Blaise Brosnan, author and businessman was one Sunshine 106.8FM with Lynsey Dolan today. Blaise is launching a new book Jack: Business Lessons From Life, Life Lessons From Business designed to influence people and spread good advice.

Blaise Brosnan On Sunhsine 106.8FM

Publisher’s Description
JACK comes from a poor background. Growing up, he experiences many influences – good and bad.

From home to working on building sites in London, he comes back to Dublin and he eventually finds his own feet. He finds out life’s lessons the hard way. He starts to rise in the world. He in turn influences others. Guides and critics help and hinderJack as he tries to negotiate his way to his own version of success.

Everyone in Ireland knows JACK. Perhaps he is a colleague, an adviser or a friend. Perhaps he is you!

This ‘factional’ memoir reads with the authenticity of an autobiography. It begins with a time when children were seen but not heard, when fathers said little and internalised their feelings and mothers managed everything from scarce resources to the thoughts of their children.

Blaise Brosnan, business mentor and trainer, uses the life story of JACK and the effect of many influences on him to give concrete advice that will benefit anyone working their way from the ground up.

He sees into JACK’S mind and reflects his thoughts, revealing how he coped with life’s problems.

JACK pays a price. But does it merit the prize?

His story will resonate with readers of all ages no matter what their background.

Perhaps Jack will be a catalyst for change in your own life

The digital agency has 70 employees and counts Disney, Mattel, Nickelodeon, Hasbro, GE, and Microsoft among its clients. Smashing Ideas will continue serving those clients, and will remain a standalone shop. “The beauty of it for us is [Bertelsmann] leaves all of their acquisition companies fairly independent. We will retain our independence as a standalone company,” he said. Jackson added that no changes to staff, office locations or management are planned as a result of the deal.

When ClickZ News asked whether Jackson anticipates tie-ins between current clients and Bertelsmann properties, he said, “It makes total sense. Its something we would love to explore.”

via Random House Buys Digital Agency With Mobile Focus | ClickZ.

Mother’s Day clearly worked wonders for book sales, and the winner, as seems to be the case at the moment, was fiction. Patricia Scanlan sold a positively Christmas-like 5,759 units last week, while Joseph O’Connor (aided no doubt by the One City One Book status) sold 2,500. Cathy Kelly also scored 2,305 sales.

The top ten as a whole was much stronger than last week rising by an impressive 65%. The sales were reflected in the UK too where Jean M Auel’s latest sold well.

The strength of the top ten was reflected in the next ten too with some well-known authors like Jamie Oliver, James Patterson and Melissa Hill just missing out on the top ten.

1: Love and Marriage, Patricia Scanlan, 5,759
2: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 2,500
3: Homecoming, Cathy Kelly, 2,305
4: The Brightest Star In The Sky, Marian Keyes, 1,654
5: Entertaining at Home, Rachel Allen, 1,411
6: Two Stories: A Girl in the Mirror,The AND The Memory Maker, Cecelia Ahern, 1,337
7: Room, Emma Donoghue, 1,226
8: The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas, 964
9: Minding Frankie, Maeve Binchy, 955
10: My Boy:The Philip Lynott Story:Fully Updated with Remarkable New Revelations, Philomena Lynott & Jackie Hayden, 865

Top Ten Dynamics
IPN is running a top ten dynamics section looking at the top ten with some data drawn out. Nothing too dramatic, but useful nonetheless.

Volume: 18,976 Units
Increase since last week: 7,507 units
% increase since last week: +65.45%

~~
Fiction: 8 titles, 16,700 units or 88.01%, RRP £9.24
Non-Fiction: 2 titles, 2,276 units or 11.99%, RRP £19.00 (though we know Allen’s cookbook is retailing at €9.99 in Eason)

~~
Authors: 11 (one book is co-authored)
Irish Authors: 10, 72.72%
Irish Published Books: 1, 90.9%

~~
Average RRP: £11.19
Increase in RRP since last week: +£1.24
% Increase in RRP since last week: 21.11%*
*It is important to note that RRP does not reflect actually selling price.

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 2nd April 2011.

Despite the wall to wall publicity and the drama of a leadership challenge in the air, The Fitzpatrick Tapes failed to unseat Emma Donoghue’s Room from the top spot. Nonetheless it put in a strong performance for a January title and racked up 1,667 units against Donoghue’s massive tally of 2,096.

