this morning said that retailers are facing the worst Christmas for a quarter of a century, which goes some way towards explaining the torrent of money-off vouchers that have dropped into our email boxes today:
So not wanting to fall behind on this latest trend, here, for your delectation, is an All New Christmas Extravaganza Voucher Fest Snowbooks Spectacular! Roll up, roll up.
Snowbooks: telling it like it is since 2003. Read on for a full list of barrrrgains!
Continue reading "Voucher Mania!" »
posted on November 28, 2006 04:49 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
26 Nov 2006: Snowshopping
Will you look at the lovely pictures the excellent folks from Mr B's Emporium have just sent through?
That's right, they have most kindly made us Indie Publisher of the month in their most perfect of bookshops. Look at our little display! Our very own corner of their window! I wish I had a little shop with a window like that.
The note says:
We're not the only ones who are fans of this young independent publisher. Earlier this year (only their third) they were named Small Publisher of the Year at the 2006 British Book Trade Awards. Their eclectic mix of titles, the design quality of all of their books which make many of them perfect gifts (and of course their rather festive name!) made Snowbooks the perfect choice for our run-up-to-Christmas independent publisher of the month.
Aren't they lovely? Please support them over Christmas and forever by buying your presents from their online shop.
posted on November 26, 2006 04:12 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
26 Nov 2006: Computers: just what is all the fuss about?
I've had a few conversations with fellow publishers which drifted into technical waters... and at that point typically ran aground. Generally speaking, publishers aren't geeks and geeks aren't publishers. However, since the Nineties, geeks have been quietly revolutionising the world with their fancy Internets and their web thingamajigs and what-have-yous. Sometimes these new-fangled notions impinge directly upon the world of publishing and at other times they simply loom on the horizon, where they could be either icebergs or lovely tropical islands serving fruity cocktails. Without closer inspection it's impossible to tell. But who among us busy publishing types has the time or the stomach to read big thick books with acronym-heavy titles (and little in the way of humour unless you count cryptic references to obscure sci-fi shows). Well, fortunately for you all, the position of Snowbooks Chairman is not what you might call 'a proper job' and leaves me with some time on my hands. And so I have taken it upon myself to swim far out into the turbid waters of information technology and bring you back the following exotic delicacy. I have plucked each and every thorn from it and I can almost guarantee that it won't cause you any discomfort. To give my last overworked metaphor a breather, and to saddle up a fresh one, it's web technology in comfortable slippers beside a cozy fire. It'll slip down like a good pre-budget-meeting amontillado, and have much the same effect. Ladies and gentlemen, please click to download, a pdf version of: A simple guide to XML for publishers
posted on November 26, 2006 12:39 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
25 Nov 2006: More wonderfulness
It's like the internet knows I'm a bit worried about Christmas compliance and deliberately comes up with things to make my weekend all lovely. This from today's Guardian: The Romanian features in Simon Callow's pick of 2006.
Simon Callow
"Bruce Benderson's harrowingly autobiographical The Romanian (Snowbooks) is one of the most devastating and unsparing accounts of amour fou I have ever read, providing at the same time an extraordinary glimpse into Romania's past and present. I read it at the same time as Andrew Holleran's Grief (Hyperion), a novel which - haunted by reflections on Henry Adams as a widower and Mary Lincoln's aimless life after her husband's assassination - deals calmly and wisely, in exquisite pellucid prose, with some fundamental truths. Both these books deal with gay life, but from diametrically opposite points of view. Finally, Ian Buruma's fine and subtle Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (Atlantic), while specifically and illuminatingly about some Dutch responses to Muslim extremism, has chilling resonances for all of us."
