Review by Justine Solomons

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The Apologist is great. I’m a big fan of Jay Rayner’s writing. I tend to buy the paper at the weekend, skim the headlines and look at pictures, but Jay’s one of the few journalists I always read. Not only is he an excellent journalist, but he’s also penned some great books. Check out his novel, Day of Atonement and his recent non-fiction book, A Greedy Man in a Hungry World.  His books are not only well written, but very funny. The books are not just funny for the sake of being funny, but because he sweats it out of every pore: he just can’t help it.

Like Jay, Marc Bassett, the central protagonist of The Apologist, is a food critic. When one chef kill’s himself after a particular damning review, Marc starts to feel remorse and realizes that the only thing he can possibly do is apologise to the chef’s wife. So good does he feel after the apology, that he sets about apologizing to all those that he’s wronged in life. The government gets wind of his sorrowful activities when a video of his apology to an ex-girlfriend goes viral and then they ask him to help them. Can he apologise for all of the wrongs every government has ever committed? Will that apologising help governments and wronged people heal long-held rifts? Can he transfer those skills into the corporate sector?

Originally written in 2004 long before YouTube is what it is today, and the spate of atrocities governments have been accepting culpability for, Jay’s book is not only very comical, but a biting satire of 21^st century society. Re-released by the literary agency, Curtis Brown’s first imprint Studio 28, this book is not only prescient in its understanding of social media and what governments and corporation politics will become, it also signals a new age in publishing, one where agents can now act as publishers. Hurray for Curtis Brown, for Jay and The Apologist. I’m not sorry I bought this book, nor will you be! A truly excellent read.

Byte the Book member Lisa Edwards has just come back from her first Sharjah Book Fair, here are her thoughts on the conference...

I came to Sharjah not quite knowing what to expect, not least because it was my first experience of the United Arab Emirates, but also of its book fair, emerging from the shimmering desert landscape as one of the shining lights in the publishing calendar, being the fourth biggest in the world.

At the opening ceremony, the ruler of Sharjah, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qassimi, gave an impassioned speech about the importance of reading and knowledge to a civilised society. His poetic lyrical phrasing, not lost in translation, lent the occasion an epic air, especially as he recounted the story of his exchanging his gold dagger for books as a young man. He and his daughter, Sheikha Badoor, are championing their 'smiling emirate' as a centre for the arts and culture, and the region is rich with museums and cultural activity.

Before the opening of the book fair, I'd been invited to attend the Sharjah Professional Programme, with its series of seminars, matchmaking and social events. Richard Charkin, Executive Director of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC and President of the International Publishers' Association marked his keynote address with a reference to the bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love: as publishers we 'eat' (we did, extensively, due to the hospitality of the Sheikh), we 'pray' for success, and we 'love' what we do.

I attended a series of informative seminars, including Translated Books and the Global View of Sales in which Simon & Schuster's Seth Russo outlined the rise of a multilingual community and the increase in the popularity and connectivity of authors on social media. Amir Mohammed, of Malaysia's Buku Fixi, talked animatedly about his foray into Malaysian translations of big names such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and John Green (because his language is three times longer than English, he has to buy rights to titles with limited extents!).

A seminar on new publishing models saw Penguin Random House's Nathan Hull talk on subscription models and advertising within ebooks (as they are doing in China). The panel recognised that the much-vaunted 'Spotify model' doesn't work for books – an eight-hour read is very different to a three-minute song. Authors and publishers may find themselves adapting in other ways to the subscription format, and we may see more short-form reading.

Hull and other panellists such as agent Lisa Gallagher recognised that consumers read both physically and digitally – should publishers be working on bundling as a solution to that demand? Vodafone Egypt's Ashraf Maklad talked about the rates of piracy in Egypt and the Middle East – currently one of the region's biggest challenges, and centred around young-adult fiction. He remarked that self-publishing is huge in the region – it's the 'American Idol' of the Arab world.

John Ingram, Chairman of Ingram Industries Inc, spoke of the emergence of print-on-demand as a digital 'platform' back to the physical book, and whilst the rate of ebook sales had flattened, POD still continues to grow, with Lightning Source producing 80,000 titles in the last year, with same- or next-day delivery capability.

“The world is a big place,” he said, “but digital makes it smaller.”

While out at the Sharjah Book Fair I was invited to a press conference with the guest of honour, Dan Brown.

Given he’s got such a big brand, I asked him if he’d think about self-publishing. “No,” he said simply; he’s got a great team around him, and he knows what it is to self promote. Da Vinci Code was a huge success, but that was his fourth book, and the others didn’t do so well initially. For the first books, he had to tout them around himself, taking out adverts at his own expense, arrange his own radio interviews, selling books out the back of his car, and sometimes when he’d set up events, there would be only one person waiting in the audience.

