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Just noticed another mention for our Independent initiative, looking to build stronger partnerships between independent publishers and independent bookshops.
See story in Bookbrunch - the online publishing news and comment site launched towards the end of last year by Nicholas Clee and Liz Thompson, both experienced trade journalists.
Looking forward to a great and memorable 2009 for the initiative and building historic independent relationships!
Tom
MERRY CHRISTMAS from Lucy, Tom and Lauren
Christmas Song of the Year: We wish you a Merry Christmas!
Christmas tip of the day: Prepare your vegetables tonight to save time tomorrow!
Company best bits of the year: We have enjoyed lots of events at the Phoenix Artists Club on Charing Cross Rd this year including Nick Griffiths two launches for In the Footsteps of Harrison Dextrose and Who Goes There and also a Legend Press and Paperbooks evening. Always friendly the bar's manager Maurice always welcomes us with open arms!
Lucy
It was great to see this morning another story on the Independent Initiative we recently launched, given a report in The Bookseller here
The books are now in the shops on this first trial run - the project is aimed at increasing business between the small independents and independent bookshops - and we have our fingers crossed that they've going to go down a storm. It may just be coincidence but we received a big order yesterday for one of those from Paperbooks that were chosen by our fantastic panel (consisting of The Book Depository, independent booksellers, publishers, book group experts and from now librarians as well)...
We really hope this monthly selection prove just the tonic for a time where I've watched the news this morning and heard about bankruptcy, hospital illness and levels of salt in your Christmas dinner - but forget all that for now anyway, it's Christmas! (as Noddy Holder once said).
Here's to an exciting next year and onwards for the great project (and special thanks to our own Lauren for running it so successfully).
Tom
Christmas Song of the Day: Good King Wenceslas
Christmas tip of the Day: It's time to start wrapping your presents!
Company best bits of the Year: This year I have enjoyed organising the Exclusively Independent Initiative to promote books from Independent publishers in independent bookshops. We organised an independent panel of 5 people and selected 9 titles to be promoted this month in shops across London. It is great to see the books on display and we are looking forward to choosing the January titles!
Lauren
Christmas Song of the Day: Once in Royal David's City
Christmas tip of the Day: Follow a star!
Company best bits of the Year: We have organised lots of successful events this year including the Small Press Fair on Tom's London home turf Stoke Newington! The event included several independent along with Legend Press and Paperbooks including Pluto Press, Maia, Picnic Publishing and Only Women Press. Despite the rain lots of people came to the event, even author Nick Griffiths popped in for a brief while and signed copies of Harrison Dextrose and Who Goes There!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Fairytale of New York
Christmas tip of the Day: Sit by a nice warm tinselled fireplace!
Company Best bits of the year: This year has been a great year for rights including our first US deal with Soho Press for The Well-Tempered Clavier by William Coles, which will be published next year under the title 'The Prelude'. We also signed our first German deal with Random House Germany for Salt and Honey by Candi Miller.
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Last Christmas
Christmas tip of the day: Maniacally go shopping for presents!
Company best bits of the year: One of the best bits of the year was getting regional praise for two of our books this year. Silence by Josie Henley-Einion was named Waterstone's Welsh book of the month for August and A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl was named Irish Bookcentre book of the month. Next year we are going for English and Scottish!
Lucy
Christmas song of the Day: Santa Claus is coming to town
Christmas tip of the Day: Around now is a reasonable time to put those Christmas lights up on the outside of the house...not too early, not too late
Company best bit of the year: Over the year we've had quite a few people on work experience placements with us. With placements varying in length, some have spent a couple or more weeks. With loads going on each week I'm sure no one has been short of a task or two to do! The help has been greatly appreciated and hopefully all those involved felt their time spent worthwhile! So a big thank you to all those who helped out.
Lauren
Christmas is here and the Exclusively Independent titles are in the shops just in time!! The panel, consisting of Tom and myself, Irene from Book Group, Steve from The Book Depository and Roy from Dulwich Bookshop have selected the following titles:
- Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore by Paperbooks
- Black President by Picnic
- Bone Breaker by Mokee Jo Promotions
- Give me a Sign and How we were Lost by Flame Books
- Good to be God and Salmonella Men on Planet Porno by Alma
- Slow Food Story by Pluto
and Three Jumpers by Paperbooks.
These are the titles chosen for the first cycle of Exclusively Independent, with even more variety to take place in shops next month. The project is initially throughout a selection of London based shops.
These include: Dulwich Bookshop, Eastside Bookshop, Housmans, Bolingbroke bookshop, Bookseller Crow on the Hill, Primrose Hill bookshop and Peckham Review.
So many different publishers submitted, ranging from travel books to childrens titles, so next month keep an eye out for even more variety, in even more shops. Plus, we are collaborating with London Libraries including having a Librarian on the panel.
