Around two months ago, my partner and I became home-owners. Despite the dramatic “House Prices on Brink!” and “Financial Slump Inevitable” headlines that seem to have been plaguing us since the legal work was signed and sealed, it is great to finally have a place to call our own – no landlord to ignore my calls, no student neighbours singing karaoke until the early hours of the morning, no intermittent flooding from the flat upstairs…

One thing that is not so nice, however, is the complete lack of furniture that comes from living in rented property for your entire adult life. Although we have now bought the most essential item of furniture, a bed (hardwood floors might be pretty, but definitely don’t make comfortable mattresses), we still don’t own any of the things that make life, and reading in particular, more comfortable. There is no sofa or armchair for me to read in, no bedside table on which to rest my books, not even a reading lamp to cast its light on my book late at night.

My “bedside table”

And not only do I not own any of these things now, I’m not sure if any of them will be entering my life in the near future. Of course, there are the inevitable budget constraints to consider (comfort doesn’t come cheap, apparently). But even more pressing is the need for some kind of decision as to what it is I am actually looking for! I am stuck in furniture limbo. I just don’t know what to buy. I see a bedside table one day that I think is perfect, then find myself on Design*Sponge and Desire to Inspire drooling over something completely different – there are all manner of side boards and credenzas to distract me from my goals.

SO I thought I might ask the readers of this blog to inspire me. Where do you do your reading? Where do you store those books you have still to read? E-mail a photograph of your reading space to EburyBlog@eburypublishing.co.uk and you might be in with a chance to win a hamper of FIFTEEN books from across the Ebury Publishing catalogue. The winner will be picked randomly from all eligible candidates and we will post our favourite pictures here on the blog.

Terms and conditions apply (of course!)

Katie - Digital Marketing Exec

I’m currently trying to break myself of the habit of overspending in Sainsbury’s and optimistically filling my fridge with all sorts of things I never get around to eating, so last Saturday, as a diversionary tactic, I found myself mooching about the book/CD/DVD section of my local superstore. I’m so glad I did, as I finally got around to buying a copy of Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader.

Those of you who have already read it know what a treat it is – barely a novella, more of a glorified short story, you tear through it while at the same time wanting to slow down and savour every minute, as it is with all the best books. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of book that restores your faith in publishing even when you’ve plodded through the hundredth uninspired, derivative and formulaic exercise in wasting paper, and is so good that I immediately resolved to do as the grand ladies who patronise bookshops like Heywood Hill, Hatchards and Sotherans do and buy a dozen copies to send to friends and family (thank God for the titchy pricepoint - I’m not exactly a woman of independent means).

Feeling rather like Lady Bountiful, I sat down and started making a list of all the people I know who love books and would appreciate and relate to this brilliant little treatise on the joy of reading, but quickly stopped in amazement when I realised that absolutely everyone who came to mind was female. Huh? With the noted exception of former and current colleagues, could it be that I knew no male bibliophiles?

Now, none of the men of my acquaintance are illiterate, as far as I’m aware, and I consider most of them sentient, intelligent creatures. They read newspapers, watch films and TV, play computer games (often more than I consider strictly healthy) and are culturally aware, but books just don’t play a role in their lives, generally speaking. Most of them, I suspect, are content with merely the odd flick through a sports biography or the first chapter of Freakanomics, or maybe a Nick Hornby on holiday. The rest of the time any literary impulses lie dormant. Shocking! Don’t they realise what they’re missing?

(more…)

Katie’s earlier entry - about the trepidation one feels before starting to blog, or indeed starting to write anything that will ultimately go public - made me put myself in the shoes of ‘would-be’ authors. Working in Publicity, I don’t actually have much to do with the book when it’s in its early stages, and I mercifully don’t have the horrible task of sifting through what is generally known in publishing as the “slush pile” of pages that will, sadly, not be transformed into books this time. I also kick myself when someone who wants to submit a proposal gets put through to me and I blurt out ‘good luck!’ before transferring them - it just sounds so negative - as if they will really need luck to have their work chosen - which obviously isn’t the case (although luck always helps with everything!).