Team Dan Brown, from left to right, Agent, Heide Lange (Greenberger Associates), Dan Brown and Editor, Bill Scott-Kerr (Random House)

We asked him about his writing practice: did he write while on tour? Well, he got up at 4am every day at home and did that here too. In the same way that he tries to exercise every day, he also makes sure he writes everyday. If he came home from this two week book tour (he’s going out to India after Sharjah to give the Penguin lecture) and hadn’t written, he’d get out of the habit of it, and forget how to do it. Like playing the violin, one needs to practice every day.

What about the work of writing, does he edit as he goes along, or just write forward? No, he edits as he goes. He said his wife Blythe is his first reader, but she doesn’t get to see anything until the fifth draft at least. He wrote a hundred page outline for the Da Vinci Code, and for The Inferno he wrote the ending first.

How does he feel about technology? Digital books are great at helping authors and publishers connect with readers and he likes them for that, but he’s a huge fan of bookstores and was blown away by the branch of Kinokuniya in Dubai, the biggest bookstore in the world.

When he writes, he goes offline. He writes from 4am to 12pm every day. He may later go online for research (finding menus and working out what museums he needs to visit in the world), but he finds technology a huge distraction. He doesn’t run his own social media, but might send in some photographs from his travels that’ll get used. But generally he thinks that technology is an addiction. I asked him if he thought that writing was an addiction for him. No, he said, given his New-England-Puritan-Prep-School background, he just feels guilty it if he doesn’t write every day.

Post press conference, from left to right, Roger Tagholm (Publishing Perspectives), Justine Solomons (Byte the Book), Dan Brown, Liz Thomson (Book Brunch), Louisa Ermelino (Publishing News) and Lisa Campbell (The Bookseller)

We were also interested in how it was to get used to his fame. He said he had to get used to the fans and the publicity initially, and after Da Vinci Code did so well, he became self conscious thinking that what he wrote would now be read by millions of people (the print-run for advance copies of Da Vinci Code was ten thousand books, more than he sold in total for all his other books), but then he got over himself and just wrote the books he wanted to read. That said, he’s still just a writer and faces the blank page each day like every other writer and just needs to write.

That's the abiding impression I have of Brown, success has come later in his career, and he got there through sheer hard work.

Words by Chris Russell, photos by Daniel Solomons.

Byte The Book’s October event was chaired by Sally Foote of FEB Digital who, in her introduction, instantly set the tone for the evening: “Working with brands has, in the past, been seen as a little slutty… let’s see if we can dispel that myth.”

Justine Solomons thanks October sponsors, Marina Cheal and Mark Wilson of Cronycle  (the man in the grey shirt and the woman in the patterned dress beside him on the front row).

Sally was joined by Anthony Swede of Walker Media, Rosie Wolfendon of jewellery company Tatty Devine, Sive Hughes from Eurostar and Emmy award-winning games designer and writer Charles Kriel. Anthony began by laying out one of the cardinal rules of brand-endorsed content: it must add value to the customers’ lives. If customers can get what they want elsewhere then, given the “oceans of content” already on the market, they will. Rosie echoed this point, explaining that Tatty Devine - who have a rich history of collaborating with bands and authors - will only form a partnership if they truly believe that it will “bring something new to the world”

Sally Foote (chair) introduces the panel Charles Kriel (leaning forwards), Sive Hughes, Rosie Wolfenden MBE and Anthony Swede. 

Sive Hughes, who has recently been involved with launching Eurostar’s in-seat passenger “infotainment”, outlined the importance of ensuring brand-delivered content is directly relevant to the audience in question and, especially if digital, precise and attention-grabbing. Charles Kriel expanded on this theme, stating that content not only needs to be unique, it must also honour the values of the brand and move it forward to some degree. He suggested that someone on the team (whether it’s the writer or the client) needs to have an “instinct for audience”, because one cannot rely on strategy alone when it comes to connecting with consumers. An understanding of culture is, arguably, far more important.

The Club at the Ivy was full to capacity again

There was a general feeling that the idea of brand collaboration being somehow unsavoury was rather outdated. As Anthony put it, “it’s not always a deal with the devil”, and in fact the younger generation in particular hardly bat an eyelid at brand-endorsed content - if the quality’s good, they’ll embrace it. However, he did warn that writers must ensure they pick the right clients to partner with, so as not to damage their public image.

The panel in full flow, Anthony in deep thought, Sive on the mike and Rosie listening while sporting one of her fabulous Tatty Devine 'art necklaces'.

