"Hay-on-Wye? Is that some kind of a sandwich?" A wonderful quote from the great playwright Arthur Miller when he was invited to attend the second Hay Festival of Literature in 1989. The festival now pretentiously describes itself as the 'Woodstock of the Mind' (first dubbed that by Bill Clinton in 2001) and has sponsorship from The Guardian, a blog, a haycast, more than 100,000 visitors and the cream of the literary elite. I am not there and to my shame I have never felt the urge to go. Photos like this one rather turn me off - and the weather is both wet and cold today.

However, this photo is rather more attractive.

As a result of Hay and a bank holiday, books are in the news today. I wanted to share with you the business news on the Today programme of the BBC this morning but the link hasn't yet been posted (try going to 'listen to today's programme in full' and click on fifteen minutes after the beginning - 6.20 a.m. UK time). There were interviews with independent booksellers bemoaning the impact of Internet bookselling; an interview with David Roche about the profit impact of Harry Potter on retailers (with a plug for Borders UK); and a promotion piece for HarperCollins and its eco-friendly policy as explained by Vicky Barnsley. I wanted to ask Vicky why, if using recycled paper is a good idea for titles in her Fourth Estate list, does she not apply the policy to the much longer print runs enjoyed in the core HarperCollins lists. There must be a good reason.

During these various pieces two surveys were cited. One poll showed that most people would like to see independent booksellers survive. The other showed that most people would like forests to survive. Well I never... Motherhood and apple pie - we're all in favour.

And while on radio, literature and publishing, I recommend you find an hour to listen to this week's Private Passions where the guest is co-founder of Bloomsbury and brilliant publisher Liz Calder. Her choice of music is eclectic with a Latin-American tinge. Brilliant.

And finally, you might enjoy this link to the Afghanistan part of the Jewish Virtual Library. With only two Jews left in the whole of the country, they managed to fall out with each other. Very Mel Brooks.

There was an interesting article in The Times last week about the commercial importance of women directors. The article was based on the research described in A woman's place is in the boardroom by Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham.

I think we all understand how important it is to recognise that the previous waste of half the intellectual and business talent of the world has been ridiculous and yet the 100 top public companies in the UK boast only twelve female executive directors. The authors list a series of reasons, described as 'problems' and one of my female colleagues pointed to this one, which rings true with me too.

Problem: A major reason why women don’t reach senior levels is because, as individuals, they don’t think that they’re good enough. They also tend to assume that by doing a good job and working hard, recognition will follow. This does not happen, and is not helped by women’s awkwardness in discussing their own merits, especially as men excel at telling the world how great they are. Worse, women are also inclined to broadcast their limitations.

I had an annual treat last night - a visit to Glyndebourne Opera House for a weird and wonderful production of Verdi's Macbeth. The three witches emerging from 1950s-style caravans will remain with me a very long time. Reviews have been mixed but The Guardian liked it and so did I. The other weird and wonderful thing about Glyndebourne is that people actually dress up in black tie etc in order to have a picnic in the garden and in the rain. Strange lot, these Brits.

We had an interesting comment from Vanessa at the Fidra blog about the pricing of scholarly books. She says:

Or is it that publishers can get away with charging £45 for an academic text because they're mainly bought via library budgets rather by individuals putting their hands in their pockets?

Clearly she is right that libraries are more likely to pay £45 for a book (however good it is) than individuals. What I slightly object to (I am a very sensitive soul) is the phrase 'get away with'. It implies a degree of crookedness. Nobody in his/her right business mind charges less for something than the customer is willing to pay. A very wise publisher of law books, Gordon Graham now of Logos but then head of Butterworth's now (sadly) known as Lexis-Nexis used to regale training courses with two pieces of wisdom;

In order to stay in the publishing business charge more than customers want to pay but no more than they can afford to pay.

And:

In order to keep your job in a corporate environment always show profits slightly ahead of your boss's expectations but always hold back a bit for next year.

Soon after I joined Macmillan in 1998, I was summonsed by the literary agent, Michael Sissons, of what is now the pfd international literary and talent agency. He was representing Chris Patten who had recently overseen the transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese control.

Patten had agreed with HarperCollins UK a contract to write about his time in Hong Kong and his views of the Chinese authorities. Sissons had just been informed that HC were withdrawing from their contract under instructions from Rupert Murdoch. The assumption was that Murdoch did not wish to upset the Chinese authorities while he was negotiating a licence to broadcast TV across Asia. HC claimed it ws because the book was boring.