Nevertheless, when you write you make yourself vulnerable - you show up your weaknesses as well as your abilities and your dislikes as well as your likes - and this is clearly what makes a piece of writing so special. What I do have experience of in Publicity is people ringing me up wanting to contact authors, and once I’ve asked them to send me something that I can pass on, they then launch into massive detail about what their letter will consist of and ask me whether what they’ve written will be enough to make the author reply to them, and so on and so on. So everyone has a touch of the author in them it would seem. (I could also mention here that when you work in Publicity you are no stranger to calls from much more major fruitloops - having spent a good deal of my week before Christmas on the phone to someone who lives in a shack on a mountain in Ireland - I now know absolutely everything about his life.)

Contrary to popular belief, Publishing is not an English Lit lesson and, even coming from someone who did an English degree, this is a good thing. I admit that when I first started I had some romantic notions that the company would be run by those musty academic types who dress badly and who are completely computer-illiterate, and while this is surely true of some, what I’ve learned is that it is much more than an English lesson. If you are creating a book to sell, the writing is arguably most of the project, but definitely not all of it, and when you walk into a bookstore and see the colourful covers and the different formats and then walk onto the tube and see the massive poster campaigns and then pick up a newspaper and read all the glowing book reviews (we do get some), you realise what a vibrant business you’re in, and it does get quite exciting.

As I said before, I am generally blissfully unaware of what goes on in Editorial before a book is acquired, but we have such a healthy stream of announcements that go round when they are that it’s pretty clear that writing is no dying form and people are clamouring at the publishers’ gates to put their voice out there. Long may it live!

Sarah - Publicity Assistant

Isn’t it strange how now virtually everyone keeps a blog, well everyone bar me but that’s mainly down to my growing obsession with Masterchef – seriously why do John Torode and Greg whateverhisnameis need to shout all the time? Are all the contestants hearing impaired? And the masticating that goes on! But it’s all worth it when some poor fool serves up raw chicken and the two shouty men get all serious on their sorry wannabe chef asses. Moral of the story, raw meat is bad. But I digress, blogs, everyone has one. I like reading them. I think they are a wonderful insight into people and the things that fascinate them. A good blog, for me, is someone writing about something they love be it fashion, food, politics or words. For instance BBC News reporter Justin Webb has a great blog about the race for the White House, which is of course another obsession of mine. I have no idea what a Caucus is (place in Russia?) but I am all over it like a rash.

However in the course of my extensive wilfing, I stumbled across a great little blog about books called The Year of Reading Dangerously, which basically allows you to sign up for the challenge of reading authors, genres etc that have previously intimidated you. And you read at least one of these a month. Let’s face it, we all have a mental reading list of books we want to read, and trust me when you work in publishing that mental reading list tends to be HUGE, but quite often we bypass these books simply because we’re a wee bit intimidated by the book in question. I allowed myself to be scared off by A Suitable Boy (all 1,500 pages) for ages but when I finally took the plunge I was hooked from the very start. In fact it was probably one of the most rewarding books I’ve ever read and each time I see it on my shelf I feel a real sense of warmth.

While I may not be able to keep up with the pace set on The Year of Reading Dangerously (this is mainly due to having stacks to read already, having to read stuff for work and obviously Masterchef which will no doubt give way to something else in Spring) I think it’s a really great thing to step outside your comfort zone. I, for one, am going to make a real effort to read some more Tolstoy as Jonathan Dimbleby has really piqued my interest and I also adored Anna Karenina.

I’m also going to make a concerted effort to read more Irish writers, especially Maeve Brennan, as I feel oddly disconnected from my homeland in terms of literature. I think this all seems perfectly feasible. There is absolutely no point is setting yourself some lofty target which you’re never likely to achieve. If you know you’re never likely to get through Crime and Punishment then don’t put it on your list. Reading is meant to be a pleasure not a chore, though Lord knows that statement is often put to the test in publishing. So people, I urge you to make a list, check it twice and get cracking.

Vincent - Sales Assistant

‘Never judge a book by its cover’. That must be the most misjudged thing anyone’s said with regard to publishing. Come on, it’s all about the cover, right? You’re standing there in Waterstone’s, gazing blankly at the 3-for-2 table. You’ve picked up the 2 books you went in there for, but turning down a free book is sacrilege. So you cast about for your third. Which you’re buying because of the cover and the blurb on the back. This one kind of depends on your reading appetite at the time.