Buy The Romanian from Amazon.co.uk, or visit your local bookshop.
posted on November 25, 2006 09:27 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
25 Nov 2006: DRM in an earlier age
Here's a thing to ponder on: it's the early days of the twentieth century and you're a sheet music supplier. You're vaguely aware that the U.S. Supreme Court has cancelled Tesla's patent and awarded it to Marconi. Though the exact culprit may be in doubt, someone has clearly invented radio. Now you hear that an inventor called Lee DeForest has used radio to spread early election results through New York as Woodrow Wilson squeaks past Charles Hughes to take a second term as president. And in between the election results, it appears that DeForest has been broadcasting songs - old patriotic favourites for the most part but still, it sets you thinking. It could just as easily have been something from Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern. Currently, "It's a long way to Tipperary" is flying off your shelves, at sixpence a time, thank you very much. It seems that DeForest was broadcasting his music to around 7000 listeners. If he'd sold them the music instead, that would be £175 - a year's sales in four minutes for one song! And DeForest played at least half a dozen tunes. Now granted, hearing the song once isn't the same as owning the sheet music, but on the other hand, on the radio you could hear it performed by Florrie Forde herself, backed by the real live Connaught Rangers. So let's split the difference and imagine charging the radio listeners a penny a song. In a few years, the nation could tune in and you'd be bringing in some pretty useful money - there are 42 million Brits according to the 1911 census and most of them like music. Call it a shilling a day from five million households. Hmm, on the other hand not many could afford that. On the other other hand, give all that music away for free and you not only miss out on an exchequer full of money, but you crush the sheet music industry flat and no one gets rich. After all, who's going to buy music if they can hear it on the radio whenever they wish for free?
Continue reading "DRM in an earlier age" »
posted on November 25, 2006 08:13 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
24 Nov 2006: Settle down
You know, nothing delights and surprises me more than being mentioned in the same sentence as people I admire, *by* people I admire. From today's Independent, Boyd Tonkin's A Week in Books column:
"Publishing, which retains the allure of a sort of highbrow showbiz, attracts dedicated wannabes. It also allows talented veterans ousted from, or unhappy in, conglomerate companies to set up as smaller, fiercer rivals to ex-employers. This year, the former Orion chief Anthony Cheetham has planted the acorn of Quercus Books, and Philip Gwyn Jones's Portobello has made a stylish bow. Alma Books has launched with a bold list, Friday Books has begun to transform blogs into paper, Snow Books settles steadily, and Old Street Publishing promises interesting new directions."
There are few better starts to a weekend than reading that manner of thing - and it was excellent timing as my mum's just called from her local bookstore to say she can't find a single one of our books. Thank you, Mr. Tonkin, for raising my spirits.
The full, very fine and really quite emotive article.
posted on November 24, 2006 05:05 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
23 Nov 2006: Prices
Lordy, I've just found out that some cover designers charge upwards of two grand! If I were still an employee of some firm or other, charged with maximising shareholder value, I'd be tempted to respond to that information by putting my prices up. Instead, however, I'm delighted to say - come to Snowbooks Design for a sales-focused cover that will only set you back £600! Get-em-while-they're-hot-they're-lovely.
posted on November 23, 2006 07:04 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
23 Nov 2006: How to cut things out
So I'm often talking to people about how we work at Snowbooks, and I say 'and the team does all their own cover design and illustrations,' and the person nods, and later in the conversation the person says 'so who does your cover design?' and I say that the team does it, the same person who's the editor and the typesetter and the marketeer and the production manager. And the person looks a bit confused, and then says 'that's impossible.' It seems a very hard thing for people to grasp. So here is the first in an occasional series of how to do things in Photoshop and Indesign, so that you can see HowBloodyEasy™ it is.
How to cut something out of its background in photoshop.
Here is our image.