The subject of music also came up, as it often does, with Anthony exploring the ways in which music artists are currently an “easier sell” to brands than authors (Rosie told the story of Tatty Devine’s collaboration with a band called Chicks On Speed, where they created bespoke plectrum necklaces to be sold at gigs and, in doing so, accessed a whole new audience). Brands like sexiness, suggested Anthony, adding, with a twinkle in his eye: “Perhaps publishing needs a few more rockstars…”.

Anthony espousing his wisdom and the audience twittering away

Finally, on being asked how he strikes a balance between brand collaboration, revenue creation and artistic expression, Charles left pretty much everyone in the room with a big smile on their face when he concluded: “The more I follow my heart, the more money I make”. And it has to be said, publishing sound-bytes don’t come much better than that.

If you enjoyed this report and want to keep up with the latest happenings in publishing as well as network with publishers and authors alike join us at The Club at The Ivy on Monday 10th November  2014  - it's our last event of the year!

Click here for some more official photos of the event.

Marina Cheal the MD at Cronycle , the sponsors of our October Byte the Book event looking at how publishers and authors working with brands, has put together a collection specifically related to last night's discussion, here's some more information from her.... 

It was a pleasure to sponsor bytethebook and meet you all last night. We are very interested in supporting publishers and brands connect and promote their content and Cronycle is a wonderful platform to do so, starting with how it can help you manage your own content feeds. To get started follow this link to a collection that I have made on the subject of Brands and content and create your personal account for free.

http://cron.link/jtbNwkc

Byte the Book's founder, Justine Solomons, is speaking at the Inside Out Festival this Wednesday 22nd October, please do come along if you're in town. Here are some more details:

Inside Out Festival 2014

This year’s Inside Out Festival, curated and produced by The Culture Capital Exchange (TCCE) in association with Times Higher Education, returns with a characteristically sagacious and diverse mix of debates, performances, walks, talks, symposiums, screenings, and exhibitions, inviting the curious and inquisitive to immerse themselves in a rich cultural programme created in collaboration with 11 London universities. The festival runs from Monday 20 through to Sunday 26 October with most events completely free.

Follow us: Twitter / Facebook #IOFestival2014

Inside Out Festival presets Getting Your Book Noticed Online

The advent of social media and new technology has had a huge impact on how books are marketed.  So what are the best ways for an author to get their book noticed today? And what lessons can be learnt from the phenomenal rise of the professional self-published author? Join PR and Social Media Guru Chris McCrudden (Midas PR), Justine Solomons, Founder of Bytethebook and all-round expert on the publishing industry, and acclaimed novelist and commentator Polly Courtney, for a lively panel discussion, chaired by Emily Pedder, Course Director The Novel Studio, City University London. Refreshments: Glass of wine/soft drink afterwards.

Date&Time: Wed 22 October 2014, 6.30pm - 7.30pm

Ticket details:   £10 per ticket. Book here: http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2014/oct/getting-your-book-noticed-online

Address: City University London, College Building, St John Street, London EC1V 4PB

Link to website:  www.insideoutfestival.org.uk/2014/events/getting-your-book-noticed-online

John Pettigrew of FutureProofs urges you all to **Adapt to survive** we reckon he's got a point. Here's what he says:

We're living in one of the most exciting times in the history of publishing, we're told, but that history is replete with these times of transition: the invention of the printing press; stereotype; paperbacks; desktop publishing. Each time, the industry wailed about 'the end of publishing' and longed for the old days of the status quo.

But every time, we won through and survived. The books and stories were still there, often in even greater number than before. The profits were still there, often being taken by new players who had learned the new ways more quickly than the others. In the process, the industry itself has always changed.

*Pressure*

In my own experience, editorial and production teams are being asked to publish more books, more quickly, in more formats, with smaller teams and for less money. And this can’t go on for ever.

However, when we talk about innovation, it’s rare to hear people focus on tools, systems and workflows. We prefer the sexy new thing, whether that’s smartphone apps, tablet interfaces or wearable devices. But I believe that one of the most important things we should be doing as an industry is looking at how we currently do our jobs, and looking for better solutions.

*Change*

This problem annoyed me for years, as I ran editorial teams desperately trying to respond to the demands being placed on them by the business. As a result, I've spent the past year and a half working on Futureproofs, a platform to help publishing teams work more effectively on screen.

We focus on the proofing stage - when a team that's often spread around the world needs to work closely together to ensure the quality of the final product. So, as well as providing powerful but straightforward markup, we also support real-time collaboration, we report live data and we deliver it all through your web browser.

*Survival*

The point is that there’s no good reason for human beings to adapt their behaviour to the software. What we should be trying to do is to adapt our software to the needs and desires of the human beings we serve. There’s no reason for your job to become simply feeding the machine.

