I have just been sent this link to a review by Grumpy Old Bookman and couldn't resist posting it.

Subject to weather, today will see the first game of the 2006 season for Baldons Cricket Club. We play Tetsworth in the second round of the Cricketer Village Cup - our opponents in the first round were clearly intimidated by our reputation and waved us through without playing. I've spent the morning rummaging for my whites, box, strapping etc. In the olden days I was always keen to win. Now survival seems a worthwhile objective. The competition ends up with a final at Lords on 3rd September. Betting on cricket is very popular. Don't bet on Baldons CC to reach the final.

Which leads clearly to today's Sunday Telegraph. The headline is a joyous example of misleading in order to increase sales:

Out of the shadows: It's a church wedding at last for Kate and William.

William is Prince William and Kate is his girlfriend. You might think they'd announced their wedding plans but no, merely that they are going together to someone else's wedding. Priceless.

In the same issue there is an article about seismic changes in publishing. More inaccurate stuff about the industry and digitisation and self-publishing blah blah.

After the cricket I'm heading off to the gorgeous seaside town of Bournemouth for the Booksellers Association annual meeting where I suspect the industry will be spending a few days discussing digitisation, self-publishing blah blah and .... trading terms. Plus ça change.

My favourite columnist of the moment is Ben Macintyre in the Times (of London). Today's Last Word piece is a fine example. For those who can't be bothered to click, here is his glossary of literary euphemisms. I think we should add to this list so that in time OUP will be able to publish a truly scholarly, magisterial, authoritative and comprehensive Dictionary of Literary Euphemisms which might just fill the much-needed gap in the market.

Mesmerising This word is traditionally deployed by the non-specialist reviewer to describe a specialist book, for example:

“Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is quite mesmerising.” It translates as: “I didn’t understand a word, but I’m not going to admit it because I need the money, and I’ve already sold the book.”

Edgy Any author under the age of 30, being reviewed by someone over 30, is likely to be described as edgy. The edginess factor will increase in proportion to whether the author is non-white, female and attractive, and the reviewer is white, male, and fat. Drugs, sex and racial conflict are also contributory factors. Edgy is also a synonym for glue-sniffing, necrophilia, lap-dancing and Michel Houellebecq.

Exquisite sensibility Gay.

Veiled sensibility Closet gay.

Shot through with mordant wit This phrase tends to be used by reviewers to describe books written by other reviewers. It means:

“Extremely nasty, but I don’t want this bastard to work me over next.”

These are minor quibbles (mere cavils) . . . This is a favourite of the weedier academic reviewers. It usually crops up towards the end of the review, when the reviewer has suddenly realised that he may have put the boot in too hard at the start, and feels guilty.

Writing reminiscent of Probably plagiarised.

It is a truth universally acknowledged . . . that any review touching, however tangentially, on the life, times, writing or recipes of Jane Austen must begin with this knackered introduction.

X meets Y This is the single greatest contribution of publishers’ marketing departments to modern literature. It shackles together two more famous authors or books in the hope of making a hybrid, and can lead to some unlikely couplings: “Henry James meets Hunter S. Thompson” or “Virginia Woolf meets Naomi Wolf meets Steppenwolf meets Peter and the Wolf”. The offspring of such unions are almost always stillborn. (qv The next Dan Brown / Brick Lane / Shakespeare etc.) Exhaustive Exhausting. Wears its scholarship lightly Author is not a real scholar. But I am. Triumphant return to form I was expecting this to be as abysmal as the last one, but it was only mildly disappointing. Gnomic Baffling. Imaginative Fiction reviewers use this to describe a book that they wish they had written; nonfiction reviewers use it to describe a book they do not believe. Compelling I managed to finish it. Painfully funny / sad / poignant / long Demonstrates the deep sensitivity of the reviewer. A health warning also attaches to any book described as achingly, eye-wateringly or heart-stoppingly anything. Arch I’m not sure if this is funny Detailed Has footnotes. Richly detailed Has lots of footnotes. Densely detailed Has footnotes, endnotes, acknowledgements, epigrams, foreword, preface, bibliography, appendices, indices, and marginalia. Translation: unreadable. qv panoramic, workmanlike, painstaking, extensively researched. Quaint Eccentric. Eccentric Author should be sectioned immediately. Vertiginous So clever and showy that it made me feel a bit sick. Vibrant Usually used to describe a young author that the reviewer met when drunk at the Martin Amis launch and thinks he might have fancied. (See also accomplished debut.) Important Worthy. Crucial Worthier. Seminal Worthiest. A colourful cast of characters The author is trying to be P. G. Wodehouse This curate’s egg of a book . . . The telltale mark of the indecisive reviewer Whips along, zips along, rattling yarn, high-octane, page-turner I usually review books about classical music, but the literary editor has given me this ghastly potboiler and I am putting a brave face on it Smorgasbord, potpourri, salmagundi, etc are typical literary show-off terms intended to demonstrate the international learning of the reviewer. Translation: mixture. Schadenfreude “The book of mine enemy hath been remaindered, and I am glad” (Clive James). Tightly plotted Has a beginning and a middle, and you find out whodunnit at the end.