More interestingly, Emma Hannigan’s run of good fortune in book sales continued. She sold more units of her memoir Talk To The Head Scarf pushing it into the top ten, and despite dropping some sales for her paperback edition of Miss Conceived it stayed in the top ten. Both her publishers, Hachette for the memoir and Poolbeg for her fiction, will be pleased.

In fact it was a strong week for fiction and annuals with Neil Jordan’s Mistaken and David Nicholls One Day rolling in nice totals.

1: Room, Emma Donoghue, 2,096
2: The FitzPatrick Tapes: The Rise and Fall of One Man, One Bank, and One Country, Tom Lyons & Brian Carey, 1,667
3: Disney Playhouse Annual:2011, 1,314
4: Talk to the Head Scarf, Emma Hannigan, 1,094
5: The Killing Place, Tess Gerritsen, 1,046
6: Mistaken, Neil Jordan, 1,041
7: Official Manchester United FC Annual:2011, 923
8: One Day, David Nicholls, 871
9: Justin Bieber Unauthorized Annual:2011, 836
10: Miss Conceived, Emma Hannigan, 834

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 15th Jan 2011
Image Credit:
Some rights reserved by radio1interactive

A media blitz and a front page story in the Sunday Times Ireland would almost certainly be every publishers dream publicity for a book launch weekend, but for The Fitzpatrick Tapes, by Tom Lyons and Brian Carey, Penguin Ireland took strange and impressive measures to keep word of the book from the wider world until the VERY last-minute.

This is all the more impressive an achievement given that the book has been underway since Spring 2010. How did they do it?

Systems
For instance, the book was not listed in the company’s internal systems, on Amazon or the Book Depository in advance of publication as would be normal. In fact the only sign of a forthcoming book was this page on Penguin Canada under a false title, Lions And Tigers, fake author name, James Barrington, but the correct ISBN, 9781844882601.

Online Retailers
These action have created problems for online booksellers who are now rushing to catch up with the demand for the book as Irish Publishing News covered here. So far, only the Book Depository has create an accurate page for the title though that company does not yet have copies for sale.

Bricks & Mortar
The problems created by this secrecy for the online retailers is nothing compared to the issues the secret release created on the ground for bricks and mortar book stores.

Penguin Ireland MD, Michael McLoughlin, made clear in an interview with Irish Publishing News, that the retailers were only informed of the forthcoming title on Friday, and even then, they were not told the title or the subject. Several agreed nonetheless to take copies into stores on Sunday morning.

Getting copies to bookstores on a Sunday morning required the staff at the publisher to deliver copies directly from their Stephen’s Green office rather than via a distribution company.

That was how media organisations other than The Sunday Times got their copies and press releases too (though admittedly email and PDF versions did make this process easier).

And that is how you publish secretly, keep the loop small, limit information and break cover quickly!

An emotional Emma Donoghue spoke of the importance of recognition by her homeland as she accepted the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel Of The Year Award at Thursday evening’s ‘Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards in the Round Room Of the Mansion House.

It was a theme echoed by many of the winners, including Maeve Binchy who was awarded with a lifetime achievement award by the guest of Honour for the evening, President Mary McAleese.

Perhaps the least surprising winner of the evening was Late Last show host, Ryan Tubridy who won the Newcomer Of The Year Award.

Donal Óg Cusack won the John Murray Listeners’ Choice Award, Donal Skehan won the IES Irish Published Book Of The Year, Neil Richardson won the Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book Of The Year, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly the Easons Popular Fiction Book Of The Year, Gene Kerrigan won the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book Of The Year,  Niamh Sharkey took the Junior category of the DAA Irish Children’s Book Of The Year while Derek Landy took the senior category as well as accepting his Book of the Decade award.

Tom Owens, Trading Director Eason and Chairman of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards, said, ‘The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards allow us the opportunity to celebrate and honour Ireland’s best literary talent. This year’s winning authors illustrate the diversity and vibrancy of the Irish book world, and each book is an outstanding literary achievement in its own right. As a country, we should be incredibly proud of these authors and the wealth of home-grown talent we have on offer.’

