The Penguin Blog

My, don't they grow up fast

When I started working at Penguin a little over thirteen years ago, Penguin Towers was a very different place (it was, in fact, *in* a different place). The stationery cupboard still stocked tippex, secretaries used dictaphones and typewriters and the few computers in the office printed out sales reports on dot-matrix paper. Neither Google or Amazon yet existed and ebooks were still in the minds of science fiction writers rather than in the hands of readers.

So as I cleared out my desk drawers preparing for my imminent departure I experienced a huge nostalgia rush as I discovered a selection of past and present ereading devices that have accumulated there over the years. From humble beginnings (I remember the thrill of selling four copies of a particular title in a week in the 2001 launch of Penguin's first ebook list) to today's 'magical' devices which can incorporate video (video!) into ebooks, it's clear that we've come a long way in a short time.

There's still plenty to do before ebooks are the primary format for the distribution of books (and it is my personal belief that this will one day inevitably come to pass) - publishers need to demonstrate to consumers that digital files have value in themselves, device interoperability would be a good thing and we still need to work turning the slow juggernaut of book publishing into agile digital workflow. But the changes I've been involved in and seen at first hand over the past thirteen years (and particular during the last couple of years) convince me that publishers have the will to make digital publishing succeed and that the audience is there for the sort of digital content that we can commission and distribute.

Of course it's not just about ebooks - everything is different as the web has, for millions of people, become their primary form of information and entertainment. If in 1997 I'd been told that I'd be working on a wikinovel, or a data visualization of an autobiography or an alternate reality game or even on a blog read globally, I'd have thought that I was in a surreal dream. Yet these things have come to pass and a generation is growing up (my own children included) for whom these concepts are not particularly strange but part of the fabric of their everyday lives.

So I've been lucky enough to witness an industry in the midst of dramatic transformation and particularly lucky to be working at a company where change is seen as an opportunity as well as a challenge. Now I am going to carry on watching from outside the publishing industry and I can't wait to see where the flightless bird takes readers in the future.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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Remembering the Age of Gloom and Glam

Roseanne Bantick, Penguin Sales Director, has just read Dominic Sandbrook's brilliant new book State of Emergency on life in Britain in the early 70s, and found it incredibly reminiscent of a time she remembers well...

As a child of the 60s I grew up in one of the most fascinating and colourful periods of recent history. The mantra of the time was ‘make love, not war’. And it was an era often defined by its music – The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the first pop festivals at Woodstock, Hyde Park and the Isle of Wight. The 60s remain in my memory as a wonderful, exciting time.

I left the colourful 60s expecting life to remain much the same – taking with me my platform shoes, psychedelic bell bottom trousers and 'Herbie' my afghan coat . . . and ran headlong into the dreary and chaotic 70s. Striking miners, dustbin men and railway workers brought the country to its knees. The three day working week was introduced to conserve electricity. Britain went decimal, fuelling inflation. Piles of rat-infested rubbish grew in our streets. And power cuts affected heating and cooking, as well as watching television and listening to the radio.

But as Dominic points out in his new book, it wasn't all doom and gloom, as many of the things we fought for in the 60s finally came to fruition in the 70s. Attitudes opened up on divorce, feminism and gay rights. There were also other major social changes, such as the advent of package holidays, and of eating out – which was completely unheard of before the 70s. The 70s started that revolution, which was to completely change our social habits

State of Emergency captures the social and political history of the period and brings it back to life. Whether you were a child of the 60s or 70s, or even much later, I think this book gives a great insight into an important period of British history.

 

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Penguin Day at Foyles - Saturday September 25th

Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road - world-famous, formerly the official World's Largest Bookshop, currently holder of the Bookseller Industry Award for Chain Bookseller of the Year - was opened in 1906 by brother William and Gilbert Foyle and has cemented its reputation for over a century as a landmark London building and tourist destination, and this Saturday 25th September will have surely the greatest day in its long illustrious history as it helps Penguin celebrate its comparably modest 75 years of publishing by hosting Penguin Day in their gallery space.

Biased? You bet. But we've tried and tried to hold one of these days with Foyles for several years, so forgive the hyperbole, please. After all, several other publishers have had hugely successful days themslves at this great bookshop and we've always stood at the window, licking the glass (just me?), feeling envious and singing 'Had a Bad Day' softly to ourselves as we walk off down Charing Cross Road. The days work so well because Foyles, its staff and customers, know their books: they know what they like but they're also interested in where they came from, how they're designed, what the process for a first-time novelist is or what the problems facing modern history writers are.

So we've tried to include a bit of everything in Penguin Day at Foyles; things that we think reflect Penguin, both its publishing, its history and what has made it famous; and, most importantly, things we hope and think people will enjoy hearing about.