The great thing about children's publishing is that everything about is worthwhile. The authors and illustrators, not to mention the editors, designers andf salespeople, are all committed to an important set of objectives - making great books to help literacy, stimulate creativity, enhance enjoyment and to educate. Even when individual titles fail commercially at least they had a good reason to exist which cannot be said of all types of books.

It is therefore with enormous pride and pleasure that I heard today of Macmillan's success on the prize front today.

Frank Cottrell Boyce’s second novel Framed has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Published by Macmillan Children’s Books, Frank won the Carnegie Medal last year with his debut novel Millions. Described as original, charming and funny, Framed has achieved great acclaim and was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Medal.

Emily Gravett’s Wolves has been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. This is Emily’s debut picture book, which was also awarded a bronze medal in the Nestle Children’s Prize. It was published to great acclaim last year.

 Emma Hopkin, MD of Macmillan Children’s Books says: “We are delighted to have a book on each shortlist – something that we have not achieved for years. Both Emily and Frank are masters of their craft and both thoroughly deserve to be on the shortlists. Both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway awards are very important to us as publishers, because the books featured on them are chosen by librarians for outstanding work.”

 Full shortlists are available at www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk

I'm going to take a risk today and celebrate the closure of a public library.

For a period in the 1990s I was Chairman of the Whitechapel Art Gallery. It was established in 1901 to bring great art to the people of the East End of London. At the time (and it is still true today) Whitechapel was home to recent immigrants. In 1901 the imigrants were largely Jewish. Today they are largely Asian. The impact of these immigrant comunities has been enormous and beneficial and the area continues to thrive as a creative catalyst for London, Britain and the world.

The gallery has premiered international artists such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Lucien Freud. It is financed by public bodies, private individuals and companies, and through the hard work and entrepreneurism of its staff.

Next door to the gallery is a public library with a rich history, particularly from the 'Jewish' times but in recent years it had become run down through lack of investment and changing social needs. The library is being moved to a new site close and merged with another library. I really believe that one first-class library is better than two second-class ones in this case.

And the gallery acquired the freehold in th elibrary and last night celebrated the launch of the Whitechapel Project which will turn this beautiful and historic building into a beautiful space for creative artists, students, art lovers and coffee lovers to use and enjoy. Losing the Whitechapel Library is sad but extending the Gallery is a cause for celebration and support.

The Director of the gallery is Iwona Blazwick. She used to work at the famous art publisher Phaidon and she brings to the leadership of this project everything that is best about publishing - optimism, shrewdness and charm. This project deserves to succeed.

Putting the final touches to a talk I am giving tomorrow for the STM organisation. It occurred to me that the list of speakers at this conference might give a flavour of how book publishing is changing in the 21st century. Many of the companies did not exist a decade ago and yet I suspect that the debates at this meeting may prove more relevant to our future than the retail 'controversies' we are suffering in the UK right now. I have also pasted in the aims of the conference which set out very clearly some of the challenges facing book publishers today.

• Keynote Speaker: Richard Charkin, Chief Executive of Macmillan and President of the Publishers Association    'The Internet Changes Everything - Not!'
  

• Chris Armstrong, Managing Director, Information Automation, Ltd

• Louise Breinholt, Marketing & Communications Manager, Wiley Interscience

• Paul Carr, Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Project and Editor of 'The Friday Thing' and 'London by London'

• Warren Cowan, CEO, Greenlight

• Adrian Driscoll, Publishing Consultant, Caxtonia

• Richard Fisher, Executive Director, Humanities and Social Sciences, Cambridge University Press

• Suzanne S. Kemperman, Director, Publishing, NetLibrary (a division of OCLC)

• Sara Lloyd, Business Development Director for BookStore, MPS Technologies

• Ray Lonsdale, Reader in Information Studies, Department of Information Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

• Jayne Marks, CEO, Global Operations, MPS Technologies

• Dan Penny, Account Manager, Electronic Publishing Services, Ltd

• Marika Stauch, Marketing Manager, Mathematics & Computer Science, Springer

• Wim van der Stelt, Vice President Global Marketing, Springer

While STM journal publishers have been driven to "go digital" by market need, the market and business models for digital book content delivery have been far from clear.

It has been difficult to assess if and when students, graduate students, academics, and the general reader, will begin demanding digital delivery of the content they want. Publishers have questioned which formats and business models will dominate, and, crucially, how we can unlock the revenue potential of digital delivery.

