Huge congratulations to Kiran Desai for her book winning the Booker Prize. We were, of course, sad for Teddy St Aubyn but the judges had a really tough job and I'm sure, judging by her speech, that Ms Desai is a great person as well as a great writer. I'm off to India this morning and I have no doubt the country will be celebrating yet another national hero.
I should have known that this particular title would win when, earlier in the evening, I was asked whether Macmillan was committed to publishing literary books. I asked what is meant by a literary book. Apparently it is a work of fiction which loses money. It seemed rather an odd definition and I tried to argue that publishing companies tend to do a better job when they are solvent. In addition I'm not quite sure why literary publishing should deserve more support than, say, educational publishing in Zimbabwe. That said, of course we are committed to literary publishing and to the continued growth of Picador in all its markets - UK, USA, Australia, South Africa, India and most recently Asia. But I should not want to leave future publishers at Macmillan with an inheritance of loss whatever the definition of literature.
During the 1990s the foundations were laid for the terrific success of the Nature Publishing Group. The strategy was to launch the highest-quality 'sister' journals in subjects close to Nature's core expertise and audience. This resulted in many top life science journals being launched - Genetics, Medicine, Cell Biology etc. The group was begining to be seen purely as a life science publisher. This is changing and the recent launch of Nature Nanotechnology prompted me to ask Jason Wilde, its publisher, to describe what is happening in the Nature world of physical sciences.
What a difference a year makes
Over the past year Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has quadrupled its portfolio of physicals science journals by launching three new titles: Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Physics and Nature Nanotechnology. These launches came on the back of Nature Materials (our first physical science research journal) which was launched in 2002 and has become the number 1 research journal in the physical sciences.
The reason for these launches is simple; it is to ensure NPG is at the forefront of serving all of science including the physical science community. Ten years ago NPG expanded its program from just Nature to include 7 primary research journals in the biomedical and life sciences. These became essential titles for each of their fields and ensured that NPG was seen as a leading publisher in the life sciences.
Many people have forgotten that Nature is as strong in the physical sciences as it is in the life sciences publishing a number of firsts including: The discovery of X-Rays (1896); the development of the particle accelerator (1932) and the production of the first LASER (1960). More recently Nature has led the way publishing research on: the formation of C60 (1985); the first paper on electronic ink (1998) and only last year new research from INTEL on LASERs made from silicon.
The launch of Nature Materials, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Physics, and Nature Nanotechnology ensures we continue this tradition and that NPG provides the physical science community with the same high quality journals that the life sciences have enjoyed for the past decade.
Not only have we launched new titles but we have also expanded our editorial operations to include Asia. The decision to have one of the editors for Nature Nanotechnology in Tokyo reflects the strengths of the Asia-Pacific region. Japan is second only to the US in terms of investment in nanotechnology research, and South Korea is ranked fifth in the world. China is also emerging as a force in nanotechnology and scientific research.