Do you go for the intellectual-looking one (muted colours, proper type, landscapes, or a person who’s very far in the distance, quote about how erudite and Booker shortlisted it is. On Chesil Beach wins this one hands down, as it has both a landscape and a tiny person)? The chick fic (pink! Cartoony type! Woman with pointy shoes who’s been cut off at the knees so you don’t have to identify with her! A quote from Wendy Holden saying how much she loves it!)? The women’s fiction (an artily-shot, saturated colour pic of a woman who’s been cropped off at the waist and the neck. You can see most of her arm – she’s carrying something meaningful, like a bag of obscure fruit or some posh flowers. Or you can see her feet, but she’s not wearing any shoes. Shoes are frivolous. The author wrote something that was an international bestseller – ie big in the US – but you’ve never read that either. You think you should, though.)

How about a serial killer thriller? (They’re very dark, and they have huge, embossed, f*cked up type for the title. They have vaguely textured backgrounds that look like the walls of the shed/deserted warehouse that the killer’s keeping his victims in. The review quotes are always wonky, and a lot of them are from Harlan Coben. The author name is often in a colour that looks like dried blood). Or - perish the thought that Waterstone’s/Borders/Books Etc should be pushing this – a misery memoir? Tiny, melancholic child (they used to always be in corners, turned away from you, but now they’re staring you right in the face, daring you to ignore their terrible suffering at the hands of adults. Adults like you! Well, not like you, obviously, you read proper books by people like Ian McEwan. But still, these children are now more brazen.) White background, red, handwritten type and a tagline that is just ‘the true story of’, plus the same 6 words put in a different order on each one (your choice of: innocent, damaged, lost, little girl/little boy, heartbreaking, desperate, struggle, neglected, survival, inspiring, betrayed, forgotten, frightened, mother, father.) There may be a quote from the News of the World if you’re lucky.

Or a Richard and Judy book (doesn’t matter what the cover looks like, it just has a massive sticker on it, and you’ll have seen 15 other people reading it that week. You’ll worry you’ve picked the one that’s total rubbish, rather than the 5 which are surprisingly more intellectually satisfying than you’d given them credit for).

Yes, it’s very easy to slag off jackets, but the reason that most of these genres are so identifiable is that they work. Change only happens when someone daring goes out on a limb and reinvents a genre look (generally with a huge brand author, or someone totally unknown that they’ve paid £1 million for and they have to make it work). And then, when you’ve got your Startling New Design Direction, and it’s sold bucketloads of books, what happens? Every other bugger rips it off. (See The Dangerous Book for Boys for the most obvious recent example).

Next, watch out for a forthcoming expose on the noble art of the jackets meeting…

Alex - Marketing Manager

I didn’t read nearly as much as I would have liked in 2007, but of course I never seem to read enough – I’m only happy when the book pile at the side of my bed is chest-high. However, it was still a good year for reading. These are some of my highlights:

The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo – A new Richard Russo novel is always an event for me. My favourite remains Empire Falls, but this new one has all the hallmarks of classic Russo: rich characters, brilliant dialogue, and a masterful portrayal of the longing, hopes, regrets and occasional brutality of working class life in small town America. He sets all of his stories in New England mill towns like the one I grew up in, so reading him makes me a little homesick.

The Dark Stuff by Nick Kent – This reissue by Faber was my introduction to the great man of rock criticism, and it was a revelation. Read it for his profile of Neil Young alone. Actually, scratch that: read the whole thing. Twice.

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon – A hard-boiled murder mystery set in an alternative Alaska, where the Jewish diaspora have settled after World War II. A private dick named Meyer Landsman, his partner an enormous half-Tlingit named Berko. The Jewish mafia is involved, as well as rumours of an impending apocalypse. Seriously, what’s not to love?

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta – A friend of mine turned me onto Tom Perrotta a couple of years ago, perhaps to return the favour of me introducing him to Richard Russo. He knew his market: small-town New England is not that far away from suburban New Jersey, in geography and in mindset, so I felt right at home reading Little Children. This new one - about a free-thinking sex ed teacher who is forced to teach abstinence to her students and her relationship with the evangelical coach of her daughter’s soccer team - is weird, slightly scary, funny and wonderful. Much like suburban America.

Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield – A bit of a cheat, perhaps, as I published this book in my former job. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was pretty much my book of the year. Sheffield, a rock journo for Rolling Stone, tells about his musical coming of age, meeting the love of his life, losing her tragically and eventually moving on – all through the prism of the mix tapes he and his wife obsessively compiled for each other. This memoir totally broke my heart.

What were your faves? What’s next on your chest-high reading list?

