The first of the month brings statistics. This blog enjoyed 81296 visits in May, up from the disappointing 68227 in April and taking the total visits to 770480. We should pass the million before year end.

Last night I went to a 'desserts party' at the right-on Housing Works Bookstore in SoHo.

We were there to celebrate our US children's publishing and to meet a number of the world's best children's authors. I was particularly pleased to meet Jacqueline Wilson who is an enormous success in the UK but, for no good reason, has not yet cracked America. Roaring Brook Press is now publishing her and I'm betting that they'll do the trick although the US market can be a fickle beast.

By the way, Roaring Brook are the publishers of one of my favourite children's books Leemons are not red which sadly and inexplicably (I'm sure there is a good explanation but it will be convoluted!) is not published by Macmillan Children's Books outside USA.

Now I'm off to the BEA to be horrified at the cost of the event, perplexed by the volume of new books, amazed at the creativity, baffled by the economics and cheered by meeting old friends and enemies.

I wrote about Wormsley cricket ground last week and Andrew Hall has kindly sent me this great photo of the back of the pavillion complete with a proper English phone box. It makes me homesick although this view from my hotel window compensates quite a bit.

The video promoting Richard Wiseman's Quirkology passed a million views on youtube yesterday. An extraordinary piece of book marketing which is generating global sales.

Similarly, this article about George Lucas using Starwars fans to create mash-up versions of his films raises issues about how best we book publishers can encourage reader involvement in the editorial process. It really is a brave new world.

Meanwhile, in the old world I have to go off to my next batch of board meetings - for St. Martin's Press, Tor and Scientific American. Pip pip.

Pedalling away on the exercise bike in the hotel gym here in New York I found myself watching this on the TV. Somehow it captures my frequent sufferings at the hands of mobile technology.

New York is looking great in beautiful May weather and the Flatiron Building which houses most of our US-based colleagues is looking close to its best after much renovation.

The only problem is that city appears to be overrun by British publishers. For instance, I bumped into sixteen visitors in the Palgrave Macmillan offices from small Northern British independent publishers such as Carcanet Press here to learn more about the American market and to visit Book Expo America ('Where the world gathers to get a great READ on the industry' - yuk). It was an intelligent and lively bunch of committed publishers but I found myself wondering (in a disgusted of Tonbridge Wells sort of way) why the North-West Regional Development Agency was spending British taxpayers' money on subsidising these very competent publishing people to discover America. It's a strange old world.

The other large and visible contingent comes from Google who are, as ever, telling the publishing industry and the world at large how lucky we are to be helped by them. There is an excellent piece about the recently-launched Google Universal in the latest Outsell newsletter (terrible branding for what used to be the clearly-labelled Electronic Publishing News). Here are the last two paragraphs for a flavour and a warning to publishers.

And in this lies the opportunity for other search engines and publishers as well. Google´s apparent abandonment of a vertical approach appears to open a door for others who are working on honing down their results to address a narrower field of content – be it based on subject, content type, or locale. But complacency here is not advised. Google will be applying the full force of its engineering to hone algorithms to decipher this vertical intent all from one screen. The opportunity for others to gain new users is now, before these results are improved significantly enough to keep some narrower audiences from looking around.

Yet amid this short term opportunity is perhaps an even greater threat. What Google´s new universal search provides is ultimately a platform for aggregating disparate pieces of information and displaying them in a unified view tailored to an individual´s unique needs. In short, it plants the seeds for Google to become an agile publisher and one that is able to cross nearly every type of content and medium. And it gets worse. With this change, searchers are now being exposed to pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements alongside web results that include video and news. This is a significant development as previous concerns over Google´s approach to copyright were largely quieted because the company did not run display ads along those sites like News and YouTube which caused the most concern. That line was quietly crossed last week by monetizing all web content – regardless of copyright - and the debate will now rest entirely on the definition of fair use. If publishers do not act aggressively now, they may soon be faced with a very large direct competitor able to monetize content it does not pay to produce.

I'm in New York this week but I wanted to share some news from Macmillan Spain, where we are developing our local publishing programme and have just launched three flagship literature collections for children.

The launch has been well received with coverage in the Spanish press and on children's publishing forums. As most of it is in Spanish I'm copying an English translation of the piece in Diario Siglo on 10 May:

The new Spanish imprint, Macmillan Infantil y Juvenil (Macmillan Children’s Publishing), that was presented today in Madrid, is be represented by three flagship collections: "Librosaurio", "El mundo de Rita" (Rita’s World) and "Pepe en Inglaterra" (Pepe in England). This is how it was outlined by  Jeremy Diéguez (Managing Director of Macmillan Spain) and Elisa Ayuso (Publishing Director), who stated that the official launch of this new publishing venture would take place on 2nd June coinciding with the Madrid book fair.

This imprint (which will be launched in both Castilian Spanish and Catalan) arises with the aim of "promoting creativity and offering quality books to children, future readers who we have to inspire", stated Elisa Ayuso. In her opinion, the success of this collection lies in the right choice of subjects, contents, authors and illustrators.

In the Librosaurio series the latter two have a particular prominence. In this way, Spanish authors and illustrators the likes of Alfredo Gómez Cerdá, Marinella Terzi, Vicente Muñoz Puelles, Rocío Martínez, Carlos Romeu, Sara Rojo, Paz Rodero, Tesa González, Juan Kruz and Juan Berrio, share the limelight with foreign authors Christine Nöstlinger (Austrian), Enrique Pérez (Cuban), Lawrence Schimel (American), Claudia Ranucci (Italian) and Fréderique Loew and Nathalie Choux (French).

TWO PECULIAR CHILDREN
The collection "El mundo de Rita" (Rita’s World), with text and illustrations by Mikel Valverde, has an eight year old as the main character. She is a short, dark-haired girl with a variety of situations and problems common to children of that age, who travels the world accompanied by her uncle Daniel.

The publishing house has made use of its experience in English language teaching to create "Pepe en Inglaterra" (Pepe in England), written and illustrated by Gordon Reece and which narrates the exploits of a Spanish boy on arriving at this country. "It is a way for the readers to take their first steps in English in a playful and effortless manner”, assured Paz Barroso, one of Macmillan Spain’s editors, explaining that illustrations of the characters with speech bubbles in English are inserted throughout the story of Pepe’s adventures.

Lastly, Jeremy Diéguez pointed out that despite the existence of quality titles for children and young people, this is “a good moment" to launch a series like the one proposed by Macmillan, as "the Spanish market is very open and tolerant of books of English origin".

A print run of between 4000 and 6000 copies of 54 titles (of which 34 in Castilian are to be launched this first year and 20 of them in Catalan) is foreseen.

"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.