The full list of winners
The Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year: Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador)
RTÉ Radio 1′s The John Murray Show Listeners’ Choice Award: Come What May by Donal Og Cusack (Penguin Ireland)
The Ireland AM Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year: Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan (Vintage)
The Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year: A Coward If I Return A Hero If I Fall by Neil Richardson (O’Brien Press)
Eason Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year: The Oh My God Delusion by Ross O’Carroll Kelly (Penguin Ireland)
Energise Sport Irish Sports Book of the Year: A Football Man by John Giles (Hachette Books Ireland)
Irish Newcomer of the Year: JFK in Ireland: Four Days that Changed a President by Ryan Tubridy (Collins)
International Education Services Best Irish Published Book of the Year: Good Mood Food by Donal Skehan (Mercier)
The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children’s Book of the Year:
Junior - On the Road with Mavis and Marge by Niamh Sharkey (Walker Books)
Senior – Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil by Derek Landy (Harper Collins Children’s Books)

This article titled “Tim Waterstone poised to regain book chain as profits plunge under HMV” was written by Richard Wachman, for The Observer on Saturday 4th September 2010 23.06 UTC

Tim Waterstone, the founder of the books chain that bears his name, is considering a £100m-plus bid to take the chain private if the parent company, HMV, fails to turn the business around by the new year.

Well-placed City sources say Waterstone is closely monitoring developments at the bookshops, where sales and profits have plunged under HMV’s ownership.

HMV’s chief executive, Simon Fox, is to update the City this week on trading at the group’s operations as rebel shareholders push for a sale following the bungled opening of a new centralised distribution hub in Burton upon Trent.

Waterstone is ready to fire off a bid if Fox decides to sell, and has lined up funding from backers that include a London-based hedge fund.

HMV shareholders are pushing for a sale, although they are prepared to wait until after the all-important Christmas trading period before presenting their case to management.

Waterstone, who last week published his first novel in 10 years – In for a Penny, In for a Pound – founded Waterstone’s in 1982, opening the first store in London’s Old Brompton Road.

He sold the firm to WH Smith in the early 1990s, which in turn offloaded the company to HMV in 1998 for £300m. But in recent years, the business has floundered. Waterstone attempted to buy the firm back in 2006 for £280m, but withdrew his offer following a row over the terms of a deal.

Sources say Waterstone is still keen to regain control and that “it is unthinkable he wouldn’t be in the running” if HMV decided to sell. Analysts say the value of Waterstone’s is not reflected in the HMV stock price, which closed at 59p on Friday, valuing the entertainment group at about £255m.

“According to some calculations, Waterstone’s doesn’t feature at all in the parent company’s market value,” said one broker.

As reported in the Observer’s sister paper, the Guardian, last week, shareholders will demand a sale of Waterstone’s if a turnaround plan unveiled in March fails to reap returns.

Investors were rattled at Christmas when HMV disclosed that like-for-like sales at Waterstone’s had slumped by nearly 9% during a period viewed as peak trading time.

After the collapse of Borders in the UK, Waterstone’s is now Britain’s last major specialist books chain, with a national presence of 300 shops. But the firm has been hit by fierce competition from internet retailers such as Amazon and Play, and supermarkets.

New devices like the Kindle e-reader have raised concern about the long-term viability of high-street bookshops. But Tim Waterstone is understood to believe that rumours of the death of the bookshop have been greatly exaggerated.

Former colleagues of Waterstone say he has been troubled by poor morale at the chain, but is supportive of its new managing director, Dominic Myers, who took over when Gerry Johnson departed earlier this year.

An HMV spokesman said: “We have a clear strategy for the turnaround of Waterstone’s, focused on reinforcing our credentials as a range bookseller and helping stores reflect the local interest of their customers. Although we are only a few months in with this strategy, we are making very good progress and our initiatives have been very well received by the wider book industry.” Insiders said there was no intention to sell at present.

Despite problems at Waterstone’s, HMV revealed last month that group profits had risen by more than 12% after a strong showing from its core music and entertainment business. Fox said then that HMV was “on track” to transform the company into a broad-based entertainment brand after a move into live music and ticketing. The idea is to be less dependent on CD and DVD sales.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “Amazon launches UK Kindle Store” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 5th August 2010 14.11 UTC

Amazon today launched its UK Kindle Store, with more than 400,000 ebooks now available to download. The price and scope of the digitised books marks a significant point in Amazon’s move towards domination in the ebooks market.

Up against increasing competition in the market, Amazon last week unveiled two more advanced versions of its Kindle e-reader.

