Spring Paperback
Preview 10
FEATURES
4 LOOKING TO THE FUTURE In the light
of Picador’s recent decision, Jonathan
Ruppin considers the future of the
hardback format
6 BOOKSELLERS’ BETS A panel of
booksellers choose their favourite spring
paperbacks, with a wide choice that
includes historical fiction, thrillers and
chick lit
PRODUCT PREVIEW
10 A BUMPER START TO THE SEASON
Jonathan Ruppin selects the best
paperbacks from the publishers’ lists for
the first six months of the year
Paperback fiction takes the driving seat
This issue of the Paperback Preview is, as
ever, dominated by fiction. Readers have
the choice of a great range of titles, from
the carefully targeted lists of Avon and Little
Black Dress and the brand exploitation of
Cussler and Patterson, to the riches on offer
from Vintage and Picador, as well as those
titles from 2007’s invigorating Man Booker
contest.
Non-fiction is, however, another matter.
I’ve certainly read a wide range of nonfiction
in the hope of working out what will
replace celebrity biographies and faddy diet
and lifestyle titles—genres which, with the
odd exception, readers are beginning to feel
a little weary of. But I’ve been disappointed
with what’s on offer. The publishing of titles
on green issues, for example, has generally
become as stagnant as the media debate
surrounding it. Views have become fairly
polarised and there’s a definite absence
of titles making a virtue of their objectivity
to try and help people separate the politics
from the science.
Switchboard 020 7420 6006
Precede (numbers) with 020 7420
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-chief Neill Denny (6109)
Features and special projects editor Liz Bury (6108)
Supplements editor Victoria Arnstein (6111)
PRODUCTION
Chief sub-editor Mark Guest (6115)
Deputy chief sub-editor Brian Payne (6128)
Sub-editor Mike Haydock (6118)
Sub-editor Katie Allen (6123)
Having said that, Fourth
Estate is publishing two titles in
2008 which are pretty groundbreaking.
Joshua Blackburn,
founder of ethical communications
agency Provokateur, has
designed ACME Climate Change,
a book which can literally be
taken to pieces to enable the
reader to get involved in conservational
activities, while Lucy
Siegle’s To Die For, will, she
hopes, do for Primark what Fast
Food Nation did for McDonald’s.
Plexus and Think, meanwhile,
which both focus on political
titles, have both contacted campaign
groups to ask them what
issues their members want
to know more about. I’d have
thought that many non-fiction
lists would benefit from such
market research rather than trying
to clone Freakonomics again.
ADVERTISING
Advertising director David Wright (6013)
Deputy advertising manager Andrew Dixon (6126)
Account manager Cara Krige (6180)
Advertising executive Nicola Chin (6124)
Advertising production Lucille Aspinall (6151)
Classified sales executive Miraj Vyas (6078)
Classified sales executive Simon Collingwood (6121)
BOOKSELLER INFORMATION GROUP
Publisher Tracey Davies (6114)
Nielsen Business Media, Endeavour House, 189 Shaftesbury
Avenue, London WC2H 8TJ
www.thebookseller.com The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 3
Jonathan Ruppin is head
of front of house at Foyles
bookshop on Charing Cross
Road in London, where he has
worked since 2003. Before this
he was a bookseller at Dillons.
He also sits on the editorial
committee of the bi-annual
New Books in German
journal, which aims to
highlight titles that would be
good for translation, and was
also the chair of the Society of
Young Publishers in 2002.
CONTENTS
The sales of a range like
OUP’s Very Short Introductions,
with their Rothko-like
covers and vast gamut of
topics, are evidence of how
much people want to learn
and engage with contemporary
issues. Television seems
to have abandoned its brief to
educate and so the time for
the industry to make this territory
its own is now.
The other issue at the
forefront of late has been
the paperback vs the hardback
(see page 4 for more
details). In my view, if publishers
think they’ve got a
hot topic to publish on, they
could benefit from sticking it
straight into paperback. The
success of The Islamist by
Ed Husain should be all the
encouragement needed.
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