If you google (note lower case initial, the sign of brand domination) 'Logos' you find a number of logo companies, a journal of modern society and culture, a foundation dedicated to music in Flanders, a magazine about research at Argonne National Laboratory, a journal of Catholic thought and culture and so on, page after page of things called Logos. At last I found the Logos I was hunting.

Logos is the premier journal of the world publishing and book community. Unlike other trade journals, Logos is international in scope and focuses primarily on the deeper issues and challenges facing publishing and the book world. Appearing quarterly since 1990, Logos has featured hundreds of essays by many of the leading figures in publishing and the library community.

If Publishing News is the Daily Mirror of the publishing industry, The Bookseller is the Daily Mail, Publishers Weekly is the International Herald Tribune then Logos is the Economist.

Logos doesn't have a website. It is run as an independent charitable foundation which has an email for service and ordering - logos-Marlow@dial.pipex.com. I rung up its editor, Gordon Graham, for permission to use a review he wrote and published about Mike Barnard's Transparent Imprint. Gordon was a very successful publisher as MD of McGraw-Hill in the UK and then CEO of Butterworths and President of the Publishers Association. He is a brilliant speaker and I remember some of his bons mots such as: 'The secret of success in a corporate environment is always to let your owners have better returns than they expected but less than you could afford'; and in defence of charging for scientific information 'Wherever information is free there will be no freedom of information'.

In any event, the only problem with Logos is that its circulation is small (please do subscribe) and therefore not many people will see this review. I apologise in advance because printing it might be seen as immodest and self-serving (which it is) but I think Mike's book is excellent and I want to tell the world - or at least the readers of this blog.

LOGOS

The Journal of the World Book Community

BOOK REVIEWS

TRANSPARENT IMPRINT: How a Publisher's Decision to Tell the Truth to Authors Stirred Up a Storm

Michael Barnard

Macmillan, 2006 208 pp

ISBN 1-400-9242-4

£l0

If you work in a large publishing corporation, how do you win sanction to start a new publishing programme which has no promise of profit? The answer is by conviction, persuasive power, tremendous energy and faith. Michael Barnard has all of these qualities. His energy even enabled him to write this book about the new publishing programme just before it was launched.

The new programme was built on that notorious graveyard of literary aspiration – unsolicited first novels. So many of these are received by trade publishers that they have no time to acknowledge, let alone read, them. In fact, the Macmillan website until 2005 warned, "We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts." However, one day Mike Barnard – a career executive whose responsibilities embrace production, distribution and information technology – wondered aloud at a meeting whether "a streamline system" could he devised to handle unsolicited manuscripts, not only to encourage and do justice to authors, but in the hope of achieving an occasional bestseller which might pay for the programme.

From this casual remark was born Macmillan New Writing, with the blessing of CEO Richard Charkin. At the beginning Barnard thought that his problems would be to harness the powerful resources of the many departments inside Macmillan who would tend to regard the new programme as an orphan without a future. What he did not expect was to be scorned by forces outside of the company. Viewed inside the company as working on a shoestring budget, his "streamlining" was called, particularly by literary agents, publishing on the cheap and exploitation of authors.

The books certainly don't look cheap – each printed in hardcover and full colour, with individually designed jackets, reasonable quality of paper, head and tail hands, ribbon markers and modest retail prices (£12.99). What is missing is invisible to the outside observer or reader – no author advances, minimal print runs, standardised contracts, standard designs. Those with long memories may well feel that Barnard has resurrected fiction publishing as it used to be.

Of course, the first problem for Barnard and his team was somehow to arrange that all of the manuscripts would be read. This labour was dispersed among a team of freelance readers, and eased by requiring that all manuscripts be submitted as electronic files. Another rule was that there would be no dialogue with authors except those whose manuscripts were accepted.

The scheme was immediately popular with authors, including the 99 per cent who were rejected, because they knew they were in with a chance. And they would rather accept the formulaic terms – same royalty for everybody (20 per cent of net receipts), no rewriting, take-it-or-leave-it contract, no cash advances – than have no chance at all of being published.

Barnard was content with the usual fate of those with bright ideas: "You thought of it. Now do it. But don't spend any money." What he did not reckon with was the enormous public criticism that the announcement of the programme would attract. But he was clever enough to see this as welcome publicity. The first report, appearing in The Guardian, quoted views that "the scheme is a scam", is "atrocious and wrong", and that Macmillan was guilty of requiring authors to bear their own editing costs.