Continue reading "How to cut things out" »
posted on November 23, 2006 04:12 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
23 Nov 2006: Charty goodness
I'll be happier when Canongate's sales get above £4m!
posted on November 23, 2006 03:57 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
21 Nov 2006: Uses for an industry award #5
Christmas tree stand. Twinkle.
posted on November 21, 2006 10:10 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
20 Nov 2006: Speech! Speech!
So I was invited to give a talk the other day at an event called Inspire and Connect, which did what it said on the tin. A few people have asked to see what I said, so here it is - a collaborative effort between me and Rob, but mostly Rob - reproduced by the miracle of modern blogging. Bear in mind that this was for a non-publishing audience so apologies for the grandma-egg-suckiness of it.
"Three years ago I had an important decision to make. There was a lot to weigh up and most of it depended on predicting the future in an industry I didn't know much about. So I took a deep breath and made a choice. In the end the choice I made drastically lowered my income, scrambled my long-time career plans and took me away from a blue-chip company to work long hours in the corner of a grubby rented office where the heating was broken, the printer rarely worked and the air-conditioning consisted of opening a window to let the traffic noise in.
Continue reading "Speech! Speech!" »
posted on November 20, 2006 01:03 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
18 Nov 2006: For some reason I seem to be a bit ranty this morning...
...I think it's switching back to Illy coffee that's done it. That stuff is like perfectly roasted rocket fuel and it angries up the blood if you're not careful. So I respectfully blame Illy indirectly for the following:
The publishing industry seems to be full of people who are confidently dismissive of any electronic gadget that purports to do the job of a paper book. I in turn have been confidently dismissive of these people.
Two things annoy me about their position. Firstly, they tend to start with the idea that you'll never get rid of paper books completely (with which I completely agree) and skip straight to how that means electronic-book-readers will never amount to much. Secondly, they rely on what you might call the emotional qualities of paper to bolster their position. That argument seems to run: because everyone loves warm, natural paper books and hates cold, soulless gadgets, the paper book's position is safe. And I generally reply, 'you mean the way everyone loves the ungainly, toilet-paper bulk of airport blockbusters and hates the sleek, pebble-from-a-Zen-garden perfection of the latest iPods?' If I'm being petty, I like to imagine that these are the people who swore never to switch from records to CDs - and then did - and proudly renounced the mobile phone about five years back and now can't live without one. I'm not saying the world is better because it switched to CDs and everyone bought a cell phone; I'm just pointing out that it happened, over the objections and counter-predictions of many.
Continue reading "For some reason I seem to be a bit ranty this morning..." »
posted on November 18, 2006 09:00 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
17 Nov 2006: From today's Bookseller.com
Idler at large turns to fiction
James Bridle at Snowbooks has bought world rights in a first novel by Matthew De Abaitua, editor at large of the Idler and literary editor of Esquire.
De Abaitua's The Red Men is about a technology consultant who finds himself wrestling with his conscience when commissioned to work on a project with sinister aims. 'We're very excited about the book and plan a large amount of promotion to accompany it,' Bridle says.
Snowbooks will publish in autumn 2007. De Abaitua's agent is Sarah Such.
ERRATA: Please note that Matthew is a former, not the current, lit ed of Esquire, as wrongly stated in The Bookseller.
posted on November 17, 2006 03:45 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
17 Nov 2006: My coat
This is The Da Vinci Code of coats:
*Everybody* has one. Seriously, every time I wear it I see at least one other girl with one. It's about two years old from Oasis but the trend doesn't seem to be waning. I had to change tube carriages at last year's LBF because there was another publisher wearing one. And this winter it's started all over again - this week I've seen three others.
It's quite a good way to meet new people, though, and a good ice breaker. I might launch a website called www.yourewearingthesamecoatasme.com and get cards printed and hand them to people when I see them in the coat. I might take photos of me and the people I meet and put them on my website. We could form a worldwide community of coatfriends™. Such potential.