After a brief introduction we'll be kicking off at 11.15am with an event all about the Classics, our design, the Great Ideas and how such books continue to be new and exciting. Our Penguin Classics editor Alexis will talk about what makes a Penguin Classic and how you keep it fresh and interesting; our brilliant designer Coralie will then show how she goes about rejuvenatign the look of certain books, from her amazing cloth-bound classics to her forthcoming deco-inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald re-issues. Then editor Simon Winder (who's an author in his own right!) will talk about how he came up with (*coughs* stole *coughs*) the idea for the Great Ideas series. Then Pen, one of our publicity managers, will talk about what's coming next now that the Great Ideas are finishing (apparently there aren't any left- you heard it here first).

And this will all be done by 12.15pm.

Following that, Simon will be back with two of our most acclaimed non-fiction authors. Dominic Sandbrook, author of State of Emergency and John Lanchester, author of Whoops!, will be discussing their work and how historians and non-ficiton writers go about addressing the big ideas and recent historical events in their work. Expect intellectual raconteuring, heated discussion and weighty humour. And that's just Simon.

...break for lunch...

...and we're right back at 2.15 with what I'm sure will be an unsurprisingly popular event called 'From Pitch to Publication'. Joel Rickett, editorial director here and former deputy editor at the trade magazine The Bookseller, will be interviewing publisher Juliet Annan, agent Jane Finnigan and debut novelist Rebecca Hunt about the entire process, from start to finish, of getting your nvoel looked at by an agent, submissions, dealing with publishers, the editing process - the whole shebang. Rebecca Hunt's debut novel, Mr Chartwell, will be on sale, exclusively, 2 weeks early on the day. Trust me: you will be hearing a lot about this novel. It's already been selected for a Radio 4 reading and will be all over the place on publication. Get a first edition! Get it signed!

We'll then be finishing off at 3.15 with an in conversation event, chaired by the wonderful journalist Rachel Cooke, between fiction writers Colm Toibin and David Vann. What to say about these two? David's first book of fiction, Legend of a Suicide, came out at the end of 2009 and was called 'One of the fiction sensations of the year' by the Guardian. The Observer said 'Nothing quite like this book has been written before' and Lorrie Moore even chose it for the New Yorker Book Club. Blimey. And Colm Toibin, what a guy: shortlisted for the Booker twice, winner of the Dublin Impac Award and author of the novel Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel of the Year Award last year, which the Sunday Times called a 'masterwork' and who is about to publish the collection of stories The Empty Family.

And then we're done. Do come along. You can get tickets here, and did I mention that every attendee gets this lovely Penguin 75th anniversary tote for free? I didn't? Well, it's true.

Joe Pickering

Senior Press Officer

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This Monday, it's Fryday

The autumn is traditionally the busiest time of the year in the books world as publishers start jockeying for the lucrative prized slots on the Christmas bestseller lists. It’s when the big autobiographies, the big non-fiction titles and the big gift books get released, in the hope that they eventually find their way under the nation’s Christmas trees.

Over the years publishers have honed their strategies for this important period in the books calendar. Deals are done with retailers, advertising slots are booked, special telephone hotlines are created so that fast-moving books get to the shops when they are needed. This is the time when the publishing process needs to run like a well-oiled machine - as Edmund Blackadder so wisely says, “We're not at home to Mr Cock-up.”

2010 is already looking a bit different. This time last year the Kindle was not available in the UK and no-one knew what an iPad would look like (or be called!) let alone know that hundreds of thousands of people would be reading books on them. So the publishing strategy for christmas 2010 must take account of the changes happening in the publishing industry - this year, for the first time, digital publishing is an integral component of Penguin’s winter.

And when you have an author like Stephen Fry, whose one and three quarter million twitter followers hang on his every 140 character utterance and whose commentary on technology and the latest devices is as well regarded as his comedic performances, the need to create exciting digital publishing becomes an imperative.

 

So it’s tremendously exciting that the launch of Stephen’s new volume of autobiography, The Fry Chronicles, also marks Penguin’s most extensive and elaborate digital publishing exercise to date. For our  ‘national treasure’ we’ve really gone to town - for as well as the hardback there is an audiobook (digital only for the next month - and read of course by ‘the author’), an enhanced ebook with all sorts of audio-visual goodies and an app for iphones which stretches the boundaries of what a book looks like and how it should behave.

 

 

With every new digital publication we’re learning more about what we can do and how we should do it and with this one more than most. It’s been an incredibly complex exercise to coordinate and a huge amount of team effort has been made to get everything into the various online and offline stores on publication date. We’ve created wholly different products for different audiences on sale in different places and at different prices. 

