How publishers plan to keep hope alive
The trade is bracing itself for tough times, but hoping this means tastes will change, not dry up
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday October 08 2008

The credit crunch has already hit the book trade, and its effects will be more and more visible in the coming months: but publishers are hoping this means changes to the stock rather than the till receipts.

As stock indexes slide, thrifty how-to guides are already on the rise. Waterstone's, for instance, has seen 200% increases in sales of two titles about keeping chickens in recent weeks. "And Carol Klein's Grow Your Own Veg sales are double what they were a year ago, which could be put down to people looking for long-term money-saving ideas in the current climate," says non-fiction buyer Alex Ingram.

This Christmas will see the launch of a slew of thrifty titles as publishers look to profit from this demand, headed up by a timely new edition of Delia Smith's slump cuisine classic Frugal Food, and India Knight, the author of retail therapy guide The Shops having a go at making-do and mending. November's The Thrift Book: Live Well and Spend Less sees Knight variously detail how to make jam, use a sewing machine, dress on a budget, and make your own presents.

Expect thrifty nostalgia too, as publishers mine their back catalogues to come up with money saving tips from days of yore. "Books on saving string, thrift in World War Two - publishers would be well advised to check out their backlist and see if they've got these sorts of books," says Alan Samson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson publishing director.

Looking from the other end of the telescope, a glut of proposals about the crisis on Wall Street have hit American publishers' desks over the last week, and million-dollar advances will be shielding the best of their authors from the crash's fallout. Too Big to Fail by New York Times business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, Six Days that Shook the World by Roger Lowenstein and a chronicle of events from Joe Nocera and Vanity Fair's Bethany McLean all commanded big sums at auction, but here in the UK the book industry is - so far - markedly more cautious.

Read the full Guardian story here.