Yesterday I attended a meeting organised by the Booksellers Association to discuss the opportunities and threats posed to the book trade as a whole by the shifting sands of technology and consumer behaviour. The meeting was conducted under the Chatham House rule but it was agreed that the findings and discussions will be widely communicated as soon as the materials are put in order. I shall not jump the gun but, while listening, my mind kept going back to an interview which I blogged a few days ago. It generated a lot of comments from independent booksellers as the 'mystery entrepreneur' challenged many preconceptions about our industry and bookselling in particular. However, it was the last question and answer which has (understandably) made me think hardest:

WW: What about Publishers? Aren’t publishers part of the problem? Shouldn’t they be part of the solution? 

MC: My guess is that somewhere in that solution will be the elimination of “publishers” as we traditionally know them. The only other industry consisting of massively over-compensated mediocre performers who have utterly outlasted their utility and raison d’etre and exist only by virtue of an entrenched, self-protective, bullying autocracy that gangs up against threats posed by obviously more efficient methods that would, could, should and will eliminate them—is Wall Street.

Well, that's telling us. The only consolation is that, for all its sins, I'm pretty certain that Wall Street will survive - and so shall publishers.

Our virtual tour of Macmillan bestsellers takes us to Palgrave Macmillan in the Flatiron Building in New York who have just ended the best year in their history thanks to brilliant publishing and assiduous marketing.

1. The Statesman's Yearbook 2007

One of our most important investments has been the development of the Nature Clinical Practice stable of journals for practising clinicians which we launched in 2004. We undertook a great deal of market research and consulted literally hundreds of eminent physicians about their information needs. I don't think a single one would have identifed the cause of Napoleon's death as a very high priority but now Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatolgy has cracked it with the publication of the snappily titled and open-access available Napoleon Bonaparte's Gastric Cancer: a clinicopathologic approach to staging, pathogenesis, and etiology. A pithier description will be found here and in any number of tabloid newspapers around the world.

And while on journals from Nature Publishing Group I couldn't resist this extract from Michael Crichton's genetic bestseller, Next:

'Good,good. Make those changes, shoot it back to me, and I'll submit it to Nature. I think this deserves a better platform than Science, which is a little down at heels these days. I'll call over to Nature and make sure the editor understands the importance of this paper, and see that we get immediate publication.'

What greater praise could we receive?

Continuing our round-the-world review of Macmillan bestsellers we reach Macmillan Publishers New Zealand.

1. The Lovely Bones

2. The Collectors

3. Triumph of the Sun

4. Cat o'Nine Tails

5. Science World 9

6. Camel Club

7. Macmillan New Zealand World Atlas

8. My Story: Schappelle Corby

9. Science World 10

10. The Gruffalo whom I couldn't resist showing:

And Chris Baty, who runs Pan Macmillan NZ, sent me these words to accompany the list - thanks Chris:

Kiwis could be regarded as an ornery bunch. Despite being at the bottom of the world and there not being many of them, they have a habit of determinedly doing things their own way.  And this was the way of  New Zealand in 2006. Many retailers would say it was the worst year in a very long time.

As with many parts of the world, 2006 launched to rapidly and frequently rising petrol prices, which continued until the last quarter. With little in the way of public transport - even in the bigger cities, freight being road based, and NZ being a long way from all markets, it meant the impact on the country was sharp. The extra money ordinary folk spent on fuelling their cars to get to work, was the equivalent of the cost of at least one or two books.

Combine this with the Reserve Bank raising the rates of interest each quarter in their efforts to take the steam out of the housing market, which has seen unprecedented growth in the past 2 years to the point where a very average house in Auckland, NZ’s largest city in the north, is going up at the rate of $540 per day! Part of the New Zealand dream is that one owns one’s own home, so a high percentage of the population does just that. Despite their best efforts, the Bank has failed miserably to shatter this dream. Kiwis continue to buy and sell property unabated taking bigger and bigger mortgages at increasing interest rates (floating mortgage rates are 9.55%). The government wails at the amount of money invested in the non-productive housing sector, but for individuals, it is the only reliable investment return they have found. Most ordinary people invest for their old age, of course, but when there is no national superannuation scheme offering tax incentives or employer contributions, why would a madly individual Kiwi not go for something more reliable which they can manage themselves.

