I ran into a little trouble recently when I posted about a competition to promote the Macmillan English Dictionary by releasing red balloons and offering a round-the-world air ticket to the competition winner. In spite of the balloons being biodegradable there was still the issue of carbon dioxide emissions from the plane. In any event, things went ahead and I'm not really too ashamed that the competition has got off to a great start with this launch from Bucharest.

And this one from Madrid.

And while on matters green, you can hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu reading The Gospel according to Judas via audi download without harming a single leaf of a tree. Give it a whirl. On the same theme, Pan Macmillan launched its first e-list with nine titles. There are many many more to come but we wanted to act fast and start learning as soon as possible. I don't suppose we shall make any money on this first list but we and our authors have to engage in the digital world and find the new opportunities and we won't do that by sitting on our hands.

And finally a link to an article in The Spectator all about developments at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the be-all and end-all, the alternative title for our new Complete Shakespeare.

Have a good Spring weekend. I'm preparing for the London Book Fair which, glory be, has returned to West London and within walking distance from my home.

It's an open secret that one of the most innovative and most important parts of general book publishing is in the children's arena. We are very proud that Macmillan Children's Books has been in the forefront of creativity for the last decade and has grown faster than almost any other children's publisher, matched only perhaps by our colleagues at Priddy Books.

Yesterday we announced a major coup in children's publishing, the Ugenia Lavender series from Geri Halliwell. Coverage of the announcement has been extensive and there is much more to come. Congratulations to everyone in the team who has worked so hard to win this programme and thanks in advance for all the work that still needs to happen.

One of the best books published by Picador is John Lanchester's Debt to Pleasure. He is also a journalist and has written an extremely interesting and cogent piece on copyright in a digital age. It's a shame he spoils it by arguing for a legally imposed (but almost certainly legally unenforceable) minimum royalty rate which would have no effect but to increase rancour and bureaucracy.

Exactly a hundred years ago this year (and approximately 99 years before some large American publishers descended on the Beijing International Book Fair 2006 to teach Chinese publishers how to do business) Macmillan appointed F.G.Whittick as travelling representative in China. A year on the headcount was doubled by the appointment of M.E.Taur as his assistant on $40 per month (not bad for those days) but this didn't work out and Taur was 'demoted' to being a 'mere' translator. Selling Macmillan's very British and rather imperial titles in China proved tough and so a local publishing programme was established including 'Arithmetic for Chinese Schools' and in 1912 a Chinese school atlas.

In 1979 the programme was revived after a visit by Harold Macmillan, then aged 85 but still determined to do a publishing deal and to muse on the 'unheard of possibilities we must be ready for.'

This century of hard (and often unprofitable) work is beginning to pay dividends now with the establishment of New Standard English as market leader in the Chinese English Language Teaching market; Nature China as the premier shop window for Chinese science; Nature Asia which makes English-language scientific information available Chinese, both simplified and traditional, as well as Japanese and Korean; Macmillan Production Asia which sources print and associated products for Macmillan and many other publishers; and much else.

The latest venture in this centenary year I mentioned earlier in the week and I can now link to a page all about Picador Asia which we launched at the excellent Asia House with the help of our Chinese literary adviser and make-things-happen guru, Toby Eady. It is a great initiative with great books, great authors and a continuation and enrichment of a great tradition of learning from China rather than lecturing to China.

Here are the first two authors in the list, Diane Wei Liang and Fan Wu.

Yesterday I wrote in praise of Wilbur and in the hope that his clutch of number one best selling positions (in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand) might be added to in the UK. I can now confirm that The Quest is indeed the best selling novel in the UK this week, way ahead of number two.

And finally and with no particular logic I thought I'd show you this link which popped up as a Google ad here recently. It is quite extraordinary but perhaps I'm simply being old-fashioned.

Last night we had a Macmillan 'family' dinner to celebrate the launch of Wilbur Smith's 31st ( I think, it's hard to keep up) novel, The Quest. Do have a look at Wilbur's website and in particular his autobiography. He may be most celebrated for his best-selling novels (he is right now number one in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and our fingers are crossed for the UK this weekend) but he is much more. Here he is with his wife and the dedicatee of The Quest, Niso.

At the other end of the book publishing spectrum, one of the main news items this morning has been about the changes in family life in Britain. In particular that one on four children is being brought up in a single-parent family. This research has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the 37th (Wilbur will have to put his skates on to catch up) edition of Social Trends created by the UK's Office of National Statistics. There is hardly any good news in the data - more obesity, more time being ill, less ability to fund house-buying etc. Ah well, we'll all have to escape to fiction for some good news.

Yesterday afternoon I was taken, along with a delegation of the World Presidents' Organisation to the US Ambassador's residency in Regents Park. It's known as Winfield House and is an amazing piece of real estate in central London shown by this aerial view.

