British bookshop chain WH Smith will open three stores in Terminal Two when the new terminal opens later this year. The news was confirmed as part of the Dublin Airport Authority’s announcement of the initial list of retailers for Terminal Two.
WH Smith will be joined in Terminal Two by giftware specialists House of Ireland, Irish fashion group Azure, Swiss jewellery retailer Swatch Group, and cosmetics company Jo Malone.
Booksellers will rest a little easier this week and publishers too. The market was up 10% or so. It is also a pretty varied top ten with some still impressive sales for Larsson but also decent numbers from McEwan, Vincenzia and it is great to see Landy doing so well.
1: 61 Hours, Lee Child
2: Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
3: The Best Of Times, Penny Vincenzi
4: Solar, Ian McEwan
5: Happy Ever After, Patricia Scanlan
6: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
7: Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
8: Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days, Derek Landy
9: 8th Confession, James Patterson
10: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
John Cotter, central buyer for The Book Centre and manager of the book department in The Book Centre, Waterford has won the O’Brien Press Bookseller Of The Year award, which was presented at the annual Booksellers Association Conference held in the Hilton Hotel, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin on Saturday 27th March, 2010.
The award is run by The O’Brien Press and was first awarded in 1995. The prize includes a perpetual trophy in the form of a bronze sculpture entitled The Elements. It will be on display in The Bookcentre, Waterford, over the coming weeks. Cotter will also receive a framed commemorative certificate and a weekend away for two at a luxury Irish destination.
Penguin Ireland MD, Michael McLoughlin, has revealed that Penguin Ireland sold only 100 ebooks in 2009.
Speaking at the Irish Branch Conference of the Booksellers Association in the Hilton Hotel, Dublin, Saturday, McLoughlin said that so far in 2010 Penguin Ireland had sold over 1000 ebooks and he expected that sales would increase over time.
McLoughlin also said that Penguin as a whole expect digital sales to reach a minimum of 15% of all sales over the next five years.
In a wide ranging speech McLoughlin said that change would come to Ireland and that Publishers ‘can’t wait another year or two, because everything is changing so fast’. He finished his speech with the thought that this Autumn would see the ‘first digital Christmas, the question is how big is it going to be?’
McLoughlin’s speech came just a few days before the launch of the Apple iPad which many commentators expect to bring even greater change to book publishing. Penguin Ireland recently overtook Gill & Macmillan to become Ireland’s largest trade publisher, although Gill & Macmillan remains larger when educational publishing is counted.
Galway Arts Centre March Poetry Slam
On for a poetry Slam? Read more…
Publishing Perspectives: Simon Levack
A interesting note on self-publishing and Five Stone Press Read more…
Apple’s iPad may give media executives a chance to make money
I remain a skeptic. Though the rumors are that the company has pre-sold 1 million devices. Read more…
Return to the Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray will be the one city one book for April! Read more…
How love lasted despite divisive faith crusaders
Collins Press’ The Fethard On Sea Boycott gets a review. Read more…
Aisling McDermott, author of The Beaut.ie Guide to Gorgeous (Gill & Macmillan, 2009), and her sister Kirstie won the best Beauty/Fashion blog award for their blog, Beaut.ie they also won the overall best Irish blog of 2010.
09.25 – The conference has begun with the Bookseller Only AGM section. The conference proper will kick off in about 10 minutes (assuming all goes to plan).
09.50 – Here come the Angry Men!
09.55 – Matt Cooper – Opens the show by thanking booksellers for prominently displaying their books and selling so many of them!
10.05 – Pat Leahy – Bertie Ahern model was a political model that put immediate gain ahead of long term and medium term planning for the country!
10.10 – Pat Leahy – Consequences of the model go far beyond the destruction of the Fianna Fail party. Faith in the idea of a polity has been destroyed. But there is a positive; real appetite for reform, real and profound reform.
10.15 – Fintan O’Toole – Talks about how the maps we use to place ourselves in the world have been destroyed by the crisis in our economy, politics and globally.
10.16 – Fintan O’Toole – Optimism about the recovery of the Irish economy are, like news of Mark Twain’s death, greatly exaggerated
10.20 – Fintan O’Toole: From the political collapse of the 1890s Ireland experienced a period of amazing cultural flowering: Lady Gregory, Yeats, Abbey, etc. This actually could be a very exciting time, if you can hold on!
10.25 -Matt Cooper – wouldn’t start from here says Matt Cooper as he opens to the floor for questions!
Q1: Any combination of politicians or parties that Fintan might have faith in?
Fintan O’Toole – Two contradictory things to say: 1) System has failed us and 2) it remains absolutely necessary. Can’t change without engaging with political system. Doesn’t believe Kenny represents a fundamental alternative to FF. To paraphrase, Fintan sees the need for a re-alignment to RIGHT/LEFT divide!
Matt Cooper – Thinks it’s shocking that Coughlan was made Minister for Education. Sticks the boot in! Our government hasn’t grasped how big the crisis is.
Q2: Is Haughey turning in his grave?
Fintan O’Toole – Haughey’s legacy is to get and hold power and see national interest as their own interest!
Matt Cooper – Charles Haughey was a cancer in Irish society, in what he did.
Q3: Boston Vs Berlin. Why do we concentrate on American instead of Europe?
Pat Leahy – European Commissions role in budget approval hasn’t been debated enough. Look at what they did to Greece, forced them to squeeze the public sector more.
Fintan O’Toole – Real problem is that European Union is too weak.
Q4: What about the unreality of the Public Sector Unions?
Fintan O’Toole – It’s about fairness. [Talks about how it isn't fair to reduce the wages of the low paid and to leave the higher paid alone!]
Q5: What would you do if in charge of the morning?