During the past year book publishers have recognized the need to resolve the answers to some of these questions. This has been driven partly by non-traditional, Internet-based competitors such as Google and Amazon stealing the march on publishers, launching their own initiatives enabling readers to get to the content they need. Also new "non-publisher publishers", such as Wikipedia, are introducing innovative content development and delivery mechanisms playing to markets where 'good enough' content is increasingly acceptable.

There is also a sense that, particularly in academic and professional markets, at least a proportion of readers are actively beginning to seek digital engagement over print content, delivered in the simplest, fastest and most cost-efficient way. The key question for publishers is: how to remain at the heart of the relationship between author and reader in this new digital environment? In other words, how do we continue to add value for authors and readers in the digital delivery chain?

My musings yesterday seemed to have stirred up a lot of comment and it's worth reading the contributions if you're interested in the problems and opportunities affecting the British book trade.

What I find interesting in all this (and from private emails I receive not for publication) is how publishers are blamed by absolutely everyone. Independent booksellers complain because we give too much discount to everyone. Supermarkets complain because we don't give enough to their intermediaries who regularly go bust as a result. Chain booksellers complain because we don't give enough to support their marketing efforts. Authors and agents complain that discounts are too high and this affects their royalty earnings. Illustrators, translators, indexers, copy-editors complain that they aren't paid enough and don't get enough recognition. Printers complain that publishers don't pay them enough. Readers think books are too expensive and blame publishers. Libraries think they should receive bigger discounts. Google thinks information (if supplied by them) should be free. Everyone thinks books should be produced to higher standards. Everyone wants better levels of service.

Meanwhile we have price deflation, higher author costs, higher energy costs, higher technology and innovation costs, shorter print runs, more competitive media for spend and leisure time.

Something has to give.

But in spite of everything the business continues and let's celebrate Macmillan having two of the five shortlisted titles for the James Tait Black Memorial prize for biography:

Max Egremont's Siegfried Sassoon and Nigel Farndale's Haw-Haw, The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce.

This blog has been running for four months (plus a bit of experimenting in December). We set it up with three objectives:

To communicate to Macmillan staff worldwide without clogging up our servers;

To generate debate about specific publishing issues as our trade grapples with what can only be described as the digital revolution (forgive the cliché);

To help me understand the power (or otherwise) of blogging and learn a few technotips on the way.

Objective one seems to be working OK although there are still places where the blog's existence is unknow. Time will sort this.

Number two is a disappointment. The principal debate has been around discounts that UK publishers grant to supermarkets, chains, Amazon etc. I can understand why small independent booksellers feel that their businesses are threatened when they see massive discounts being granted by supermarkets on, for instance, Harry Potter but that is out of the hands of publishers. The discounts we publishers grant are as low as feasible in a highly competitive market. But the real disappointment is that this argument is as old as the hills and incapable of resolution or new thinking. Surely the opportunities and challenges of the Internet are more relevant.

Number three is more positive. I've learned how to hypertext, how to spell words with accents and how to check out the blog statistics.

Visitors in January were 9036, in February 8492, in March 18724, and in April a record 19257. The highest day was 900 visitors. I'm working on crossing the 1000 barrier. The audience is genuinely global. The biggest uptick on a single day was when we ran a story about the whale being stranded in the Thames. This is a fairly typical page of the searchers people undertook to reach this blog:

If you celebrate May Day in your country, have a good one. If not, still have a good one.

I have been described as many things in my career. I either agree, disagree or don't care. Only occasionally, as today, have I had to resort to reference works to check out what the description means.

Robert McCrum's regular feature on the world of books in the Observer newspaper adds colour to Sunday mornings. Today he is reviewing the development of a new publishing company, the Friday Project, which Macmillan helps to sell and distribute and which I personally have tried to support. Its aim is to turn concepts and brands on the Internet into world-class books. Anyway they've just hired an excellent new director, Scott Pack. According to Robert McCrum, this guy makes me look like Marcus Aurelius. Should I be flattered or offended?

I've checked out Wikipedia and the Columbia Encyclopedia gave me:

 ' Devoted to his duty and humanitarian in his conception of it, Marcus Aurelius was concerned with improving living conditions for the poor, particularly minors. He was always lenient with political criminals and tried to decrease the brutality at gladiatorial shows. He did, however, persecute the Christians, whom he regarded as natural enemies of the empire.'

And Chambers Biographical Dictionary:

'He was retrospectively idealized as the model of the perfect emperor, whose reign and style of rule contrasted with the disastrous period that began with the accession of his son Commodus, the disturbed age of the Severan emperors, and the imperial anarchy that followed in the 3rd century.'

I'm still not sure but one thing is for certain. I couldn't have done this research as quickly and effectively without great reference works brought together through the Internet by xrefer - the very opposite of the Friday Project concept, but none the worse for that.