The ambassador, Bob Tuttle, was forthright, interesting, urbane, and diplomatic (as you'd expect). But the bit I liked was the talk by his wife, Maria, about the history of Winfield House. It was acquired by the Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton. After World War II she offered it to the State Deoartment for a dollar who hesitated (there must be a catch) but eventually accepted the gift. The only condition Hutton made was that it retained the name 'Winfield' which is the 'W' of F.W.Woolworth, her grandfather, Frank Winfield Woolworth. So now you know!

There's a lot of tosh in the book trade press (and indeed in the general media) about 'the most powerful person in publishing'. In Britain, the accolade usually goes to Amanda Ross who co-produces the Richard and Judy Show and manages its hugely successful book club. In the USA I guess Oprah Winfrey fills the bill. Once upon a time, the chief buyer at Waterstone's, Scott Pack was deemed to be Mr Big (incidentally his blog is well worth following). Of course, none of these people, however influential, is really powerful. Their impact is rather limited in scope (perhaps a dozen books a year out of 100,000 new titles published), in geography (typically very national) and in genre (fiction and some narrative non-fiction).

I received an email this morning from an old friend and business partner, Li Pengyi, President of FLTRP (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press) in Beijing. He has a new job as Party Secretary and Vice-President of the China Publishing Group which is an umbrella group for a dozen publishers, printers and distributors including, for instance British publishers' principal trading partner for finished books, CNPIEC (China National Publications Import and Export Corporation).

Given China's importance to the twenty-first century world and, in particular to publishing, and given the centrality of this new job, Pengyi gets my vote as the most powerful person in publishing 2007. He is also one of the most professional. Any other contenders?

While on matters Chinese, we are holding the London launch of Picador Asia tomorrow which Dan Watts wrote about in February. One of the launch titles is The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang which brightened my weekend and which taught me more about contemporary Beijing than any number of learned articles.

There is the beginning of a debate about the future of reference books on Tim Coates's Good Library Blog. It was started by a recent posting about our dictionary for learners of English, Macmillan English Dictionary, which we're about to launch in a second edition along with website and CDRom. Clearly reference books are changing in relation to the web but that doesn't mean either that they are doomed or that the print version is redundant.

But that debate seems rather small beer compared with the recent flurry of articles about the media revolution. Forbes Magazine,for instance, tries to analyse the winners and losers:

'Advertising on TV will vanish as we know it as home media servers take over command of home entertainment and step past it. Movies will quickly lose the DVD sales income that help inflate their budgets beyond what the cinema can recoup. Cinemas themselves will be under threat as home screen sizes grow to theater-sized proportions. Even the venerable book will be threatened when some time in the near future a "digital ink" media becomes as cheap and cheerful as paper. Why buy a Harry Potter book when you can download it for free from a book p2p network to your cheap digital paper?

Right or wrong, the audience cannot be relied upon to pay for media as they do if they absolutely have to. If content can be purloined, a large proportion of the audience cannot see why it shouldn’t be. This is not surprising; people buy what they must and are still left wanting more. There seems to be little doubt that there is no practical solution. As such the media model as we know it is on its way out.'

And Outsell, who have merged with EPS (Electronic Publishing Services) have an article entitled 'Google - the threat to median and information'. To quote from it:

"When Eric Schmidt stated Google's goal to reach $100 billion, Google had hit $8 billion in revenues. Consider that Microsoft at that time was at about $50 billion in revenues. Google's management said, in effect, 'We'll be twice the size of Microsoft in the future.'"

The very detailed research article costs $295 to non-subscribers and should be required reading for everyone in the publishing business. Their list of essential actions might be debatable but I wonder how many organisations are even debating them. Here are the conclusions. Some of the phraseology and vocabulary may sound alien to traditional publishers and the actions might appear millions of miles from what we do to stay in business today but...

'Google’s software is more capable than many recognize. Its pockets are deep and the scalability of its technology unprecedented. Google can innovate endlessly and with little incremental cost. Do publishers pack up and go home? No, there is ample room providing they pick their spots on the battlefield. It’s important to focus on six key areas:

1. Take Action to be Ahead of Aggregation and Back-Office Services

2. Fill Gaps and Provide Context

3. Use New Editorial Models

4. Think Beyond Vertical Search

5. Expand Acquisition and Partnering

6. Upsell, Go Upmarket, and Focus on Annuities

Take Action to be Ahead of Aggregation and Back-Office Services

Companies delivering basic forms of aggregation continue to be at risk from the Googleplex juggernaut. As we’ve written over the years, the ability to add unique value to content or provide unique data in the content is essential for staying power.

Fill Gaps and Provide Context

Product developers must focus on how users consume media and information providers’ content in their workflow. Important gaps in content streams must be filled with new product content. This can be created through new editorial models, acquisition and partnering, or all of the above.

