- Bookend
A strange year, 1975, in which publishers' main achievement seems to have been to publish more books than ever before. Nonetheless Bookbuyer feels impelled to give credit where credit is due by bestowing a few end-of-year awards.
The Silver Vase for Verbiage goes to the boss of Book Centre, a Mr Benjamin Winter-Goodwin, for this defiant response
to his critics: "We do not have a 'stop' or last summer. list of accounts," he announced summer. "We do have, for the benefit of our own stock control department and of publishers using our computer service, an overdue list of accounts which have exceeded the credit terms given by publishers and have therefore had supplies withheld pending settlement or agreement.'
The Cooker Prize for Fiction — worth 35,000 unsold copies of Faces of China' published by Michael Joseph — goes to Bound To Be Read, Sir Robert Lusty s publishing memoirs. Two extracts in the Bookseller brought no fewer than six letters complaining of error, and that did not include the stunned behind-the-scenes reaction to Sir Robert's version of how The Day of the Jackal came to be published. The book also contained at least one memorable misprint in its reference to Christina Foyle 7 "whom I lived and laughed with". (I think it should have been "loved".) Indeed it is to Messrs Foyles that the Bouquet for Best Bookseller must go. S° enthusiastic were the staff of Foyles Book Club that they set about advertising a cheap club edition of David Niven's Bring On the Empty Horses without even bothering t°
acquire book club rights. •
A consolation prize of one column ineh should go to Rosalie Swedlin, publicitY director of Michael Joseph and livewire organiser of the co-operative "Crimewave campaign for crime books earlier this autumn. Highlight of the campaign was the display material featuring a striking pistolquill motif. Ms Swedlin begged Journalists on the Bookseller to give appropriate credit to her designer Roger Hart. The journalists obliged, Mr Hart's name appeared in print, the head of a magazine group read it, and promptly offered to employ Hart at a salary which he couldn't refuse and Michael Joseph couldn't match.
Finally, I have sadly to dispose of a long-standing myth. It has always been assumed that the most frequently photographed figure in the book trade is Mr. Tommy Joy, chairman of Hatchards royal bookshop in Piccadilly. My researches reveal that this is no longer the case. The face of '75 was that of Mr. John Boon, the genial chief of Mills & Boon. His photograph appeared no less than five times in the hallowed pages of the Bookseller during the year. Runners-up were Gerald Bartlett and Peter Allsop, presidents respectively of the Booksellers and Publishers Associations showing that Aunt Sallies do get their reward after all. Of the individual publishers, Sir Billy Collins and Charles Clark .of Hutchinson also romped home (four plctures each) whilst the authors were led bY Julian Symons (three). Poor Tommy Joy only got in twice. Life, even in a hopefully Happy New Year, will not be the same again
Bookbuyer
Previous page