Because, after all, we’re facing the death of publishing - again. We’ve got new competitors squeezing us out of profitable sectors. Our environment itself is shifting, with the easy food being stolen by both small and nimble mammals and gigantic behemoths lumbering in from entirely different areas.

Publishing may be a dinosaur but, don't forget, the dinosaurs survived for so long because they were superbly adapted to their environment. And, despite popular opinion, they’re still with us. They just changed, learned new tricks and became hugely successful once again – as birds.

So, yes, search for new products, new customers and new ways of reaching them. But don’t let your vital skills die by neglect (or deliberate sacrifice) unless you’re very sure that you’ve already developed the new skills to replace them. Otherwise, you've got nothing that really merits survival at all.

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John Pettigrew is CEO and Founder of a startup that has just launched Futureproofs (http://www.WeAreFutureproofs.com) to try and make editors' lives better. He is a recovering editor, hat wearer and frequent tweeter (@john_pettigrew).

Do you feel as though you just need to get away with from it all, with your manuscript and a room of your own? Check out this gorgeous house out in Coimbra, Portugal, (nearest airport Porto). It's on AirBnB for £233  a week and £362 a month, but the owner is offering special rates for authors. So just get in touch for a 10% discount (or even for more longer stays) and quote ByteTheBook. You can reach them via marieclaireb@gmail.com

Words by Chris Russell, photos by Daniel Solomons.

The Ivy was packed to the rafters for September’s Byte The Book, which brought together Andrew Davies (Publisher at Immediate Media), Martin Spear (Reprints Controller at Osprey Books), Laila Dickson (Key Accounts Manager at Scholastic) and Maggie Calmels (Creative Global Development Director at Eaglemoss) to discuss the role of print in the industry today.

Justine Solomons thanks September sponsor, David Birkett of Print on Demand Worldwide  (sitting in the brown suit on the front row).

Carlton’s Lisa Edwards, who was chairing the debate, opened the floor by pointing out that 70% of publishing sales are still in the print arena, and it therefore wasn’t the dinosaur it’s sometimes made out to be. Andrew Davies agreed, revealing that the vast majority of his company’s income still comes from products you can actually hold in your hands. That said, he added that Immediate Media - formerly BBC Magazines, the name behind major consumer magazines such as Radio Times and Good Food - are always looking for innovative routes into the digital market, viewing digital as an important and potentially lucrative extension of their existing print brands. Maggie Calmels echoed this sentiment, explaining that for Eaglemoss, digital content is often complementary to a product, as opposed to constituting the product itself.

The panel from right to left, Lisa Edwards (chair), Laila Dickson, Andrew Davies, Maggie Calmels and Martin Spear.

Martin Spear spoke at length about print on demand - affectionately known as “POD” - confirming that Osprey are currently in the process of “podifying” all their paperback titles. He enthused about the liberating potential of POD, which not only releases capital that used to be tied up in unnecessarily large amounts of stock, but also frees up the sales team, who previously would have spent much of their time head-scratching about how to sell the remaining 450 copies of a book that had only shifted 50 units. Staff can suddenly devote themselves to more forward-facing activities, which is of course beneficial for everyone. Martin also highlighted the fact that, though it was once seen as little more than “glorified photocopying”, the technology behind POD has advanced so much in the past decade that its quality is almost indistinguishable from traditional print runs.

Partworks, bookazines, special sales and POD, loads of different types of print shown by the panel

Laila Dickson drew attention to the enormous importance of the collector’s market, and of continuing to create products for the discerning, high-end consumer (Scholastic, she said, have had huge success with deluxe products). More emphasis should be placed on design, concurred Martin, because if print products are aesthetically stunning, their value in relation to digital content will be all the more obvious.

Some of the Publishing Twitterati

So what exactly is the future for print? Maggie spoke of the growing tendency for things to come back out of digital and into print - bloggers and vloggers becoming authors, for instance, which is a major trend at the moment. Andrew reflected that “we work in a creative industry, and we are here to innovate”, specifically recommending collaboration between book publishers and magazine publishers: “It’s always a good thing and there should be more of it!”. Martin added, rather encouragingly, that one of the major benefits of POD is its ability to resurrect dead books, giving publishers the opportunity to revitalise their back-lists with minimal financial risk.

Lisa Edwards expertly chairs, all listen rapt

Finally, Laila summed up the mood in the room when she concluded: “We are an adaptable industry. Ten years ago everyone said we were buried... but we’re fine. I’m very positive about the future”.

If you enjoyed this report  and want to keep up with the latest happenings in publishing as well as network with publishers and authors alike join us at The Club at The Ivy on Monday 20th October  2014 .

Click here for more of the official photos of the event.