The Frankfurt Book Fair 2010 kicks off on Wednesday 6th October. It will be a busy one for Irish publishers and Irish Publishing News will be there to cover breaking news and to attend some of the events.

The key social event of the week for Irish Publishers is the Irish Party which takes place at 5pm Friday at the Irish Stand (Hall 8, C947). The party doubles as a celebration of Mercier Press’ 55th year of attending the fair, an impressive record. There’ll be a minister of state there, Martin Manseragh TD, and the Irish ambassador to Germany, His Excellency Mr Dan Mulhall.

Publishers, of course, are not the only Irish business people attending and many Irish agents (or irish based agents) will be present.

Jonathan Williams will have a busy fair and highlights Lavinia Greacen’s updated biography of J.G. Farrell. J.G. Farrell: The Making of a Writer and a work of non-fiction, Hell Hath No Fury…, by John Morris. Greacen’s book was first published in 1999 and got effusively reviewed. Since that time, much more has been learned about Farrell’s life, and his novel Troubles won the ‘Lost’ Booker Prize.

Morris’ book joins the enormous canon of literature about Jack the Ripper, but it persuasively argues that Jack the Ripper was female (Jill the Ripper might be an optional title!). It presents a series of previously overlooked clues that lead directly to the murderer, and outlines the extraordinary chain of events that turned an upper middle-class Victorian woman into a vicious serial killer.

[pullquote]Hell Hath No Fury … outlines the extraordinary chain of events that turned an upper middle-class Victorian woman into a vicious serial killer. [/pullquote]

Belfast based Paul Feldstein of the Feldstein Agency will be presenting an exciting list including Rudi, Danny Morrison’s fourth novel a modern treatment of Hermann Hesse’s 1915 book, Knulp, which is about a vagrant who has many friends in many towns who admire his freedom and innocence – though his way of coping with life has its complications.

Other titles for the Feldstein’s include, Disappeared, a debut crime novel by Dungannon based Anthony Quinn and debut literary fiction, The Coop, Part one of the Thickets Wood Trilogy by Bangor based Rebecca Reid.

The Feldstein’s will also be presenting a new work of general fiction by author Tara West, whose previous title, Fodder, was published by Blackstaff, called Poets are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan, which centres on the life of Tommie Shaw as she struggles with her mother’s soon to be release tell-all memoir, he own insecurities and battle with depression.
~
Publishers, Agents and Authors, don’t forget, if you have any news for IPN you can reach me during the fair: editor{AT}irishpublishingnews.com

Book distributor CMD Booksource is closing its Irish operations effective 30 September.

The company says that ‘the economic situation was such that … [it] … was not possible’ to operate the business in Ireland profitably.

Speaking about the news, Publishing Ireland President Jean Harrington said that she was terribly saddened and that the focus of Publishing Ireland would be working with their ‘affected members to help and support them in finding alternate distribution.’ She also said that it provided an example of how important it was for government to implement ‘polices to help businesses do business.’

Client publishers including Mercier Press, Columba Press, Liberties Press, UCD Press and The Stinging Fly Press will now need to seek alternative distribution from 1 October 2010.

Although the company will stop shipping and distributing books on 30 September, CMD Booksource says it will still ‘collect cash from customers and chase payment of outstanding debt, which will be paid to client publishers in the usual manner.’ This should mean that no client publisher incurs a loss because of the closure.

CMD Booksource was formed in April 2009 when Scottish-based Booksource, which is 90% owned by Publishing Scotland, took over Columba Mercier Distribution a joint venture between Columba Press and Mercier Press.

The Scottish operations will be unaffected.

A spokesperson for the company said that ‘CMD BookSource was set up as a completely separate company to BookSource, therefore [there] will be no impact on BookSource. Luckily for BookSource the downturn in the UK hasn’t been nearly as severe as that in Ireland.’

Publishing Ireland, the Irish book publishers association, is to hold a seminar on Getting the Most out of Frankfurt 2010. The seminar is targeted at those attending Frankfurt Book Fair this year, those who wish to explore the international market and those who want to learn more about how to apply for translation grants.