Furthermore, when the country’s annual surplus comes in at $40 billion and way more than the government planned in their wildest dreams; when there is a huge skills shortage and record employment levels (unemployment is below 4%), business confidence is on a real high, one could be forgiven for thinking these individual Kiwis would have stopped believing their government who steadfastly claim an overheated economy. And certainly they would not do anything the government exhorted them to, in regards to economic wellbeing.

And mostly this is true – with one exception! The Reserve Bank has cajoled, begged, bullied and threatened New Zealanders to stop spending money, particularly on the ‘plastic fantastic’ (credit cards).  And of all the things they chose to be obedient on, it was shopping at Christmas – especially for books. They indulged minimally!

And so Kiwis maintain their proud tradition of being perverse! Internationally they are best known for it in the sports arena, but they are like it at home too.

Talking of sports arenas – just watch them this year at the Rugby World Cup, the America’s Cup, the Netball World Cup, the Bledisloe Cup (rugby), the Tri-Nations (rugby), and the Softball World Cup. They assure us that local perversity was, of course, proven yet again when they let England win the cricket a few days ago! Anyway they invite you all over to see for yourselves – there will be plenty of cups for everyone this year; there just may not be enough chairs!

Today we received the news that the British wholesaler Bertrams is being acquired by its competitor Entertainment UK. I suppose consolidation is inevitable. Publishers will no doubt disagree on whether the potential benefits of greater efficiencies might or might not be outweighed by the risks of reduced competition. I would be very interested in the views of retailers, particularly independent booksellers, who rely on high-quality, cost-effective service from wholesalers.

Yesterday I published the top ten bestsellers from Pan Macmillan South Africa.  Now it's the turn of Ireland and Gill & Macmillan.

Another quote from Matthew Engel's forthcoming Red Notebooks, this time by Adlai Stevenson: An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.

As the sales figures for 2006 flow in from all parts of Macmillan I thought I'd share with you over the next few days a more international representation of the non-chaff bestseller lists from our various companies.

First, South Africa where Peter Godwin's When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is second only to the perennial Guinness World Records.

3. Wilbur Smith's Triumph of the Sun

4. David Baldacci's The Collectors

5. Jeffrey Archer's Cat o' Nine Tails

6. The Google Story

7. Jeffrey Archer again with False Impressions

8. The 80th birthday edition of the condensed version of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom

9. Our Iceberg is Melting

10. Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes

Here in the UK it has been an interesting week for national statistics (a contradiction in terms?), with the simultaneous launch by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) of their new Personal Inflation Calculator to much media attention, and the launch, to a perhaps somewhat less frenzied press interest, of a new ONS journal publication – the monthly Economic and Labour Market Review - which Palgrave Macmillan publishes on behalf of the Office for National Statistics.

The two were launched together on Monday evening at an event hosted at the DTI conference centre in Victoria Street, London. The personal inflation calculator, which has been heavily trailed in the media already, is explained in detail in the new Economic & Labour Market Review. A definitive article on the new calculator can be accessed for free here.

There's a wonderful news story this morning about a suggestion by the French Prime Minister in 1956, Guy Mollet, to the British Government that France and Britain merge. And when that idea was scotched by the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden he then applied for membership of the British Commonwealth. This triggered a memo just released which stated that:

"The PM told him on the telephone that he thought in the light of his talks with the French:

• "That we should give immediate consideration to France joining the Commonwealth

• "That Monsieur Mollet had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty

• "That the French would welcome a common citizenship arrangement on the Irish basis"

We publish an excellent series of books with the generic title, What If? which address just this sort of thing but I don't think even they had the nerve to think this was within the realms of possibility. But just think, what if France and Britain merged? No European Union? A state-driven British economy. The English language 'purified' and kept pure. A much better rugby team. Windsor Castle moved to Versailles. No net book agreement in France! Les Tuileries converted into a cricket ground. Extraordinaire.

Back to publishing, this is the week when news comes in from round the Macmillan world about the final reckoning for 2006. There's one stand-out piece of good news from just about everywhere and it is the success of both Macmillan Children's Books and Priddy Books. The latter was set up only a few years ago and it is already the leader in information books for young (and not so young) children. There are always arguments about whether children's books can cross cultures. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In the case of both these businesses just about every country has welcomed their titles as if they were created specially for their children. It's great to see genuinely innovative publishing teams succeed in this tough old world. 

