Grumpy Old Bookman writes for the SYP

Posted on April 15, 2007 in Uncategorized

My acquaintance with the London Book Fair (LBF) goes back a good long way – certainly I remember the time when the big UK firms didn’t bother to attend.  So I suppose that it must have been in the early 1980s when I first went along.

What I sometimes refer to (in jest) as my writing career began with the publication of my first novel in 1963.  Other books followed, from time to time, and unlike many writers I made it my business to find out as much as possible about how the book trade worked.

I was aided in this research by the fact that I worked as a member of the administration at the University of Bath, and could use the bibliographic facilities of the university library to track down obscure publications and journal articles; these were then obtained for me, by my friendly neighbourhood librarian, through the inter-library loan system.

The result was, if I do say so myself, that I became one of the better-informed writers around.  I was by no means a successful writer; but at least, unlike many, I understood the general economics of the book trade and the standard business practices of the day.

It so happened that the University of Bath had a small academic publishing company, Bath University Press (BUP), which was run the by Librarian.  And in the course of time the Librarian retired.  The University was keen to keep BUP going, and so I was asked to become the Director.

This post was, I hasten to say, not nearly as grand as it sounds.  In the first place, it brought me no extra money, and no reduction in my other duties.  However, I was quite pleased to find myself running a publishing company, albeit on a very small scale.  In a good week, BUP got half a day of my time, but it was often one of the more rewarding half days.

In my busiest year, BUP published six books, but usually there were only one or two.  And it was BUP business that caused me to begin attending the LBF on a regular basis.

As any publisher knows, or rapidly discovers, finding books and getting them printed is the easy part.  The difficult bit is persuading anyone to buy them.  However, after numerous mistakes and false starts, I gradually discovered the joys of doing deals – which is perhaps a misnomer for rights sales on an extremely modest scale.  However, negotiations for rights in some of our books put me in touch with such distinguished firms as Faber and Oxford University Press, not to mention several firms overseas.

Once I had dealt with BUP’s immediate business at the fair, I was free to wander round the remainder of the exhibits and take note of what was on offer.

For me, one of the more instructive sections of the fair was remainders alley (as I thought of it): that part of the gathering where old books go to be sold off, if they’re lucky.

From repeated visits to that part of the fair, I came to understand that some of the books which I most enjoyed were those with absolutely no commercial prospects whatever; hopelessly uneconomic, in fact.

Fortunately, in those happy days, BUP was not required to make a profit.  The view was held that a small loss was inevitable, and indeed fully justified, because the University’s charter called upon it to make available the results of academic research, and BUP was considered to be one way in which that part of the University’s mission was carried out.

I think the least successful book we ever published (a biography of a very obscure saint) sold 60 copies.  Our big seller managed 800 copies, with the final 200 of the print run going to remainders alley.  Some of our other ‘surplus stock’ could not, however, be sold at any price.

As we entered the new millennium, I began to spend more and more time in the printing technology part of the fair.  And it became clear to me that, as in so many areas of life, the digital age was going to change everything in the book world – perhaps rather dramatically.

When I retired from full-time employment, I set up a small press of my own: Kingsfield Publications.  Through this modest enterprise I still publish a couple of books a year, and the LBF still offers, at least in principle, the chance of some useful contacts; and even (I am an eternal optimist) some possible rights sales.

For the last couple of years, now that I have to pay my own travel expenses, I have given the LBF a miss.  But I have missed it, in the other sense.  And who knows – I might even get there again.

Michael Allen has frittered his life away on reading and writing books, and is probably far too old to change now. In the digital age he has discovered that he can publish anything he wants to, with no interference from anyone, at almost no cost at all: hence his (very) small press, Kingsfield Publications. Furthermore, he can inflict his views on the world through his blog about books and publishing, the Grumpy Old Bookman.  This was once listed by the Guardian as one of the top ten book blogs in the world, though the compiler of the list may not have been entirely sober at the time.