Whether The Fry Chronicles is a model for publishing going forward remains to be seen. But this autumn, more than most, seems to be a period of transformation in Penguin and in publishing in general. There’ll be no going back.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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Booker Blunder

Here at Hamish Hamilton, the little corner of Penguin in which I operate, we’re not in the business of celebrity.  So if an author of ours makes it onto the front page of a national newspaper, we’re delighted.  And we almost had cause for celebration yesterday when our very own Paul Murray was spotted looming large on the front page of the Irish Times alongside the words ‘Booker Blunder’. Of course we’d rather it just said ‘Booker’, but the sad, irrefutable fact is that Paul’s astonishing Skippy Dies was ommitted from the Man Booker shortlist.  That this is cause for front-page comment is at least a kind of consolation.

Prizes are, as we’re always quick to point out to ourselves and to our authors, a lottery.  And by that I mean no disrespect to judges and their judgements.  I mean, rather, that a judging panel is always going to be the sum of its parts, and since its parts are bound to be opinion-holding, thinking, feeling people (or else they wouldn’t have made it this far in life), the panel is equally a thinking, feeling entity – and therefore not something to pin your hopes on.  As editors we’re the same.  There’s no outside benchmark by which we stand when we make our decisions, no celebrity ranking to help us make up our minds, no objective qualities which do our jobs for us.  Instead, we depend on how we feel and how we think when we’re reading a manuscript.  If we love it, and if enough of our colleagues love it, we publish it.  If we don’t, we won’t.  Such are the unreliable, chancy, subjective dynamics of the literary world.  For us it’s about passion and the very personal experience of reading, and we wouldn’t expect judges to be any different.

Of course I wish that the discussions – and then the decisions – of the Man Booker panel had gone the other way, but I realise that at such times the thing to do is move on. There are other prizes (other lotteries!), but there’s also such a thing as word-of-mouth momentum – as unpredictable, in its own way, as judges.  And I happen to think that, just maybe, a whole tide of readers is turning in the right direction.  Or at least I now know that I’m not alone in thinking Skippy Dies a gem and Paul Murray one of the cleverest, funniest and wisest writers we have.

I’d love Skippy Dies to be on everyone lips and in everyone’s hands, and that’s why I wanted it to win the Booker.  Because then I could have sat back and watched it ride the waves of popularity.  But word-of-mouth momentum can do the job too, and the truth is, oh readers of Skippy Dies, our work has just begun.

Juliette Mitchell
Editor, Hamish Hamilton

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Before the Ash Cloud – there was The Black Cloud

Last April, at the height of Icelandic ash cloud hysteria, when the London Bookfair was a barren landscape of lost looking publishers and agents, Stefan McGrath, Managing Director of Penguin Press, had an inspired, if vague recollection.

After a frustrating, rather surreal morning receiving countless emails with the line ‘due to the ash cloud over Iceland, I’ve been unable to fly to London’, he remembered an old book his friend had raved about involving a giant cloud that came across the earth, wrecking havoc and hysteria. On returning to the office, a quick Google search brought up Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud, an old Penguin Classic, as it turned out. Being a fan of slightly wacky, literary science fiction – it was, then, over to me!

A call to the Penguin archive and, the next day, I had the book in my hand. There were, it transpired, not one, but three different editions, published in the 1960s:

For the next few days, I was plunged back into 1960s Britain and America, to the surprisingly thrilling world of astronomers – the maverick Professor Kingsley, the pipe-smoking Dr Marlow, the dignified Astronomer Royal and the taciturn Alexandrov – as they struggled to understand a mysterious black cloud rapidly approaching the earth.

Fred Hoyle combines his expertise as a renowned Cambridge astronomer and cosmologist with his fluent writing ability to tell a compelling, engaging tale of an eccentric group of scientists working madly to save the planet from a giant black cloud which has emerged from outer space to sit in front of the sun. Hoyle throws in enough scientific facts and mathematical equations to add to the story’s chillingly credible premise, but not enough to dissuade non-scientists, like me. I am not, by nature, a hard core science fiction lover, at least in the sense of aliens jumping about on far away planets or inter-stellar space battles. And that is decidedly not what this is about (sorry if that disappoints). It is a fantastic ‘hard’ science-fiction story told in the pacy, heart-thumping style of John Wyndham and John Christopher, set in a very recognisable England and California.

When I put it down several days later, I was convinced this was a story that must come back into print on our Penguin Modern Classics list. Hoyle’s brilliantly imagined story carries one breathlessly through from the first sighting of the cloud to the philosophically challenging, poignant end. How soon could we publish?

Just as I set out to win over our publishing team, Stefan came to me with the news that our mission had been completely misguided. In fact, the book his friend had recommended years ago was called The Purple Cloud by M P Shiel.