I came across an interesting website, Publishing Hub, sponsored by the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, Specifically I can recommend a podcast interview with David Attwooll of the electronic publishing consultancy Attwooll Associates. Here's a picture of David whom I've known for decades.

As you can clearly see from his physiognomy he is an optimist and he sees the opportunities in publishing - a key characteristic for success. Perhaps less characteristic of publishers is that he doesn't just want to succeed in his own endeavours, he revels in the success of others. Cheers to David.

This article from the Independent newspaper is entirely different. It is an attack on Jeffrey Archer's forthcoming The Gospel According to Judas. The journalist, Boyd Tonkin, has decided it's worthless before reading a word. He's rather thrown by the fact that Archer has had support from the likes of theological giants such as Cardinal Martini, Desmond Tutu and Frank Moloney. He can only explain this away by  suggesting that they are simply being Christian in supporting a repentant sinner. Boyd, how about the possibility that they might think it a good idea to work with a best-selling author to make Christianity more relevant and interesting to a wide audience?

He then tries another tack. The Christian establishment shouldn't suppport someone who committed perjury (for which, incidentally, he served a long prison term). Boo to Boyd.

Fortunately not everybody is so negative, so partial, so mean-spirited and the world's media have welcomed the forthcoming event with enthusiasm - I won't bore you with the five pages listing the coverage but here is a balanced piece from Publishing News.

The book and audio version will be available on 20th March. I'm sure you'll be able to order from all good booksellers but perhaps you should try the excellent Bedside Crow or Keeble Antiques who, as independent booksellers, give personalised customer service rather than relying on discounting books.

And to end on a recommendation, Andrea Camilleri. His detective books set in Sicily have made him Italy's most popular novelist. Picador has just launched his sixth in English, described here in the Independent. The (anti)hero Montalbano is definitely the grumpiest detective in fiction and makes even our correspondent, Clive Keeble, seem restrained.

It's curious that when I or others write about the problems of independent bookselling in 2006 there is always a flurry of vaguely nostalgic comments about the long defunct Net Book Agreement. And yet when I invite comments on that subject to help inform our German bookseller and publisher colleagues there is hardly any response. My view is best expressed in an extract from a letter in yesterday's Bookseller from the Chief Executive of the Booksellers' Association, Tim Godfray.

Moreover, it is ridiculous to suggest that the BA just watched the Net Book Agreement wither.  With the PA, we played a leading role in successfully heading off an OFT investigation on two occasions, as well as winning a court case against DGIV (the European Competition Commission) in the European Court of Justice.  But at the end of the day, the NBA was a voluntary publishers' agreement.  Two leading trade publishers had by 1995 elected to have nothing to do with it;  they were joined by other leading publishing houses who, faced by opposition from the competition authorities, the media, many politicians, and by one of our largest members, Dillons, decided it could no longer be sustained.  It cannot be brought back.  It is history.  We have to move on.

I was unable to attend the funeral of the great publisher and friend of Macmillan, William Armstrong. He died on 22 December 2006. The funeral took place on 11 January at St Michael's Church, Highgate.

George Morley described the event for us.

After the first appropriately irish hymn, ‘Be Thou My Vision’, his daughter Dido – who used to work at Sidgwick with William before she became a successful singer songwriter – gave a touching, heartfelt and funny address, ending it by singing ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ a traditional Irish song beloved by her father.  Next came William’s cousin from Limerick, Des O'Malley, who told wonderful stories of William and his family, including an encounter between William’s formidable mother and the B Specials.  William’s wide-ranging and often unusual literary tastes were apparent even as a young man, he told us, when he was very keen on the Venerable Bede who was ‘not very big in Ireland then.’  The priest of St Joseph spoke next and even managed to work in a reference to Bede’s story of the sparrow’s flight through a great hall being a metaphor for human life.  William’s widow, Clare, then read John Donne’s ‘Death Be Not Proud’, followed by a family friend, who read a poem about William that she had written.  Another hymn – Lord of the Dance – preceded Patrick Janson-Smith’s encomium to William’s long and successful career, reminding us that he had presided over Sidgwick & Jackson’s golden age, publishing – among many, many other successes – Edward Heath’s bestselling books about music and sailing, Shirley Conran's book of household hints, for which William coined the title and thus ensured its success - Superwoman, Shirley's novel Lace, Judith Krantz's Scruples, Bob Geldof's Is That It?, the memoirs of Ron & Reg Kray, Boy George's Take It Like A Man, whose title, PJS said, had to be explained to him by younger members of staff and, of course, General Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War, which was entirely William's idea.  Mary Mount, ex Sidgwick work experience, now Editorial Director of Viking and family friend, read Philip Larkin’s ‘On an Arundel Tomb’ and the congregation sang the final hymn, ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended.’  William’s son, Rollo, came next, speaking about his dad lovingly, wittily and warmly, before Dido sang Patrick Kavanagh’s On Raglan Road, which she had sung to her father when he was dying and which he always claimed was about his great-aunt Hilda O’Malley.  The service ended with the Pie Jesu from Faure’s Requiem and the usual prayers.  Afterwards, the family and many of the congregation followed the cortege to Highgate Cemetery where William was buried, but not before Clare, Dido and Rollo had thrown tennis balls into the grave with him, reflecting William’s abiding love of a fiercely competitive game of tennis.