I wonder how many Oasis sold and whether they're still living off the profits? Whether it caused a huge spike in sales which mess up their year-on-year sales? In trading meetings buyers always had to explain why their sales had missed targets ("it's colder than it was this time last year", "it's the Diana effect" (no one went shopping for weeks after Diana died), "this time last year it was the World Cup" etc). Are they sitting in their meetings this year explaining why sales are down 1500% on the year because of "the blue coat effect"? I need to know.
posted on November 17, 2006 09:53 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
16 Nov 2006: At least I'm trying to better myself
I know we tend to be a bit Scott Pack this, Scott Pack that, and did you hear what Scott said about this other thing here? But a big bit of that is because he tends to be braver than us in speaking his mind, so his views provide a very handy point of reference. We can sort of hide behind him while he's telling off the establishment, and then we can pop our heads up for a moment and yell, 'Yeah! Take that, slightly reactionary book industry!'
Interestingly, I have just found myself using Scott's blog to gauge another quality besides lairiness. I'm now using the lesser known Pack Scale of Book-Plugging Magnanimity. Scott's recommended that his followers read various titles, besides the ones produced in his own book-mills, and now I want to do the same. But I only give myself about a six out of ten on the Pack Scale because the book happens to be written by a friend of mine. That's not why I'm recommending it - the book deserves recommendation purely on its merits - but I probably wouldn't have stumbled across it if I hadn't been looking out for the name.
So, the book is the Secret Language of the Renaissance, by Richard Stemp, from Duncan Baird Publishers. And should you be interested, the book's title continues: Decoding the Greatest Age of Italian Art. It's what I'm sure its publishers' marketing team will hate me for calling a 'coffee-table book', but it's rather a fabulous one. It has many pretty pictures: every Renaissance painting and sculpture I've ever heard of (which turns out not to be that many) and several additional galleries full besides. It also has a great number of pretty words, all of which, so far, I'm delighted to say that I understand. It's so wonderfully readable that I could almost forget that I'm learning about art, because learning about art is not something I'm generally very good at. I spend a lot of my time studying, but I have some notable blindspots and this book fits neatly into one of them. When it comes to discovering art, as another friend of mine says, it's not something I do; it's not even something I want to do; but it's something I want to want to do. But now perhaps there's some hope. The Secret Language seems to have got me over the first hurdle very efficiently. My worry now is that I'll gather in all this new knowledge, be fascinated by it, and then forget it all. But even if I only retain a fraction of it, I'll be pleased. And one really can't go very far wrong in the glossy art book stakes for £9.99 (Amazon's current price). I think it's safe to say that if you gave it as a gift, the recipient would never guess how little you'd spent on them.
posted on November 16, 2006 05:44 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
15 Nov 2006: Complementary cashflow
Re: Em's graphy post below
Thinks. Maybe we should be down at the library, searching through big books, looking for a business idea with exactly complementary cashflow to that of publishing, so we can graft it onto Snowbooks and balance everything out. And maybe we should adopt it, whatever it is, providing its graph is the mirror image of the publishing one. I like to think that we'd wind up with something really cool that way. Unfortunately, the only complementary business I can come up with so far is
lottery-winner-who-subsequently-sells-story-to-magazine-then-flogs-film-rights. But maybe there's something else out there.
This complementarity stuff reminds me of the story I was told a long time ago about how Walls produced both sausages and ice cream, because nobody wanted ice cream in the winter and no one trusted their sausages in the heat of summer. It's a nice story, but doesn't it suggest that Mr Whippee should be offering piping hot winter bangers around now?
posted on November 15, 2006 02:45 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
15 Nov 2006: Christmas is coming, oh yes.
For anybody who's been wondering: Yes. It's true. Your eyes have not been deceiving you. Snowbooks is sponsoring the lights on Regents Street in London's Famous Weste Ende this Christmas. And, in fact, all snow-related decorations, Christmas or otherwise, everywhere, forever. Thank 'ee, thank 'ee, one and all &c.
Image nicked from UKstudentlife.com. Sorry.
posted on November 15, 2006 02:29 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
14 Nov 2006: Majestic, self-amortizing canals
Scott over at the Friday Project is always going on about music, so now it's my turn. D'you remember this?