How many cloud books were out there? The whole endeavor was starting to seem slightly fantastical. Despite the fact it was another book entirely that prompted The Black Cloud reading, it was, nevertheless, a title worthy of pursuit. And so, too, it turned out, was The Purple Cloud.

First published in 1901, kicking off the ‘science fiction century’, Shiel’s apocalyptic tale is a vastly different sort of book. It has been called one of the greatest ‘last man’ novels ever written and follows the story of a young doctor, Adam Jeffson, who is the last man left on earth – by chance or design – after a poisonous purple vapour erupts from a volcano and annihilates every living creature on earth apart from him.

In the end, we are publishing both books. The Black Cloud in September 2010 and The Purple Cloud a year later, in September 2011.

The Black Cloud published on the 2nd September, with an illuminating and erudite Afterword by Richard Dawkins, who first came to appreciate the book and the ideas it presents when he read it as a young man. 

We also have a brilliant new jacket designed by our art director, Jim Stoddart, who has combined the concepts of the previous Penguin jackets with a fresh, modern look. I am thrilled by the opportunity to now present this prescient, entertaining and challenging book to a new audience in the Penguin Modern Classics livery.




Emily Steadman
Publishing Co-ordinator, Penguin Press

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Editor Simon Winder looks back on a curious attempt to make philosophy popular.

Glazed, shaky, politically and philosophically confused, I have just finished up editing the 100th and last Penguin Great Ideas title. Why we should stop the series at this specific, wholly arbitrary number is the sort of issue which would have delighted some of the more annoying authors in the series but, setting that aside, we have now published five sets of twenty and it is time to stop and do something different.  Nobody is saying that these are the hundred Great Ideas – just a hundred, with plenty of shameful omissions, insulting inclusions and unthinking biases trailing in a vast cloud behind them.

The very simple idea was to republish books mostly already available through Penguin Classics in a form close to that recognised by the book’s original author – to strip away the accretion of prefaces, introductions and notes which were so important to studying an author in favour of just presenting the text itself, so that once more the reader can open The Social Contract and simply read ‘Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains’.

Looking back, I cannot really remember how the list was put together.  Colleagues and authors have throughout made various important, ingenious and unhelpful suggestions.  My own hope had been to smuggle through the back door various more-or-less doomed, non-selling favourites while all attention was focussed on the obvious crowd pleasers like Marcus Aurelius coming through the main entrance.  

This has worked – but not as planned, as the popularity of the series swept up the most implausible figures.  We had hardly been able to keep in print John Ruskin’s selected writings, but a tiny group of my favourite essays suddenly sold some 70,000 copies.  William Hazlitt enjoyed a similar dizzy success.  We were selling so many books that an entire generation of students were radicalized by Paine, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and Marx completely by accident.  We suddenly found a format in which tremendous numbers of readers started for the first time reading George Orwell’s essays – about 140,000 of Orwell titles in the series so far.  I hit the ground with a crunch though with Sir Thomas Browne’s Urne-Burial which, despite being my favourite piece of English prose, even in Great Ideas managed to find no audience whatsoever.

A key aspect of the series has been their remarkable look, created by the designer David Pearson, and with some notable contributions by Phil Baines, Catherine Dixon and Alistair Hall.  Messing around with different historical typefaces and with a similar stripped-down atmosphere to the content (two colours, mostly just lettering – with the occasional loopy exception), these jackets transformed the books’ success.  I remember standing in Foyles watching as wave upon wave of morbid, sexually-confused students came capering up to a ziggurat-like display of Great Ideas, snatching them up like penny candy.  Of course, the authors were crucial to this – but it would be an austere figure indeed who did not react to the beguiling designs for Hume’s On Suicide or Schopenhauer’s On the Suffering of the World.

Perhaps then what is most curious about the series is that it has introduced an astonishing number of readers to wildly clashing ideas and has provoked an interest in levels of abstraction not usually associated with the British Mind.  Great Ideas has all kinds of omissions and failures, but anything which has provoked unprecedented numbers of people to read Hazlitt or Woolf or Stevenson has to come out ahead.

 
 

My favourite book in the whole series is a small group of essays by John Berger called Why Look at Animals?  Each of the essays are masterpieces, some of the best writing of the 20th century on the human relationship with the natural world.  Berger added to the book a short fable, ‘A Mouse Story’ and a lovely page of his drawings of mice.  But it is the last essay which most sticks in my mind: an account of Berger spending the day in the Austrian countryside with the Marxist critic, Ernst Fischer.  This proves to be the last day of Fischer’s life and many of the themes of this whole series are brought together in a meditation on history, Stoicism, friendship and the overwhelming importance of ideas and argument.  It is a great piece of writing and, for me, just to have encountered it has made the whole Great Ideas enterprise worthwhile.

Simon Winder
Publishing Director, Penguin Press

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