The company is looking to pick up consumers who cannot afford Apple’s iPad. In the US, Amazon has slashed the price of its Kindle device to compete with the iPad, which uses the iBook store to sell ebooks.

More than 80 of the 100 Nielsen UK bestsellers are available to download from the new UK store, retailing at relatively low prices. One of the new bookstore’s featured authors, the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson, last week became the first author to sell more than 1m ebooks through Amazon.

Larsson’s novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is currently second in the Kindle store’s bestsellers list and available for £2.70 to UK buyers.

“The Kindle Store offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read at low prices,” said Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle content at Amazon.

In the US, digital books account for 6% of consumer sales. Many publishers now realise the need to follow the direction of the market.

Amazon’s new Kindle devices are lighter, faster and smaller than the previous generation. The Wi-Fi model costs £109 in the UK, while the model supporting both Wi-Fi and 3G will retail at £149 – both around £25 more than the US retail price.

Previously, UK Kindle owners had to get their device shipped from the US, with subsequent book purchases retailed in dollars.

Greg Greeley, vice president of European retail at Amazon, said: “The opening of the UK Kindle Store allows customers to buy content in pounds sterling and offers a great shopping experience including UK customer reviews, recommendations, bestseller lists and customer service.”

Though Amazon rarely releases definitive figures on Kindle sales, the company says the original device has sold “millions” – it has been the bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running.

Last month, the company revealed that it sold 143 Kindle ebooks for every 100 hardbacks sold in the previous three months in the US, although no figures were released about the relative proportion of paperbacks sold in this time.

Amazon and Apple face investigations into their ebook retailing. The office of Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut attorney general, says that the companies could be “potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices” and that the burgeoning nature of the market “warranting [a] prompt review of the potential anti-consumer impacts.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “Penguin boss has no problem with ebooks” was written by David Teather, for The Guardian on Thursday 29th July 2010 20.59 UTC

Penguin this week celebrates its 75th year and is marking the anniversary by repackaging a series of seminal books from the 1960s to the 1980s. Although the company might afford itself a brief look backwards, it feels as though there is little room for nostalgia in book publishing now, as the industry turns its face firmly – and apprehensively – to the future.

Amazon last week announced sales of ebooks on its US site had outnumbered hardbacks for the first time, stunning casual observers, even if it had not been entirely unexpected in the trade.

The launch of the iPad has added a sense of urgency. Where music went first, books are set to follow, although Penguin and other publishers would hope without the same devastating effects. Amazon this week launched a cheaper, more lightweight version of its Kindle ebook reader and a digital store on its UK site, while others, including Google, are muscling in. Digital book sales are still less than 1% of Penguin, but the direction of the market is clear. In the US, digital books already account for 6% of consumer sales.

Penguin chief executive John Makinson says he is a convert. The day after we meet he is on his way to India, as part of David Cameron’s delegation, and had loaded titles on to his iPad, including a manuscript by John le Carré and some Portuguese classics (in English) ahead of Penguin launching a range in Brazil. He is also reading Lord Mandelson’s diary. It simply makes sense, he says, instead of carting an armful of books in your carry-on luggage.

Innovation

“It does redefine what we do as publishers and I feel, compared with most of my counterparts, more optimistic about what this means for us,” he says. “Of course there are issues around copyright protection and there are worries around pricing and around piracy, royalty rates and so on, but there is also this huge opportunity to do more as publishers.”

Publishing, he says, must embrace innovation: “I am keen on the idea that every book that we put on to an iPad has an author interview, a video interview, at the beginning. I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not. There has to be a culture of experimentation, which doesn’t come naturally to book publishers. We publish a lot of historians, for example. They love the idea of using documentary footage to illustrate whatever it is they’re writing about.”

The very definition of a book is up for grabs he says, although the company has just published a version of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth for the iPad in the US that might provide clues – and horrify traditionalists. It includes scenes from a TV adaptation embedded in the text, as well as extras including the show’s music soundtrack and Follett’s video diary during the making of the series.

For now, Makinson says, digital books are expanding the market; hardback sales in the US are up this year, despite the march of ebooks. Piracy is not yet a significant issue and lessons have been learned from the music business.

“You have to give the consumer what the consumer wants – you can’t tell the consumer to go away. So we didn’t participate in this experiment where a number of publishers deferred publication of the ebook until a certain number of months after the hardcover publication. I thought that was a very bad idea. If the consumer wants to buy a book in an electronic format now, you should let the consumer have it.”

