Eoin Purcell's Blog

Eoin Purcell

Probably*
Just reading a rather nice review of 2007 from the lovely people at Fidra Books who I have been admiring from afar for some time (Blog is here and main publishing page here):

At no point did I say that I wanted us to buy a shop and open a bookshop or start developing a trade list but those are by far the biggest developments in our business.

Excellent progress I thought as I read and got excited about how well they would do with their list when it cam out packaged the right way. And then I read this:

The other thing that had a huge effect on Fidra was an email from Scott Pack asking why our books weren’t in more bookshops and Susan Hill pointing out that we should be pursuing a wider range of readers than the collectors who made up the main body of our customers.

Thanks to their well timed prodding our books are now available via Gardners to any bookshop that has an account and we’ve seen sales rise through outlets who wouldn’t have otherwise stocked our titles. Scott agreed with me that the ‘retro’ look of our books wouldn’t endear them to mainstream booksellers and we hatched a plan which will come to fruition later this year to repackage some of our bestselling titles in a contemporary format and launch them as a trade list to be sold into more bookshops. It’s all very exciting and when I saw the drafts for the cover designs that the lovely people at Snowbooks are creating for us I was really excited – I’m looking forward to being able to unveil them here soon.

I am delighted to see this kind of encouragement and engagement between independents. It just makes sense, long may it last. Scott seems very eager to share his expertise and that is very refreshing and exciting, especially when he has his own company to think about. Not to mention his busy blog.

Enjoying the season,
Eoin

*Contested only by the lovely people at Snowbooks of course

Eoin Purcell

The assassination doesn’t stop commerce it seems:

BOOK publisher HarperCollins, which just received the manuscript for Benazir Bhutto’s upcoming book, is now moving quickly to get it on the shelves by February following yesterday’s assassination of the former Pakistani prime minister.

Source: The New York Post

Long sentences alert!
In what is rapidly becoming a tradition Blathnaid and I bake a mountain of mince pies from scratch (including making our very own mince meat). This year we threw in some gingerbread men (and women, not to mention children), sugar cookies, macaroons, pecan fingers and in spite of my bad handling of the cooking of them, some rather fabulous florentines.

This year also took some nice pictures! Hope you enjoy them.

Full of festive spirit,
Eoin

Back in the new year with thoughts on e-books, kindle, the Irish trade and Black Swans!

Eoin Purcell

The best of the season to all.
I’ll kick back into gear in the new year.

Eoin

Eoin Purcell

I wrote a little while ago about how well Anne Enright is selling here
And how bad here reception was in the UK (She gets dissed again here). I though, it being the season of good cheer, that I’d update again and the result is stunning. Enright has sold some 34,000 books and generated over €500,000 in sales.

But what does that mean?
Well it means this: if The Gathering sells like it has been selling for the last week of Christmas (and why shouldn’t it?), it will be number five on the bestseller list for the year. These rankings are tentative but have a look.

1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K Rowling
2) The Official Driver Theory Test
3) The Secret – Rhonda Byrne
4) The Interpretation of Murder – Jed Rubenfeld*
5) The Gathering – Enright, Anne

There is a slight chance that Enright’s book will surpass Rubenfeld but I suspect it won’t (watch me be proven incorrect). All in all a stunning performance and one that I think means people found it a good read. After all, The Booker can only do so much for sales and after that it comes down to recommendations, word of mouth and book clubs.

Trying to be Christmassy (it was so much easier in Chicago with 8 inches of snow)
Eoin

* I find this one fascinating> I want to do a little digging but this hasn’t attracted as much attention as its sales would suggest. Though to be fair, neither have The Secret or The Official Driver Theory Test.

Eoin Purcell

It seems Amazon have bough the JK Rowling book for a truly exceptional sum. They have posted images of the book online here

The story on Bloomberg here and The Bookseller here

Pretty stunning news
Eoin

Eoin Purcell

Terry Pratchett diagnosed with rare form of Alzheimer’s

Just terrible news. But he seems to be taking it well:

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I
expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet )

Unsettled
Eoin

Hat-tip to Mediabistro

Eoin Purcell

If you are the bah humbug type* this post will annoy you
With only 14 shopping days left till Christmas I thought it might be nice to supply a few of my recommended books (With legitimate exceptions) for all. Listed in order of enjoyment/recently enjoyed by my count and expected enjoyment for others (a complicated logarithm I think you’ll agree) I have included extra information and buying links**:

1) HIDDEN DUBLIN: DEADBEATS, DOSSERS & DECENT SKINS (Frank Hopkins): As I have mentioned before I love history and Dublin history is so full of curious incidents, accidents, figures and characters that it makes for fascinating reading.
Buy it HERE

2) COOKING WITH BOOZE (The Right Hon. George Harvey Bone, Esq.): I like cooking an awful lot and GHB makes it fun too. Check out the videos he has made covering some of the wonderful recipes.
Buy it HERE

3) THE LOOKING GLASS WAR (John Le Carré): This is my first Le Carré though, as you will see below, I am already a fan by TV series. I will be buying more for sure. I loved this book. Tense, exciting, human and all the time terribly real, this book turned out to be so much more than I expected.
Buy it HERE

4) TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY: The BBC has one of the finest back catalogues known to TV and this is one of the best. A spy thriller about spying on spies, with one of the scariest good guys of all time George Smiley (Played wonderfully by Alec Guinness) a man who seems harmless on the surface but has a deep steeliness to him. I am looking forward to reading the book but as I have only watched the series that is what I will recommend.
Buy it HERE

5) THE REMINDER by Feist (Music): The news that Feist has been nominated for four Grammy’s didn’t surprise me much. I have become slightly obsessed by this Canadian singer. Quite frankly she is fabulous, perhaps not as good as Final Fantasy but certainly more accessible.
Buy it HERE
And watch this:

Five quality number I think you will agree. Oh and I think it’s time for the Christmas theme!
Eoin

*(Perfectly reasonable I think sometimes)
**(As I have no associates accounts or anything like that there is no value to me if you use the buying links or choose not to, I’m just putting them there for convenience)

Eoin Purcell

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting comment on the Reuters/IHT deal which was announced today. Cannot help but think that this is one of those Love it or Hate it Deals.
Here

A very nice review of one of my favourite authors, Philip Reeve (of The Mortal Engines Quartet)
Here

Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 has a nice piece on value of print in the changing environment.
Here

Personnondata almost strikes me (almost) dumb with a great “view from a distance” piece on Kindle.
Here

So much to read, so little time. Read this and felt worse.
Eoin

Eoin Purcell

I’m in the US and A for a little holiday.

Specifically in EVANSTON, a lovely town in Illinois. Looking forward to Amaranth books, Barnes and Noble, Borders and all the rest. Back in December. Blogging will be very very light.

My first Irish column in The Bookseller is on the International Page of the 30/11/2007 edition.

Relaxing,
Eoin