Mr. Dawes Sr, Mr. Banks and Bankers:
If you invest your tuppence
Wisely in the bank
Safe and sound
Soon that tuppence,
Safely invested in the bank,
Will compound
And you'll achieve that sense of conquest
As your affluence expands
In the hands of the directors
Who invest as propriety demands
You see, Michael, you'll be part of
Railways through Africa
Dams across the Nile
Fleets of ocean greyhounds
Majestic, self-amortizing canals
Plantations of ripening tea
All from tuppence, prudently
Fruitfully, frugally invested
In the, to be specific,
In the Dawes, Tomes
Mousely, Grubbs
Fidelity Fiduciary Bank!
Fleets of ocean greyhounds indeed. I'm please to say that no-one's given us any tuppences to be invested in Snowbooks - it means that all this hard work is for us, and us alone, and that's another story. The current reason for the bowler hat and the bank song is because that's what I feel a publisher is, sometimes: a bank. Here is a graph that shows the typical cash flow for a typical publisher:
So you start at zero profit. A is an advance. B is the cost of payroll whilst the team is creating the lovely book. C is the cost of print (which has varying repayment terms but you can guarantee you're going to need to pay the printer before you've received any money from sales). C-D is the time during which you lend retailers money in the form of stock assets for 90+days. At D it gets interesting - how successful is the book? Path E is a steady earner, maybe niche non-fiction, slowly but steadily earning its way back to profit - even though on this graph it looks like it will take about twelve years. F is depressing - a brief spurt then plateauing waaaay below breakeven. G is what we hope for every time - a runner that storms past breakeven and pays for E and F.
Point is, that's a hell of a long time to be paying money out before getting it back again - 18 months in this made-up example - and these are only a few of the costs; don't forget rent, marketing, postage, blah. You're either paying out or lending money without any sort of guarantee that you'll get it back. Compare that to the cash flow model for, for example, my parent's old business, a primary school. Cash comes in on the first day of term; it gets spent over the course of the next few months then the cycle starts again. The graph is always positive.
So that's why I feel like a bank. Although, of course, banks can foreclose, call in their loans, securitise their lending on assets... We're a mix between a bank and a charity. Good thing I love my job, isn't it.
posted on November 14, 2006 05:18 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
13 Nov 2006: "A marvellous collection..."
Nothing better on a wet Monday morning than a warm and glowing review of one of our books. If you haven't got your own or someone else's Christmas present of How Very Interesting yet, order it now!
For Pete's sake
Reviews by PAUL WHITELAWPeter Cook: So Farewell Then
by Wendy Cook
HarperCollins, 400pp, £18.99How Very Interesting: Peter Cook's Universe and All That Surrounds It
Edited by Paul Hamilton, Peter Gordon and Dan Kieran
Snowbooks, 300pp, £9.99THE METEORIC RISE AND fall of Peter Cook is one of the most spurious myths in showbiz. Accepted wisdom states that Cook peaked by the time he was 30, and went to pieces after his partnership with Dudley Moore dissolved in the late 1970s.
The biopic, Not Only But Always, starring Rhys Ifans, unwaveringly ascribed to this view, while Harry Thompson's otherwise definitive biography did little to dispel the notion that Cook ended his days as an embittered alcoholic who never achieved his true potential. Wendy Cook, the comedian's first wife, certainly seems to side with this view, but as the last chapter of her rather aimless autobiography attests, she saw him only sporadically after they divorced in the 1970s.
Until then, they had lived a superficially charmed lifestyle. Glittering baubles on the swinging London vine, the Cooks were famed for their celebrity-studded soirées, where the likes of Kenneth Tynan, Bernard Levin and Jonathan Miller would rub shoulders with Lenny Bruce and a Beatle or three.
The young, handsome Cook was a star of television, the West End and Broadway, rightfully fêted as the funniest man of his generation. And yet his frightfully reserved upper-middle-class background, complete with boarding school and Cambridge education, rendered him something of a cold fish.