Albert - Senior Commissioning Editor

There is something very nerve-wracking about beginning to blog. If you are writing a personal diary, then there is the fear crossed with excitement that somewhere, some stranger is reading what you have written. Do you really want people reading your innermost thoughts? What ever happened to paper diaries? If you’re not sure you want anyone to read it, why is it so gutting then when your visitor count is low?

A corporate blog carries with it a whole other set of (probably more serious) questions. Who should write? Why would they want to write? What should people write about? Who would read it? What do they want to read about? Should we let people comment? What happens if someone slags off one of our books? How should we deal with negative comments? The list of concerns goes on and on.

And yet somehow, here we are. Some people call books old-fashioned, but in my opinion, publishing is one of the most vibrant and exciting industries out there. At Ebury, we get to work with a huge range of talented and interesting authors - from psychologist Oliver James to historian Laurence Rees; from blogger and sexpert Abby Lee to the Booker prize-winning Ben Okri; and from cricket legend Ian Botham to all-round legend David Attenborough. Not everyone who writes for this blog is going to be an amazing writer (my last attempt at Nanowrimo was a failure beyond words!), but we are proud of the books that we work on and I think everyone here has a lot to say.

So, we’re throwing caution to the wind. Everyone has been invited to write about anything they want to write about. Anyone can comment and comments will only be removed if they are libellous or grossly offensive. Hopefully there won’t be too many negative comments but online, where anonymity makes everyone less reserved, I’m sure they will come eventually and we’ll do our best to respond to them. You never know, there might be some lively debates coming out of this blog soon…

As for who is reading this, well, that I’m still not sure about. Who are you? What do you want us to write about?

Katie - Digital Marketing Executive

Exactly who is your ‘average’ publishing person? There’s been quite a bit of discussion about this of late in the trade press, with one notable figure in the industry inspiring hoots of derision and angry responses when he suggested that publishing was populated by ‘Emmas’ – essentially, young, white, university-educated, middle-class women from the home counties who can afford to work for a pittance (see the facebook group ‘I work in publishing and I’m underpaid’ and The Bookseller if you want to know more – it’s an emotive subject). Still, while there’s no denying that the publishing industry could benefit hugely from being far more diverse than it currently is, I personally find that it’s the far less tangible things that tie us all together.

Whatever their gender, background or age, whenever you strike up a conversation with someone who works in any part of this industry, whether they’re a bookseller, sales rep, printer or editor, the same things frequently crop up. For example, you’ll often find that ‘publishing people’ are those slightly odd individuals who adore the smell of a brand new book and talk about it in the same way others talk of new-mown hay or the top of babies’ heads, they’re the people who can’t help themselves rearranging stock in any bookshop they enter so that their favourites are to the fore (I’m sure the Waterstone’s on Garrick Street in central London, which is within striking range of three major publishers, suffers from this a lot), and who fully punctuate their text messages and rhapsodise over the cunning usage of a semi colon in an email. We’re quite a strange bunch… But the common denominator seems to be the passion we all feel for what we do, no matter how cynical and cheesed off we may feel at times.

Let’s face it, if you want to retire at forty and buy a yacht bigger than Paul Allen’s, then publishing is not really the industry to choose. If, on the other hand, you get twitchy if you find yourself on the bus on the way in to work and realise you’ve left the book you’re reading at home or you feel overwhelmingly jealous when you spot someone about to start reading one of your favourite books, because you know what a great experience they have in store for them, then maybe you’re obsessive enough to stick it out in an industry that demands your attention 24/7.

A few summers ago, I was sitting about on Primrose Hill waiting for my turn to bat for my team in the Publishers’ Softball League (we called ourselves the Orion Belters, I’m ashamed to say, as we were all current or former employees of the Orion Publishing Group) when a team mate pointed out the irony of the fact that, while our softball skills now ran the gamut from a publicist who, by sheer fluke, famously managed to get a home run while wearing heels, an editorial director/pitcher who couldn’t help but get hugely competitive even though he tried to pretend it was all about having fun, and me, who generally got relegated to catcher because I was good at chatting to the umpire and keeping him distracted, even though I couldn’t throw or catch the ball for toffee, virtually all of us had been that kid at school who was probably picked last at games and would have been far happier digging about the shelves of books in the library. Here, in the publishing industry, different as we may all seem on the surface, we found other kindred spirits, people like us, who shuddered at the words ‘I read a book…once’.

Anna - Editor