So visit the shops and see Exclusively Independent taking pride of place!
Lauren
Christmas song of the Day: Mary's Boy Child
Christmas tip of the day: Make a Blue Peter Advent Crown!
Company best bits of the year: 2008 must be the year of heavy lifting at Legend Press and Paperbooks Towers with all the post and boxes going in and out of the office! We are indeed single handedly keeping the Royal Mail in business! This coupled with the almighty move of the office across the road earlier on in the year have lead to larger muscles for all! Tom is even entering himself for the World's Strongest Man after a couple of carrying incidents that almost left him in tears!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: O Little Town of Bethlehem
Christmas tip of the day: Order all your Christmas gifts on our fantastic online shops!
Company Best bits of the year: This year we have been spending lots of time developing the company websites including redesigning the Paperbooks site and expanding the online shops. This is a result of many painful hours of writing and editing html and much brain-ache! Thankfully all our work has paid off with hundreds of people visiting the site everyday, so keep reading to make all the hard work worthwhile!!!!!!!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Silent Night
Christmas tip of the Day: It's time to finish writing your Christmas cards - Thursday is the last day for second class stamps.
Company best bits of the year: One of the exciting moments of the year was Salt and Honey by Candi Miller being listed in the World book Day top 10 must-reads earlier this year. This was really exciting news for such a brilliant book, with the book promoted in stores nationwide. Candi has continued to publicise the book this year with various events and readings.
Lucy
Christmas song of the day - Long Haired Lover from Liverpool, Little Jimmy Osmond (Christmas no.1 1972)
Christmas tip of the day - from ivillage.co.uk: 'I buy my crackers just after Christmas when they are all reduced, and usually get a couple of really nice boxes of luxury ones dirt-cheap. I then put them away with my Christmas decorations for use the following year. The same also works with tableware (papercloths, napkins etc).'
Company best bits of the year: The launches. With the quick increase in number of titles for Legend Press and Paperbooks, the book launches seem to have started cropping up continuously rather than being prepared for over time (hence even faster rushing around to cover anything that may have gone wrong/been forgotten etc). They are always fantastic celebratory nights and a great chance to spend time with the author, see their reaction to their words in sparkling print and to savour momentarily all the work that has gone into getting each book on the shelves. Here's to hopefully many more book launches to come!
Tom
Christmas Song of the Day - Fairytale in New York (well, it was all becoming a bit too cheesy...)
Christmas Tip of the Day - don't add sedatives to the mince pies to ensure Santa is still there on Christmas morning. It can lead to family arguments.
Company best bits of the year - a general one: the media coverage which has been generated. Mainly through the hard work of Emma initially and then Lucy we have managed to secure coverage of our books in virtually all the national papers over the last year, in addition to across a whole range of new and exciting sources. We've also appreciated all the coverage we've received in the trade press for our work and were also excited to be included in a number of lists for books, publisher and business. I have been very lucky to have such geniuses to work with (it's why I put up with them! Only joking of course.)
Tom
Picture source: http://elise.com/recipes/archives/004212how_to_make_a_gingerbread_house.php
Christmas song of the day: Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
Christmas tip of the day: Organise a Christmas party or just go to someone elses if you can't be bothered!
Company best bits of the year: This one happened very recently, but it is great example of a Legend-ism or even a Lauren or Lucy-ism. The other day we were discussing famous ginger people (mainly trying to decide who would play us in a movie of our lives) and Tom searched on the internet and came up with a number including Lenin... to which the normally super-astute Lauren replied 'what one of the Beatles?'
Lucy
Christmas song of the day: Away in a Manger
Christmas tip of the day: Time to seriously start thinking about Christmas pressies- Only two weeks to go!
Company best bit of the year: For the first six months of the year, all of our titles had front of shop promotion in a selection of high street stores including Waterstones and Borders. This meant great publicity for the titles and (hopefully) increased sales! What with all of the radio interviews and reviews we've had for the second half of the year, expect publicity to be bigger and better in the new year!
Lauren
Christmas song of the day: Fairy on top of the Christmas tree
Christmas tip of the day: Buy a fairy for on top of your christmas tree
Company best bit of the year: One of the revelations of the year was Tom finally learning how to dress. A couple of months ago Tom invested in a pair of jeans that don't have holes in them. He also invested in a new winter coat, which we were impressed by until we actually saw it and realised itwas three sizes too big and second-hand!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the day: In the Bleak Midwinter!
Christmas tip of the day: Watch a Christmas film... my favourite is Miracle on 34th Street!