We were delighted to be invited to take over the contract for publication of East and West and HC apologised unreservedly for calling it boring. We sold more than 100,000 copies in our territories. Random House sold a goodly quantity of the US edition and there were several translations. Reviews were excellent. A publishing success all round.

I was therefore surprised to read yesterday that Rupert Murdoch, whose business acumen and commitment to freedom of speech I admire enormously, told the Financial Times that the reason he over-ruled publication not because the book was boring, nor in order to kowtow to China, but because he thought it wouldn't sell. Even the greatest can make mistakes in predicting book sales.

I was at a supervisory board meeting in Stuttgart yesterday. There was a display of recently-published books from our various companies - S.Fischer, Rowohlt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch and Droemer Knaur. The books were beautiful. Imaginative jackets, high-quality text design, good paper, strong binding - in short treasurability. The other thing I noticed was that the hardbacks carried neither price nor barcode - and they looked much better for it. Apparently, hardbacks are individually shrink-wrapped (is that eco-friendly?) and then stickered with price etc. In-store, the bookseller will unwrap one copy for display purposes and keep the rest pristine. The other thing I noticed was that prices compare more than favourably with British ones.

How come there is so much more quality in German book production and design than in the British (and some other country) equivalents? I'm sure independent retailers will cry 'retail price maintenance' but I'm not sure. Perhaps it is simply a greater reverence for the written word which permeates the educational system and into the book industry. Whatever the explanation, I think there's a lot British publishers can learn fronm Germany about how to make a book a desirable object as well as a leisure 'product'.

If you're interested in getting a sense of German books and can cope with the non-English signage, go to Lovely Books, a social network for book-lovers which our team in Germany has launched in beta version just recently and which is building up a significant number of literary registrants.

I leave you with a wonderful German cover for Buddenbrooks published by Fischer.

Stop press: The German Parliament has recognised the centrality of publishing and publishers to the development of scientific research. More German commitment to quality.

I spent some of yesterday at Sir Paul Getty's cricket ground at Wormsley.

This panorama doesn't really do justice to the beauty of the place on an early English Summer's day.

The cricket was incidental to the fun and hospitality of the Wisden criicket day for advertisers, sponsors and contributors. I didn't play (saving myself for a needle match on Sunday) but did manage to suffer silly sunburn.

A controversy waiting to happen has just surfaced in the USA. It relates to an author's right to have the rights in her/his book revert if the publisher fails to keep the book in print. Simon & Schuster have eliminated this reversion clause from their boiler-plate contract. I can see their point. The existing clause refers to a simpler world where the definition of in print or out of print was clear. Today, publishing is global. If there is a copy in, say, an Australian warehouse, is the book still in print? If a book is immediately available by print on demand, is it in print? If a book is available digitally or by chapter, is it in print? However, I can understand an author's legitimate desire to ensure that a publisher does not simply 'sit on' the rights to a book. We need a new approach to rights reversion which recognises the new world in which we operate but which also recognises the decencies and fairness (in both directions) of the old. Some of the complexities are elaborated by Peter Brantley. This one will run and run.

We heaved a sigh of relief yesterday when the Crown Prosecution Service issued its press release and where Sir Ken Macdonald stated:

"I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrey Lugovoy with the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning.

"I have further concluded that a prosecution of this case would clearly be in the public interest.

This was the same  suspect as Martin Sixsmith had fingered in his book The Litvinenko File which we published about a month ago. Goodness knows where the diplomatic stand-off between Russia and Britain will end but one side-effect is that the book's sales have already accelerated in the 24 hours since the announcement.

I asked yesterday whether anyone objected to the ads on this blog which have earned (I had pointed out to me) $254.12, not the figure I gave which was just the latets instalment. Nobody seems to mind and so I'll continue. The money will, I promise, be put to good use.