All three pretty much avoid answering this!
Q6: What happened to the money?
Matt Cooper – A lot of it never existed. It was based on values that were never realised.
Fintan O’Toole – A lot of it is off shore. If someone got pad 400 million for the Glass Bottle Site, someone got 400 million.
Pat Leahy – period of FF as natural party of government is ending! Not sure that FF has psychologically accepted it!
Matt Cooper – Brings it to a close by pushing their paperbacks! Good work, great applause!
11.00 – And it’s coffee time!
11.30 – Up now, Julie Meynink from Nielsen with “The State Of The Market”
Julie Meynink
- Overall market by 8.8million driven by trade non-fiction which was down over 9million!
- Trade Non-Fiction down -5.2% and remains largest segment at about 41%
- Adult Fiction 30% of overall market +7.3% in 2009! Children’s – 4.5 m units, (+13.6%)
- Value sales down 5.3% but volume up 4.4% ASP 10.75
- Long Tail effect Top 1000 now only 33% in 2009 versus 37.1% in 2005
- Top Ten Publishers losing share 2005 – 62.9% and ion 57% in 2009
11.43 – Julie Meynink
- Hachette up (Some divisions had different fortunes).
- Penguin Ireland up by 12.6% despite Penguin as a whole being down.
- Faber Up (Ship of Fools)
- Folens Up
- Publishers 11-20 make up about 10% of over marketplace
- Quercus and Paragon had good years both up.
- Harlequinn saw strong growth on their Mira list!
- Bad year for O’Brien
11.45 – Julie Meynink
- AC Nielsen Grocery data showing stores visited interesting!
- 32% shopped in one store in 2005 but only 8% shop in one store in 2009. That’s huge!
- Is that value searching?
- In 2005 only 1% shopped online, in 2009 33% of people shopped online.
11.47 – Julie Meynink
- RRP has declined over time but nothing like the actual selling price has €12.60 in 2007 down to €10.75 in 2009. The Sterling impact discussed!
11.50 – Julie Meynink
- Trade Non-Fiction in Value Terms Hardback and Paperback are both down.
- But Volume of Hardback is slower decline than paperback.
- But Hardback ASP is dropping faster than paperback ASP.
- Biography down €2.1m
- Travel down €2.1m
- The Arts down €1m
- Sports the only of the top ten trade non-fiction to see an increase.
11.58 -11.45 – Julie Meynink
- On To Fiction & Childrens
- Literary Fiction down.
- Christmas down 2.7m driven by Trade Non-Fiction down 2.4m
- How does Ireland compare?
- Ireland only place that see such pronounced volume growth but value decline.
12.05 – Julie Meynink
- How has the year panned out so for in 2010?
- Not good news YTD: Value -9.3% and Volume -5.4%
12.20 – Bookselling Through The Recession
Chaired by Eoin McHugh of Transworld Ireland
Fergal Toibin – Gill & Mcamillan
Will Atkinson – Faber & Faber
Michael McLoughlin – Penguin Ireland (Up first)
Michael McLoughlin steps up and rolls DK’s Future of Publishing Video:
Michael McLoughlin
- change will come here!
Michael McLoughlin
- Harlequin sell 1 million romance books each month in japan for reading in mobiles!
- Penguin’s internal minimum for % digital sales of whole in 5 years times is 15%
Michael McLoughlin
- Over the last five years the number of Irish publisher books in the top 1000 has moved from 20% -30%. – This even excludes Irish Authors published by UK houses!
Michael McLoughlin
- Publishers can’t wait another year or two, everything is changing so fast.
- This Autumn first digital Christmas, the question is how big is it going to be?
Will Atkinson from Faber & Faber is up now
Will Atkinson
- Irish business is healthy, classic case of people reading more in times of hardship.
- He is Exploring how Irish booksellers can respond to change and say that the war will be won on recommendation and selection!
- Apple is a Deathstar. No friend of the Music Industry. Could trample over our industry without really thinking about it.
- Google has no upside for retailers, big upside for publishers and that can create a conflict of interests.
Great stuff from Will!
And here is Fergal Toibin of Gill & Macmillan
Fergal is talking leisure patterns in the US, the Parthaneon report for the AAP, between 1984 and 2004 reading declined by 50%
Fergal Toibin
- 40-45% of people never buy a book in a given year.
- The % that buy ten books or more is in single figures!
- Books are dangerously close to being an elite consumer good.
– doesn’t want to talk about Google, but the implications of the Google Book Settlement for international copyright law are pretty profound.
- Across Europe books sold 24 Billion in value in 2008. Bigger than America!
– STM, Education and chunks of the Trade will certainly migrate towards digital. Nobody knows for sure what % will shift!
- Think of a book as a piece of technology that has advantages over digital just as digital has advantages over it!
And It’s lunch-time, sponsored by Hachette!
Diarmuid Gavin was the lunch time speaker. He is releasing an autobiography this year.
From now on the sessions are targeted at the Booksellers, streamlining their businesses and such like so I have stepped away. Hope you enjoyed the coverage!
Fintan O’Toole’s Ship of Fools: How Corruption and Stupidity Killed the Celtic Tiger and Ruth Dudley Edwards’ Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice have both been longlisted for Orwell Prize in the Books category.
Both books were published by UK publishers, O’Toole’s by Faber & Faber and Dudley-Edwards’ by the Harvill Secker imprint of Random House.
The shortlist will be announced on 15 April with the final decision being announced at an awards ceremony on 19 May.
The awards recognise excellence in political writing in both books and journalism and have been in existence since 1993. Since 2009 a third category has been introduced to cover blogs.
Journalist Fergal Keane was the last Irish winner for his book, Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey
News