Use New Editorial Models

Focus on new editorial processes and people. New content creation methods that allow for some semblance of agility, or automation that allows cost-effective content creation at the bottom so more editorial focus and value-add can be applied to the top, are essential. This goes beyond outsourcing or re-engineering processes. It is about wholesale change of core knowledge processes.

Think Beyond Vertical Search

Vertical search offers no panacea in the face of Google’s launch of personal search and what it is capable of accomplishing with its technology. In our opinion, publishers and providers must own unique and proprietary data at their core for long-term differentiation. Further, they must be able to marry that core to value-added analysis and the integration of their own analysis with external content. Publishers who “own a space” will want to think beyond their four walls to create a comprehensive user experience. But first they must have unique assets at their core that go beyond editorial.

Expand Acquisition and Partnering

No publisher and provider, not the biggest or the nimblest, can mirror the technical wherewithal of Google. It is being applied on several fronts – content creation, distribution, and monetization. One can’t fight all these battles on all these fronts. Acquisitions, divestitures, and partnerships will be even more essential for future success. Focus on core. Allow others to do what they do best. In our opinion, publishers

and information providers will be even more prolific partners than we’ve seen in the history of this industry or any of its segments.

Upsell, Go Upmarket, and Focus on Annuities

As we’ve advised throughout the last decade, the market is commoditizing because of major disruption from firms like Google. We’ve labeled Google the Wal*Mart of our industry, and we are only one of six industries in its sights as it seeks the $100 billion mark. It is essential to continue focusing on value-added services, core content, and service differentiation. Protect annuity revenue streams first, whether they come from advertisers or paying subscribers. Ensuring a recurring revenue stream from existing customers is the first focus of the day. From there, upsell, cross-sell, partner, and remain

focused. Many of the verticals served by publishers and information providers are so narrow and niched, or so reliant on specific types of information, that they won’t register on Google’s radar screen or customers will insist on continuing with a more authoritative

source. In Outsell’s opinion, just as local shopkeepers or big-box stores have had to counter Wal*Mart’s thrust into their communities, publishers and information providers of all types will have to counter Google. Its presence is too large for the community to stay static.'

Popular science is a strange genre in publishing. Every now and then, a book takes off - for instance, The Selfish Gene way back in 1976 (which which I betted would not sell 5000 copies) or A Brief History of Time which must rate as one of the most bought least read books of all time.

Immediately following one of these success there is a flurry of popular science publishing, large advances are paid, marketing campaigns are launched and most of the books sink with little trace.

There are, in my view, two reasons for this. The first is to do with a flaw in the industry itself. There is an assumption that a talented publisher can publish almost any genre successfully. This may be true on the arts and humanities but it is not true in science (or quite a few other genres for that matter) where understanding of the subject and the market is essential. Simply paying big advances for famous names doesn't work.

The second reason is less easily fixable - a general distrust and lack of interest in science.

Fortunately, the Royal Society has made the public understanding of science one of its priorities and has taken over sponsorship of the Booker Prize of science, what was known as the Aventis/Rhone-Poulenc and is now more straightforwardly known as Royal Society Prizes for Science Books.

The judges have just announced their longlist and I am delighted that Macmillan has two titles in the running for the world's most prestigious award and they are both favourites of mine which I've mentioned here before.

We published Giant Leaps in November in asociation with the Science Museum and The Sun newspaper, together with the marketing support of a once powerful politician. If you're at a loose end over the holiday weekend why not try the Giant Leaps quiz?

The second is less in-your-face but none the worse for that. Lonesome George by Henry Nicholls is the story of a bachelor giant tortoise in the Galapagos who is the last of his line and has yet to find love. Here he is, and very handsome too. And check out some of the reviews at this link.

Both of these books saw the light of day through the efforts of people who care about the dissemination of scientific knowledge rather than the traditional lemming-like me-too publishing we all see too much of. Thank goodness quality publishing still exists.

These are the first words of Matthew Engel's article on the front page of today's Weekend Financial Times. He explains how he came to compile the Extracts from the Red Notebooks which we have just published. I've warbled on about it before and so I won't warble anymore. Just go find a copy.

On the subject of Jewish bolshie-ism (and I'm not sure that the phrase isn't a tautology), I've just finished a novel by a long-standing friend (I have to put that in or risk being accused of concealing connections), the wonderful Charlotte Mendelson who you can see and hear here. The new book is When we were bad which I wolfed down in an afternoon. Being the uncultured publisher that I am, my only suggestion was that she create a glossary of Yiddish for those readers not brought up in Jewish culture. The meaning of most Yiddish words is pretty clear from the context and from films and sitcoms but the subtleties of difference between a shmendrick and a shlemiel could do with some elaboration.

I was going to mention a few other forthcoming books an dthen I received my monthly Pan Macmillan newsletter which does a much better job than I could. You can sign up for it at www.panmacmillan.com but here is a sampler. We have a busy few weeks at Pan.(And don't ask me why html has decided to centre the newsletter !).