A Vintage Birthday

Posted on July 2, 2006 in Uncategorized

Note from Web-Editor: While all publishers celebrate anniversaries, and although last year Penguin’s 70th inevitably eclipsed Vintage’s 15th, we couldn’t help but be impressed at the energy and imagination with which the latter conducted the celebration of its comparatively tender years. This included the repackaging of fifteen backlist titles and branding them as Vintage Future Classics in a national marketing campaign.

The event at Foyles was particularly unique, and brought together an intriguing mix of participants from all areas of publishing – including a dazzling array of authors – resulting in a series of discussions that just had to be recorded.

On Saturday 17 September 2005, Vintage, Random House’s literary paperback imprint, celebrated its fifteenth birthday at Foyles, Britain’s largest independent bookshop on Charing Cross Road. The flyers promised ‘bestselling authors, birthday cake and books’ and the all-day event lived up to expectations.

Things kicked off at the unseemly hour of 10.30am with a discussion on Book Politics. The rather sombre session title didn’t do justice to the discussion that followed. Publishing News Editor Liz Thompson chaired a lively debate that sped through every contentious issue in the industry in just over an hour – 3 for 2s, the Richard and Judy effect, supermarket discounting, and the Jordan factor to name but a few.

The best moments of this discussion – and possibly the day – came from John Bennett, one of Vintage’s bright young authors. Bennett joined the panel to share his experiences of rising from redundancy at the end of the dot.com boom to publishing his debut novel with Vintage this year. Thompson asked how Bennett’s novel, Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf, had managed to avoid the slush pile when he had come to publishing as a complete unknown. The rakishly good looking Scotsman replied immediately ‘I slept with Roger’, tipping a wink at Roger Bratchell, Vintage Marketing Director and fellow panellist. The truth of matter, as Bennett went on to explain once the laugher had subsided, was that his girlfriend introduced him to an author who read his manuscript and recommended him to his literary agent. The agent in turn approached Vintage Publishing Director, Rachel Cugnoni, who signed him up.

Panellist Sarah Broadhurst of The Bookseller was incredulous: ‘That all sounds far too easy!’ she exclaimed, before pressing him for a frank explanation of events. ‘Well, it wasn’t quite that easy … I actually sent the manuscript to five agents and none of them were even interested!’ Bennett confessed, smiling broadly. ‘That’s it John! Sell it! Sell it!!’ interjected Cugnoni, wide-eyed in mock horror as Bratchell, head in hands, stifled his giggles.

More ‘on message’ for this celebratory day, Cugnoni and Bratchell discussed how editorial and marketing imperatives went hand-in-hand at Vintage. ‘Marketing is crucial. It’s the kick-start that gets people reading.’ Bratchell explained. ‘It is hard to get people to buy unknown authors and even harder to get them promoted in bookshops … it used to be the case that you had to start authors in hardback for the trade to take them seriously, but the paperback original format has become very important for us, as readers often just want something easy to carry around … they don’t care if it’s hardback … and the trade is coming round to this way of thinking.’ Switching to the role of editorial, Cugnoni added that ‘editors should be driven by their passions, which are not always commercial ones, so there is a necessary tension between editorial and marketing … From our point of view,’ she went on, picking up a proof copy of Bennett’s book, ‘it is not always the best thing for someone like John to have a ‘huge’ first book … it is more about author progression over a number of years. If an author builds up to success gradually, then there isn’t the tremendous pressure on them to recapture the success of their first novel.

‘Unfortunately, this was the case with Adam Thorpe and his debut Ullverton … in fact it would be best if John’s book wasn’t a huge success!’ Now it was Bennett’s turn to sit open-mouthed. ‘I’m gonna slit my wrists …’ he muttered in an aside to the audience. The first session drew to a close with an appreciative round of applause: Debut novelists 1, Publishers 1. A good result all round.

The Daily Mail’s Literary Editor, Jane Mays, then talked to bestselling author, Evening Standard columnist, critic and mother, Alison Pearson, and asked: how does she do it? Mays led Pearson into a wide-ranging discussion of the problems faced by women in society today after Pearson read from her novel I Don’t Know How She Does It.

Claire Armitstead, the Guardian’s Literary Editor, then chaired a heated and controversial debate on Vintage’s Future Classics, chosen earlier this year by reading groups across the country. The session was dominated by comic novelist Howard Jacobson who dismissed reading groups as ‘women’s groups’, going on to say that in the thousands of reading groups in this country ‘there is no reading going on!’ Author Adam Thirlwell railed against the idea of a classic, arguing that ‘surviving oblivion’ does not makes a book ‘a classic’, although this was assumed to be the case by many readers.

Over lunch there was a break from discussion as Sebastian Faulks dropped in to sign copies of his new novel Human Traces. The afternoon session began quietly with Vintage author Rose Tremain reading a short story from her – as yet unpublished – new book, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson. Tremain then took questions from the floor on short stories.

Finally, Audrey Niffenegger and Mark Haddon joined Suzi Feay from the Independent on Sunday and Deputy Editor of The Bookseller, Joel Rickett, for a discussion on success. Ignoring Dan Brown, Niffenegger and Haddon were the two most successful authors in the UK last year in terms of sales. Both talked at length about their endless book tours and how success had changed their outlook on writing and life in general. ‘When I started writing,’ said Haddon glumly ‘I wanted to be someone like Blur … but now it seems I am more like Coldplay!’ It was a great end to the day, only bettered by the birthday cake and wine that followed. Happy Birthday Vintage!