Although Wendy admits he was not incapable of affection, he was someone to whom outward displays of emotion were anathema. Perhaps because of this, she writes about him rather listlessly. Theirs was not a passionate relationship, therefore their story proves rather unengaging. She also makes the cardinal error of assuming that anyone is interested in any parts of her life that didn't involve her husband, leading to eminently skippable passages detailing in drab detail the minutiae of life as a hostess to the London gliteratti.
Furthermore, her supposedly "untold" tale is little more than the already well-documented Cook saga, with very little insight of her own. Typically for even those closest to him, his former wife is no nearer to uncovering the "real" Cook than anyone else.
She is, however, remarkably frank about their open relationship, which she ascribes to misjudged 1960s liberalism, and which was certainly a major factor in their break-up.
Both enjoyed a series of affairs, but it was Wendy's relationship with actor Simon Gray that tore her marriage apart. In the book's only genuinely shocking revelation, she tells of being punched and kicked down the stairs by a drunken Cook after he learned of the affair; an inexcusable incident which renders a later Derek and Clive skit on marital abuse all the more disturbing.
Wendy admits that her Peter differs wildly from most other accounts, which generally describe Cook as a kind, warm and generous man. Indeed, this is the most oft-repeated assessment in How Very Interesting, a marvellous collection of interviews and essays compiled by the Peter Cook Appreciation Society.
The result of a heroic decade-long attempt to catalogue the musings of virtually everyone Cook worked with and influenced throughout his career, it offers a surprisingly consistent portrait of a generally gleeful man whose comedic gifts remained intact until the end, as evinced by his appearance on Clive Anderson Talks Back and the magnificent Radio 3 series with Chris Morris, Why Bother? Indeed, one of the most fascinating interviews is with the enigmatic Morris, Cook's true spiritual heir.
Although the PCAS was sadly unable to track down Dudley Moore before he died, nearly everyone else is here, from John Fortune, Auberon Waugh and Mel Smith, to Dick Clement, Will Self, Ian Hislop and even the engineer who recorded the notorious Derek and Clive sessions.
The overall picture painted by these accounts is of an awe-inspiring genius who, despite his emotional failings, sailed through life in a state of near-permanent amusement at the absurdities of the universe. And for someone who reputedly failed to achieve his potential, Cook's influence on comedy remains utterly without peer.
posted on November 13, 2006 10:18 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
09 Nov 2006: Workmanship
So I was rooting around in old emails sent to me by Rob, because this morning, by way of some advice I was given, I was reminded of an excellent Powerpoint slide Rob an' his mate Dan knocked up a few years back. At first glance it looked like standard consulting fare: good, beefy arrows pointing in the right direction, a couple of graphs, bold, to the point font. But it was a comedy slide intended to mock the useless, motherhood advice that most consultants trumpet. You know: To achieve our corporate vision, we must grow sales, improve return on capital, focus on improving performance and generate increased shareholder value. Yeees, those are good things, but it's not exactly an implementable plan, is it? On this slide that I was looking for, there was a big arrow pointing up labelled 'improve sales', and one pointing down labelled 'reduce costs'. And a graph trending upwards. And a pie chart. And the sad thing was that it wasn't too far removed from most of the slides I churned out as a consult-a-slave.
Anyway, I couldn't find the slide, which was annoying. I did, however, come across an old article written by Rob which is interesting. So here it is for your delectation:
The history of bad workmanship
Dinner party horror stories
It's a subject that can bring even the most reluctant dinner guest out of their shell. Once a group of people start talking about rotten service they've received, or unsatisfactory work they've had done on their house, there's no stopping them. For some reason, bank staff draw the heaviest fire in my circle of friends; perhaps it's decorators with you or maybe plumbers.