Company best bits of the year: This year we have been doing lots of events with libraries across the UK to promote ur books. These include two talks by Mo Foster at libraries in the Kensington area, Candi Miller in Walsall and Wolverhampton, Nick taking part in a bizarre Doctor Who day at Ealing Library and a series of Legend Press group author events as well. We are also working with London Libraries to promote our ReadGeneration and Exclusively Independent campaigns.
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Christmas Time Mistletoe and Wine!
Christmas Tip of the Day: Find a group of carol singers and try to stay and listen to at least one song!
Company best bit of the year: One of the highlights of the year was the success of the first Luke Bitmead Writer's Bursary that was awarded to author Andrew Blackman in July. Andrew will be publishing his debut novel 'On the Holloway Road' with Legend Press at the end of February. It was really exciting to read the work of so many brilliant writers who entered for the bursary. The winner was chosen by Luke's mother and sister (Elaine and Tiffany), Legend Press and best-selling authors Sam Mills and Zoe Jenny.
Lucy
In Dependence by Sarah Ladipo Manyika has received an excellent review on www.obodo-oyinbo.co.uk from playwright and producer Bisi Adigun. Below is a taster:
"While the central theme of the novel is what might have been if Tayo had succeeded in marrying Vanessa, the love of his life, one would be doing this enthralling novel a disservice to describe it as a Romance. Like a well-cooked Nigerian stew that contains orisirisi (assorted meat), this easy-to-read novel has a bit of everything that makes it difficult to put down once you pick it up.
Firstly, it is a fine blend of fiction and historical events. Then it is proportionally peppered with sociology, anthropology, philosophy, politics, history, world literature and current affairs. And although it is written mainly in impeccable English, the novel's linguistic ingredients include Pidgin, Wolof, Yoruba, Latin, French and Hausa. And if you are a reader that loves travelling, be prepared to have a taste of Nigeria, Senegal, France, England and San Francisco. The novel is also skilfully spiced up with lots of interesting letters between Tayo and his Dad and subsequently between him and Vanessa."
Read the review in full by clicking here! There is also an interesting interview with Sarah on the website click here!
Lucy
Gary Davison author of Fat Tuesday published by Paperbooks has written a glowing review of White Summer by Luke Bitmead on his blog http://gary-davison.com:
"Guy Chamberlain is twenty-something -years -old, has had an extremely privileged up bringing, and is in a dead-end job at a travel agents. He drinks, he gets hung-over, he struggles through to lunch time and goes to the Crown to knock the edge off, and parties, knocks the edge off at The Crown, and all-in-all he’s having a good time of it until he falls for the gorgeous Daisy. From here on in, his love life spirals out of control, and when he gets it on with Daisy, as well as the big breasted Kathy, his sister’s best mate, and ends up in bed with Kate from the office, his summer really does heat up. Here’re a couple of snippets of his wicked humour. The plaster, like a stripper’s stocking, came of painfully slowly…. At the end of the night, my hormone levels were so high that I looked like a glow stick in a shirt… It was Saturday night. I was drunker than a poet who hasn’t eaten for days and had chased a bottle of Absinthe with Meths… Luke Bitmead has the knack of pulling one liners off like no one else I’ve read before. Most of which you would have heard before, except he is cool with it. He does it unashamed and it works a treat. The biggest trouble I had with this book was putting it down. It was a scream, and I recommend it those who like a laugh. Ratings Sex – any amount – in the author’s words ‘ my nob was red raw’ Violence – none. Drugs - none Alcohol – everything you can think of especially Stella, whisky, vodka Comedy – laugh a minute stuff. Writing style – easy to read bordering on man-lit Overall – 4 out 5, I loved it."
Christmas Song of the Day: Have yourself a merry little Christmas!
Christmas tip: find the most ridiculously lit building near you to give you that Christmas feeling!
Company best bits of the year: One of the exciting advances of this year was creating publishing partnerships with a number of publishers including YouWriteOn, Picnic Publishing and Kingston University Press. We also have a joint venture with the Shashoua Fund and will be publishing our first of series of business books together in 2009.
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Santa Claus is coming to Town
Christmas tip of the day: Have a warm glass of mulled wine...preferably by a fire!
Company best bit of the year: It has been a year of office conspiricies and debates... from the serious of who should be the new mayor of London, to the stupid... who should win the Apprentice. Tom's sometimes worrying adoration of Raef (which if I remember rightly promoted a photo on the blog) brought the office to a near stand-still for a few minutes when he realised he had been kicked out. Other funny conspiricies include Lauren and I not understanding how they get meat into crisps... we are still puzzled!
Lucy
Christmas song of the day: All I want for Christmas is you (Lauren's choice!)
Christmas tip of the day: hang your Christmas wreath on your front door
Company best bits of the year: This year we published our first non-fiction title 'Who Goes There' by Nick Griffiths in October. The book has been getting lots of publicity with Nick doing several BBC interviews, including an interview on the Radio 4 programme Excess Baggage. The book is also been featured on lots of Doctor Who and Sci-fi websites across the world.