And I am grateful to Patrick Janson-Smith for his permission to quote from his eulogy.

Willian O'Malley Armstrong was a good friend of many years' standing. I met him through publishing and so it is of his distinguished career in publishing that I will speak.

Insofar as I am aware, William began his publishing career at Purnell, whre he edited a partwork on World War 2, but it was in 1968, when ke joined the then independent publishing house of Sidgwick & Jackson that he began to attract the trade's attention. For over a quarter of a century, through several changes of ownership. William presided over what was, without question, Sidgwick's Golden Age, publishing enthusiastically across a wide range of subjects, from poetry and politics to hard rock and even harder criminals' memoirs...

Milestones in William's illustrious career would have to include Edward Heath's extraordinarily successful books on sailing and music, of which it was said: The unsigned ones are the valuable ones...

In conclusion I have chosen an anecdote, Mildly censored, that, to me, best sums up his human qualities:

'I was going to lunch one day when William hailed me over. He was at his desk reading a tabloid newspaper.

It says here that my son Rollo was cavorting on a beach in Ibiza with someone called Helena Christensen .... why is THAT in the newspaper?

She's a well-known supermodel, William.

Oh really....So it's a GOOD thing?'

May the road rise up to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and the rain fall soft upon your fields,

and until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

A week ago I (perhaps unwisely) gave space to the cri de coeur of an independent bookseller. This was followed by several days of interesting and sometimes coruscating debate. I tried to steer things away from re-runs of the Net Book Agreement argument on the grounds that we no longer have retail price maintenance, it won't reappear, and there's little point crying over spilt milk.

However, some things never seem to go away altogether and the retail price maintenance debate is still a live issue in Germany. I wonder (again perhaps unwisely) if any of the commentators to this blog can offer advice to German publishers and retailers. For instance has the experience in the UK shown:

British consumers benefit from lower prices?

Supermarkets have significantly widened the market for books?

If the NBA had continued would supermarkets have even been interested in books?

Quality bookshop chains have thrived?

Independent booksellers have been able to carve out a price-insensitive niche?

Publishers have behaved responsibly in post-NBA dealings with retailers?

I think I can predict the responses but I'd love to be proved wrong. From a commentator in the USA a very interesting Q&A session with a mystery entrepreneur.

A very sad blog relating to the AMS bankruptcy in the USA which is likely to send small publishers into financial danger or disaster.

More statistics for the Macmillan year-end round-up - Numbers 1 and 2 in the back-to-university bestseller lists: Study Skills Handbook and Student Planner.

For those interested in cricket here is an extract from an email I received from a distinguished cricket journalist (you have to understand the game to get the joke/irony):

Sorry I haven't replied earlier but I have only just got back from Australia and what was probably a v close and competitive Test series compared with the ODIs to come!

And finally a show-off piece about a paper on stem cells which appeared in Nature Biotechnology. So far the paper has appeared in more than 1000 newspaper articles around the world according to Google News and any number of TV and radio mentions. Science may be difficult to understand but there is a huge demand for information about it and the reliability of that information is vital. We think our team offers just that reliability to scientists and the general public alike - and our press team knows how to make a scientific paper famous. That's a pretty good description of what all publishing is about - good content and good publicity.