A little while ago I wrote about the differences in style between British and American dictionaries. British entries try to define a word as accurately as possible with as few words as possible. Analgesic febrifuge as a definition of aspirin in the COD is an extreme of Britishness. The American style is more discursive and descriptive and here is an extreme of American-ness from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged:

Main Entry: ¹ho·tel    Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: ()h|tel
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: French hôtel, from Old French ostel, hostel -- more at HOSTEL
1 archaic : a city mansion of a person of rank or wealth
2 a : a house licensed to provide lodging and usually meals, entertainment, and various personal services for the public : INN b : a building of many rooms chiefly for overnight accommodation of transients and several floors served by elevators, usually with a large open street-level lobby containing easy chairs, with a variety of compartments for eating, drinking, dancing, exhibitions, and group meetings (as of salesmen or convention attendants), with shops having both inside and street-side entrances and offering for sale items (as clothes, gifts, candy, theater tickets, travel tickets) of particular interest to a traveler, or providing personal services (as hairdressing, shoe shining), and with telephone booths, writing tables and washrooms freely available

Invariably when there is discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of print versus digital delivery of books, someone says: 'Ah, but you wouldn't want to read an e-book in the bath.' I am therefore most grateful to New Yorker Chris Steib who has undertaken a controlled scientific experiment comparing his Sony Reader and a print copy of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. The Reader won!

I must thank Jeff Gomez and his Print is Dead blog for stimulating the experiment in the first place and then bringing it to my attention. Jeff's book (in print and digital editions)with the same title comes out in November.

I had a meeting yesterday with the person responsible for the OUPBlog. They manage approximately two postings a day, which puts me to shame - and they are very interesting. My only defence is that most days the blog is written by one of their illustrious authors while I'm pretty much a sole trader with the occasional and much-appreciated support of some Macmillan colleagues.

I've just seen the latest account from Google ads, a majestic $122.78. Here's my question. Do the ads upset any of you in any way?

We published The Literary Tourist by Nicola Watson in October 2006 as a scholarly book. It has received first-rate reviews and has been a moderate commercial success albeit with a short print run and a high price.

Susan Hill has issued a challenge on her blog for us to produce a cheaper edition in order to garner more sales through general-reader purchase. Her opening line is 'Great book, pity how it's published'.

This is an old chestnut. I cannot think of an academic author (or interested reviwer) who doesn't think that their book will find a wide audience if only it were priced and marketed like the latest Jilly Cooper (£3.99 for 1000 plus pages from Waterstone's). Sometimes the author is right but it is very rarely the case that a book written for scholarly reasons becomes a best seller. We shall be issuing a paperback of this excellent book in due course and, given the interest and potential market, I am sure it will do well. It may sell several thousand copies but I'd be amazed (and delighted) if it sold the tens of thousands that would have justified original publication as a general book.

Apart from this specific case, the challenge raises the question of pricing of academic books in general. Susan's commentators are horrified at the idea of paying £45 for a 250 page book. Compared to discounted Harry Potter of course £45 seems expensive. But is it? Try comparing the price with a shirt, a meal in a London restaurant, a ticket to a major sporting event, a train ticket, an hour of a lawyer's time. I think academic books are amazingly good value. They are permanent. They are valuable. They are great value for money. They are the fruit of extensive research and application. They are fundamental to the scholarly process. They reach a global audience and are readily available through libraries for those who cannot afford to purchase. They are fit for purpose and worth every penny. Thank goodness academic publishers have worked out a way of continuing to publish academic works commercially in spite of library budget constraints and falling print runs.

Lastweek I wrote about an article about Nature in Der Spiegel. I couldn't link to the article becaquse it was 'subscriber only' and so a gave a brief quote in German. Adam Hodgkin kindly sent me this Google translation:

'Timo twin errs easily orientationless over the beach, then zigzag the slope up. „Well finally, I knew nevertheless that it is here somewhere “, says the man in the red T-Shirt. Over an extensive place prangt largely like a building sign the Logo of its enterprise, knows on red Reason: „Nature “. Timo twin arrived in its new realm, on an island in on-line game of roles „Second Life “. The name of the island is program: „Second Nature “. The Avatar sees only far away similar to the Timo in the material life - this is a large man end of thirty also easily roundish Harry Potter face. It is called Timo Hannay. And it is like that something like the representative that Science magazine „Nature “in the virtual world.'

The piece is now open to everyone in English on Spiegel Online International. Here is a flavour. As a colleague remarked, it's hard to decide whether this makes much more sense than the Google version.

'Twin has arrived in his new realm, on an island in the online role-playing game Second Life. The name of the island is fitting: Second Nature. The avatar bears only a vague resemblance to the real-life Timo, a tall man in his late 30s with a slightly round, Harry Potter-like face. His real name is Timo Hannay, and he is something like the representative of the scientific journal Nature in the virtual world.'