He has added confidence, because with tablets such as the iPad, consumers are used to paying a subscription to the wireless operator and for “apps”, creating a more benign environment than the wild west of the PC, where users are used to getting everything for free.

Penguin’s profits more than doubled to £44m in the first half of the year. The company gained market share, but one reason for the dramatic improvement was the outsourcing of some design and production to India last year; the company now has around 100 designers in Delhi making books for Dorling Kindersley, belying the idea that Britain can at least live off its creative industries. Makinson defends the decision and says DK is now back in profit, which means it can reinvest in Britain: “We can’t pretend we can do everything here. In order to be internationally competitive, some work needs to be done in other places.”

About 8% of the publisher’s sales are from its classics, including Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and revenues are still growing, despite much of the copyright being in the public domain. It is launching the range in Mandarin, Korean and Portuguese. But it is not all highbrow. What would Penguin’s founder, Sir Allen Lane, whose aim was to publish quality paperbacks for the masses, have made of Penguin putting out books “by” Peter Andre or Ant & Dec?

“Allen Lane’s view was that we should publish good writing of all kinds for all audiences at affordable prices,” Makinson says. “I’m not saying he would necessarily have approved every single publishing decision we take, but would he have approved of Penguin being a very democratic publishing company, publishing for lots of different tastes? I think he would definitely have approved.”

Makinson has long been mentioned as a successor to Dame Marjorie Scardino, who runs Pearson, Penguin’s parent company. Her departure has been a perennial question, though she has defied the investment community’s chattering classes by staying in her post for well over a decade. She has also confounded expectations by keeping Penguin and the Financial Times in a group dominated by educational publishing. Makinson says it now makes more sense than ever for Penguin to remain part of the group, as the digital era draws each division closer.

He says there will still be the need for publishers in the digital world: “I used to have this discussion with [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author] Douglas Adams. He created this thing called the digital village, an online publishing platform. Douglas’s argument was, ‘all of my friends will come along and publish on digital village and you the publishers will be disintermediated, you will be irrelevant’. Well, it hasn’t happened. I am not aware of any successful direct to consumer publishing model that exists.

“The reason it doesn’t work is that the publishers do actually perform quite a useful service: they edit the book, then they publicise it.” In the physical world, they make sure it is stocked in bookshops, he adds.

Clubbable

Makinson, 55, perhaps feels more adaptable than some of his counterparts because he arrived at Penguin as an outsider. A clubbable character, he has taken an unusual career path, from a journalist on the Financial Times, to working for the Saatchis, setting up his own investment consultancy, running the Financial Times and then becoming Pearson finance director, despite having no training as an accountant.

But his passion for books is evident. Five years ago, he and his brother bought a bookshop in the small Norfolk town of Holt. For an out-of-the-way independent, the Holt Bookshop attracts a starry line-up of authors for events, including Stephen Fry, due to talk about his new autobiography, which, perhaps not surprisingly, is published by Penguin.

“We are all terribly se
ntimental about books,” Makinson insists. “It is terribly important to me that we sell lots of wonderful books in my little independent in Norfolk, and when I talk about digital I do sometimes worry that it looks as though I am neglecting all this,” he points to the books on the shelves behind him, “which I am not.”

CV

Born: 1954, Derby.

Education: Graduated from Cambridge with honours in English and History.

Career: 1976-1979, journalist, Reuters; 1979-1986, journalist, Financial Times; 1986-1989, vice-chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi; 1989-1994, co-founder of capital markets advisory firm Makinson Cowell; 1994-1996, managing director, Financial Times; 1996-2002, finance director, Pearson; 2002-present, chairman and chief executive Penguin Books.

Other interests: chairman of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a director of the National Theatre and of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organisation.

Family: Married with two daughters.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Walsh Colour Print the Kerry-based printer has started an educational imprint. The company has started trading under the imprint Educate.ie.

Educate.ie launched with six text books and will debut an exam papers series in August.

The series features ‘detailed analysis of the examination papers and helpful hints’ and will be written by ‘teachers with concrete experience in preparing students for exams’.

Educate.ie will compete with established educational publishers Gill & Macmillan (who earlier this year acquired Carroll Education’s Primary list), Folens and CJ Fallon.

The 2009 Publishing Ireland Survey indicated that respondents in the educational book sector had revenues of €54.12 million in 2008.