A vigorous public debate ensued in both the trade and national press. The major assault in the latter came from Robert McCrum, literary editor of the Observer, who told his readers that the launch of Macmillan New Writing meant that the "days of taste and literary discrimination at Macmillan are over." Barnard's written reply to McCrum's article, calling it "a bizarre outburst", was not published.

Nicholas Clee in The New Statesman wondered whether Macmillan was "exploiting authors' desperation". Under the heading "Publishing on the budget plan", The Washington Post announced that Macmillan New Writing was "the talk of Britain's book world".

Meanwhile, Barnard's team had read three thousand manuscripts and decided to publish just six. The programme would continue at the rate of one publication a month.

The second half of Transparent Imprint deals with the nuts and bolts of bringing together all of the elements in the publishing process through what Barnard calls "horizontal management". His book thus has elements of a publishing primer, written in a lively, conversational way which makes the reader feel it was written as it happened – as it was. Through the whole of the adventure Barnard somehow continued his regular executive responsibilities, including trips to Asia, where the books are typeset, printed and bound.

Macmillan New Writing kindly sent LOGOS copies of their first six books along with Barnard's Transparent Imprint. We don't review fiction. I don't even read it. My wife does. But I do study publishing. To me, the most encouraging feature about this book is one that Barnard does not mention, but which is implicit on every page: individual enterprise can indeed flourish in the corporate environment. It just needs the right individual to take the initiative – and the right boss to lend support.

Gordon Graham

My grumpy old man blog of yesterday touched a few nerves. After the enormous success of Eats,shoots & leaves I shouldn't be surprised that the subject of spelling and use of English is a popular issue. I suppose the problem starts in schools. And if it's difficult to teach British kids how much harder is it to teach English to non-native speakers.

About five years ago Macmillan Education launched onestopenglish to offer teaching resources, tips and support to teachers of English throughout the world. It has been a huge success with 350,000 registered users who come back time and again. The material is free and usage has not been restricted at all.

Fine and dandy and very web 2.0 but we needed to develop the site further, to pay top-class professional writers, teachers and developers and to create a web 3.0 level of service. This requires an income stream but we could not risk losing our loyal users. We therefore developed a subscription site, the Staff Room where we have responded to user feedback gathered via questionnaires, workshops and focus groups by generating new 'missing' material, enhanced search, comprehensive support materials and much else.

Teachers of English are not wealthy and we have therefore kept the subscription price to the lowest possible level - £2 per month - and onestopenglish users have already begun to convert in good numbers (we launched last Thursday). Do have a look at onestopenglish and if you are a teacher of English do take out a subscription to the Staff Room - it's worth a go.

I know that this blog sometimes has spelling mistakes - mea culpa. I do try to eliminate them but I type badly and fast and make mistakes. Does it matter? Yes, it upsets me. We are a publishing company and should know how to spell and we should care about getting things right all the time. More importantly (and even more importantly in a computer age where successful searching by and large depends on accurate spelling) bad spelling causes problems.

For instance roughly half of Macmillan's internal reports used to spell Ottakers (sic). Which meant that to find out the total Ottakars sales you had to search on both spellings. It's also a bit insulting billing a customer twice because we can't decide how to spell him/her. Of course this is now a lot easier,although is it Waterstones or Waterstone's?

However, that is nothing compared to the horror I found on the main Macmillan website this morning (which I hope will be corrected by the time you read this):

Picador celebrates the inclusion of two of it's authors on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006 Longlist

It was like a knife to my heart. Can everyone in Macmillan please learn the difference between it's and its - please. And if the rest of the world would follow suit I'd be a happier guy. Or is this yet another sign of fast-approaching grumpy old bookman-itis? Aaaargh.

On the way home earlier this week I popped in to see the bookshop co-owned by one of our regular commentators, Adam Powell. The shop is absolutely great - just what an independent bookshop should be. Good but not flash design. Interesting stock range. Intelligent and engaging staff. The problem is that Adam's customers want the best quality, the best range, the best service and the lowest prices - a difficult business proposition. From a publisher's point of view and with the best (honest) will in the world it is hard to fulfil all the needs of such a bookshop when their purchases are inevitably so much lower than those of the big chains and supermarkets. Who knows what the solution is but committed booksellers like Adam are absolutely part of it. 