Clodagh Feehan, Mercier Press and Fergal Tobin, Gill & Macmillan, will speak about their experiences in Frankfurt and will give practical advice to publishers attending Frankfurt for the first time.

Rita McCann from Ireland Literature Exchange will brief publishers on the supports they offer in terms of translation grants.

The seminar takes place next Tuesday, 29th June, 2.30pm until 4.30pm in the Guinness Enterprise Centre. To book e-mail: info@publishingireland.com

Speaking on the first day of the Dublin Book Festival at the Séamus Brennan Memorial Seminar on Irish Publishing, Editor of the Irish Pages journal, Irish-American poet Chris Agee, said that Irish Pages was the equal of any journal on the international scene, proclaiming, ‘we are not second fiddle to Granta’.

Speaking about how Irish Pages saw itself and its position in the world of literature, Agee, who was short-listed last week for the Ted Hughes Award, admitted to some problems saying ‘over the last 8 years that we’ve been doing this journal there is considerable resistance within Britain to be being treated as equal. They just assume in London that anything in Belfast is a backwater, ipso facto anything in Ireland cannot rival the TLS or the LRB.’

But Agree said that he and his colleagues at Irish Pages rejected this, ‘basically our project is to say no, we are not second fiddle and a lot of English and British writers, who we publish, about a quarter of our publication is from Britain, are seeing that because we are very different.’

Agee compared the identity and brand of Irish Pages to illy coffee, ‘I would say illy is the model. Yes it is Italian, yes it comes from a small family firm in Trieste, and Trieste is a small provincial Italian city, but it competes with everything else on its own terms, not because it’s Italian and we’re competing because of the writing, because of the interest not because it’s Irish.’

Agee was speaking on a panel with Clodagh Feehan of Mercier Press and Lisa Hyde of Irish Academic Press, the panel was chaired by Jean Harrington of Maverick House. Discussion title for the seminar was: Irish Literary and Cultural Publishing: Obstacles and Opportunities

Following the success of Our Grannies’ Recipes, published in 2008, Mercier has donated nearly €4000 to Age Action Ireland.

Our Grannies’ Recipes is a crowd-sourced cookbook edited by IrishPublishingNews.com Editor, Eoin Purcell. The hardback sold out its print run and a paperback edition will be published in April 2010.

The cancellation and postponement of several children’s and literary titles due to be published by Mercier Press has been blamed on a reduction in Arts Council funding, the company said today.

The Cork-based firm confirmed comments made yesterday on Twitter by the children’s publishing blogger, David Maybury, whose as yet untitled book was to be published later in 2010.

Confirmation from the company came through an update on Twitter: ‘Regrettably, several literary and children’s projects have been cancelled or postponed at Mercier due to a 40% cut from The Arts Council.’

Mercier Press’ funding was reduced from €32,000 in 2009 to €20,000 in 2010. The Arts Council has had its overall budget reduced by over €8 million compared with the previous year.

In a phone interview, Managing Director of Mercier Press Clodagh Feehan said it was an ‘unfortunate’ situation.

She said the company would be ‘willing to negotiate with authors who felt they had opportunities to publish earlier (than the new dates) elsewhere’ and that they would honour all ‘existing contracts’.

Ms Feehan added that Mercier Press did not wish to damage anyone’s ability to succeed.

She said the company’s ‘focus was on survival’ in difficult economic conditions.

The Head of Literature for the Arts Council, Sarah Bannan, said that ‘some tough decisions had been made’ but that the Council was happy that it ‘didn’t have to discontinue its funding relationship with Mercier Press’.

Mercier Press was one of several of publishers who experienced a drop in Arts Council funding compared with last year. For a full list of the cuts and its impact see our spreadsheet here.

Mercier Press have promoted Patrick Crowley to Sales and Marketing Manager he was previously, Business Development Executive and joined Mercier Press in 2005.
More here