Is this something new or was it ever thus? A well-read friend of mine tells me Samuel Pepys, writing in the seventeenth century, complains of builders who never seem to make any progress. Whenever Pepys arrives, they are always on a break.
It may be that complaints about the trades are as old as the trades themselves, but what if matters are getting worse? This article will explore how a new kind of psychology is revealing more and more about the sins flesh is heir to.
Continue reading "Workmanship" »
posted on November 9, 2006 11:37 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
06 Nov 2006: From the Not To Be Outdone Dept.
In case you've been wondering how a small business like Snowbooks can function when one of its employees is constitutionally incapable of tidying up, I've taken a photo of my desk:
Notice the distinct lack of cookies. In the spirit of Emma's Adept line-up:
1) Personalised crockery with attached audio input.
2) Very Important Documents.
3) Jetpack.
4) Secondary monitor for obsessively checking Amazon, reviewing purchase orders, putting a quick one on the 3.15 at Aintree &c.
5) Note to self: Buy tea.
6) Unwanted gift from occasional visitor to office.
7) Not Quite As But Still Pretty Important Documents.
8) Bar guide to Frankfurt.
9) Ergonomic monitor support.
10 & 11) Executive Buisness Card Storage Solutions.
12) Plan to take over world aka To Do List.
13) Documents I Don't Really Care About.
14 & 15) Badges.
16) Best Christmas Gift EVER.
[That's enough now - Ed.]
posted on November 6, 2006 03:28 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
06 Nov 2006: Greetings from America
It's Anna here, writing from America. As Em's mentioned before, I've ventured back to the country of my birth, the snowy tundra that is Minnesota (never mind that it's neither snowy nor particularly cold at the moment). In case you've been wondering how a small business like Snowbooks can function when one of its employees is 4000 miles and six hours away, I've taken a photo of my desk.
It's not so different, really. Slightly darker, on account of those six hours, but I've still got PG Tips to see me through the day (brought over in my suitcase, because what if the stuff in the US shops isn't genuine?). Mind you, the accompanying biscuit is really more of a 'cookie,' and I don't think the frosting's particular shade of orange exists outside the States (in food products, anyway). But these are the things one must get used to.
Work continues on as before, though. I've sent one book to print since being here and made corrections to another and have been reading manuscripts and tweaking covers, etc, etc. Behold, the power of the internets!
posted on November 6, 2006 02:29 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
04 Nov 2006: You want books with that burger?
Interesting, slightly breathless account of how the U.S. publishing market is supposedly waking up to the potential of book sales through non-book-outlets here. The breakthrough appears to have been re-designing the book to complement its new environment. I'm not saying it wouldn't have some effect, but I found the whole thing a rather strange way to come at the problem. For me, personally, the story was something of a milestone because the instinctive, dismissive grunt I made when I read it came very close to a 'harrumph'. Does that mean I'm middle-aged now? Or do I only need to worry if I find myself adding 'stuff and nonsense' in a pugnacious little growl?
Continue reading "You want books with that burger?" »
posted on November 4, 2006 07:54 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
03 Nov 2006: Double vision
We're in receipt of the latest addition to the Adept family: the B format US version. Here's a handy key to see which one's which.
That's not the full number, as it happens - we have sold rights to more countries including Germany, Spain and a number of Eastern European publishers. What fun! And how nice to see that we are selling the same thing more than once - a strategy I like.
Notice the absence of a hardback: we've decided that the current publishing model of hardback-first-paperback-second is publisher, not reader, focused. In the case of debut authors, why should a reader have to shell out £17 on an unknown quantity - or if the author is established, how unfriendly to offer the high priced hardback for a year and make the reader wait for the paperback? We go into hardback when the shopping mission is a gift, or a collectible edition, but we don't just issue hardbacks to extract the maximum amount of money out of people. That would be mean. Like many things in publishing, though, hardback publishers don't mean to be mean; they're just doing what they've always done, so why change? Why indeed.
posted on November 3, 2006 12:49 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment