I was told a wonderful (probably mythical) story about the film producer and director, Otto Preminger. While making the epic, Exodus, in Israel he needed a huge number of extras and the budget was tight. He managed to recruit five thousand by the simple ruse of offering to allow people to appear in a Hollywood movie for only ten shekels a day. A true entrepreneur.

He came to mind when I was reading the rather interesting proposal in this week's Bookseller to turn the new Harry Potter publication day into a celebration of independent bookselling. The article requires a subscription to view and so I haven't linked but perhaps a kindly Bookseller executive might cut and paste the piece into the comments section below.

The proposal came from Matthew Clarke of the Torbay Bookshop in the West Country of England. I knew Matthew and his wife Sarah (always Randall to me) in the old Oxford University Press days. I have never been to their shop but what they're doing seems to me a fantastic exemplar of entrepreneurism in action. Check out their website. They're offering just about every service a book lover could want. I bet it's not easy making a living in an English seaside town but it looks to me that they are succeeding.

And a final bit of entrepreneurial thinking. Hinkler books is a value-for-money children's publisher in Melbourne. They were spawned from the former Budget Books owned by Reed International and managed by Robert Ungar. Hinkler is now managed by Robert's son, Stephen, who has taken the almost treasonable (under Australian law) act of advertising in the Bookseller for Pommie publishers to go and work in Australia, presumably because they are better than the equivalent Aussies. As he says in the ad, candidates will have their own flip-flops, visa and air ticket... Sounds irresistible for budding British publishing entrepreneurs.

Next stop on my architectural route to work is the absurdly over-the-top Harrods bazaar.