But he's not always right. In his latest comment he says that record companies and publishers are reacting to rather than engaging with technological change. I guess that might be true in some instances but I don't believe it's true in general. British publishers in particular are at the forefront of embracing, using and experimenting with new models. The most difficult area in which to move quickly is where there are the most constituents with a voice. That is probably literary publishing where everyone has a vested interest, an opinion, and a right to veto - authors, agents, retailers, reviewers etc. We do need to open this up to change but, believe me, it's hard!

Yesterday's guest posting on Creative Commons by Clare Christian has generated some interesting comments. Are the risks of undermining traditional copyright protection greater than the benefits? Is traditional copyright unsustainable in this new environment? By NOT embracing the new environment are we in danger of creating a copyright-hostile environment? By embracing the new environment are we simply encouraging copyright piracy? By allowing free access are we undermining the value of intellectual property or are we increasing its reach and hence its importance? These are, I believe, some of the important issues for writers, publishers and retailers today (not whether in the UK we print prices on covers or use stickers!).

I thought you might also be interested in yesterday's improbable letter received by one of the editors at Nature:

The Friday Project, which I have mentioned before, is experimenting, yet again, with a new business model. I asked Clare Christian of the FP to tell us about it:

Some of you will have already heard of a Creative Commons licence  as many websites and blogs are published under this agreement. There are a number of licences that can be complex in places but essentially a CC licence means that the content provided under that licence can be downloaded for personal and other non-commercial use while the copyright holder remains the author. 

Although many publishers will throw up their collective hands in horror at the thought of giving away content (see the ongoing Google debate) is it really such a bad idea?

At The Friday Project, we don’t think so. On Monday we released the creative commons edition of Blood, Sweat and Tea, a book based on the blog of Tom Reynolds a London EMT who has been writing about his life and work for the last three years. The publication of the online version coincides with the print edition and we believe that by offering the book in this way we will widen its audience and so increase the potential market for purchases of the print version.

Tim O’Reilly once said ‘Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy’ and I agree. Certainly, as far as this book is concerned, obscurity is not a problem. Already the launch of the CC version is generating comment across the web, including the highly influential Boing Boing and the Telegraph blog which states ‘it's encouraging to see a publisher taking such an innovative approach. It's the ones who experiment that will survive the online world, not the ones who stick rigidly to the traditional business models’.

Of course, time will tell if we are right or wrong, but what do you think?

The creative commons edition of Blood, Sweat and Tea can be found here). Download it, enjoy it – and buy the book too.

It's not often even in England that cricket makes the front pages. The reason is best summed up in the Guardian or cricinfo report on the test match between Pakistan and England which was meant to finish today but finished yesterday when Pakistan were deemed to have forfeited the game.

For the many people who are uninterested in cricket or don't understand it the essence is that an Australian (and thus apparently neutral) umpire penalised Pakistan for cheating by tampering with the ball illegally. Pakistan were definitely ahead in the match and more likely to win. The Pakistan team then staged a protest by refusing to play and the umpires then declared England the winners. After negotiation the Pakistan team then agreed to play but the umpires 'spat the dummy' and refused to have their prior decision overturned and would not restart the game.

All very silly. But there were (and are) two really unpleasant undertones or suspicions.

The first, I hope, is highly unlikely. Before the cheating penalty England were huge outsiders to win the match with the bookmakers (and a lot of money is gambled on cricket worldwide). Immediately afterwards the odds shortened dramatically. Anyone who bet on England to win on Sunday morning stood to make a large amount of money - which always raises eyebrows in sport.

The second relates to bias. Asian cricket teams have been known to suspect that the umpire in question, Darrell Hair, did them no favours. This particular penalty has never been applied before in international cricket. And so on. The bit that really worries me is that this has happened at a time of acute tension between the West and the Islamic world. Cricket is only a sport but in Pakistan and India it is an obsession. To accuse their players of cheating is a grave insult.

God knows where this will all lead but I think that even non-cricket lovers whould follow the story.

PS An excellent piece on the affair by Andrew Miller.

I am attending the September annual conference of National Acqusitions Group, which, to quote:

'...exists to create and encourage dialogue and improvements for all involved in the acquisition process. Members include organisations in publishing, bookselling and library systems supply as well as librarians in academic, public, national, special and government institutions.'

In preparation I'm keeping my ears open for library relevant material. I'll be making a presentation on the key issues affecting publishers today and how these may impact on both the public and academic library sector. So please send me anything you think is relevant.

Working with libraries seems to me an essential part of a publisher's support for authors and for dissemination of information as freely as possible. In the midst of the tectonic shake-up of our industry it is vital that the library and librarians remain at the heart of what we do.