Lucy
It was nice to find out a couple of weeks ago that I had been included in this year's Courvoisier Future 500 list - and so also listed in the supplement covering the 500 in the Observer last Sunday (thought my feet were kept on the ground by the fact the supplement appeared to have been stolen from the paper I bought. Mr no. 499, I know who you are...)
Christmas song of the day: Fairy on top of the Christmas Tree
Christmas Tip of the Day: Start thinking about buying Christmas presents... there is always the Legend Press and Paperbooks online shops!
Company best bits of the year: Legend Press and Paperbooks have been out and about on the road this year doing lots of different events. One of the most entertaining was our sales day at Eton College with William Coles, author of The Well-Tempered Clavier. It was really interesting to look around the college and meet all the pupils on their college day. The unfortunate side to the event was that it poured down with rain almost the whole day, but despite this we broke our sales record! This was probably down to Bill and Tom's charming sales technique as Lauren and I huddled over the money tin! However, the real hero of the day was Lauren's sister Lily who unwittingly got roped into helping!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the Day: Hark the Herald Angel Sing
Christmas tip of the day: It's time to make your christmas pudding, or buy it from M & S!
Company best bit of the year: One of the exciting advances of this year was Legend Press and Paperbooks beginning to be sold overseas. Our new Irish Sales Rep Geoff has been busy promoting our books across Ireland. This included getting Fire Horses promoted front of shop in Irish airports and getting A Son Called Gabriel named BookCentre Irish book of the month for November. Who Goes There by Nick Griffiths is also being promoted and sold on Doctor Who and Sci Fi sites in Australia and USA.
Lucy
Christmas song of the day: The Holly and the Ivy
Christmas tip of the day: It is time to get your Christmas tree, whether it be a real one or the traditional plastic one in the loft!
Company best bits of the year: One of the most exciting things this year was in September when we given some Arts Council funding to help us organise two innovative projects which have made headlines in the trade press. The first is a scheme called 'Exclusively Independent' that promotes the talents of Independent publishers in Independent book shops and the second 'ReadGeneration' promotes reading for 18-30 year olds (an often forgotten generation for major publishers). Lauren has been working very hard in the last few months arranging and attending events - she also gave her first ever presentation to a massive crowd in Leeds!
Lucy
Christmas Song of the day: Frosty the Snowman
Christmas Tip of the day: Wrap up warm its freezing outside!!!!!!!!!!
Company best bits of the year: Maybe not a best bit... but something we make look back and laugh about in the future (well maybe!) The heating in our new office has been broken for the last week and it is absolutely freezing! Our core body temperatures have dropped so low that we are working in hats, scarves, gloves, many jumpers...basically any woollen product we can get our hands on. I chose this picture today in the hope that the handy man will come soon and save us... hopefully the picture is a prophecy of what is to come...
Lucy
An interview with Nick Griffiths has been published on the Sci Fi Channel website. Below is a taster:
SF (interviewer) I read the book and I think the standard question to ask is: So what is it, Nick, is a travel book or is it a tribute book? I thought it's a brilliant rites of passage book, because it's identifying something that you've grown up with. And I don't know whether I've read it right, but I felt that by the end of the book you were ready to move on, not from Dr Who, but from what you have been doing with it.
NG I don't know. I really wanted to write a travel book but also I love Dr Who, and the two seemed to go together perfectly when I stopped and thought about it. The idea of going round the country finding all these old places and recognising them from this amazing television show was quite compelling. But would it work as a book? So I started off by popping down to Marks and Spencer, Ealing, hoping the experience might be quite enjoyable for myself, wondering, would I just send readers to sleep while they thought what a twonk I am? But there was a real sense of recognition in Ealing, of being able to visualise back in time to when Doctor Who filmed there with the Autons, and as time went on I travelled further and further out into the country. It wasn't just the sights and sounds, but the process of getting there, going through all these amazing old English country villages. So much thatch and village greens and duck ponds. I think it was a rite of passage in terms of just me learning what a gorgeous country we have and that I should really get off my butt and see some of it.
Click here to read the interview in full
Christmas song of the day: Jingle Bells!
Christmas tip of the day: It is time to eat your first mince pie... of course assuming that you haven't already!
Company best bits of the year: One of the best moments of the year was when we acquired Paperbooks in April! It is fantastic to be working on their fantastic and broad range of titles and we have enjoyed meeting all the new authors throughout the year. One of the highlights has to be organising and attending our first Paperbooks book launch of Fat Tuesday by Gary Davison in Newcastle! Fun was had by all and Tom even let us travel first class on the train... which I am assured will never be happening again!
Lucy
