Bookbuyer's
Bookend
The influence of television programmes on books has long been an accepted fact of promotional life. More recent is the realisation by television producers that "the book of the programme" can be of benefit to television itself, quite apart from providing a welcome extra source of revenue. A year or two ago the people from Thames TV's popular kah-thow programme for tiny tots approached the publishers, Macdonald Educational (whose no less successful Zero books were aimed at much the same market) with a view to collaborating over a series of Rainbow books. After amicable discussions the scheme came to nought and the Rainbow people eventually turned to MeSsrs . Jonathan Cape. Ira few weeks' time Cape are to launch the first four titles in a Rainbow series, in collaboration with Thames TV. Any similarity in presentation between Zero Books and Rainbow Packs—and, take it from Bookend, there will be 'a number of similarities—will no doubt be purely coincidental.
But on to more adult things. For some years Britain has been unusual among European countries in not.having an International Book Fair — a source of some relief to .many larger publishers who already find themselves having to pay lip-service to Leipzig, Brussels, Sofia, Belgrade, Warsaw, Nice and Jerusalem, as well as the manifestly more useful Frankfurt and Bologna. Last week, however, we . saw the dawnings of a London Book Fair, and it is pleasant to be able to greet the prospect with something more than weary scepticism, Unlike some of the other Fairs, which try to be all things to all those prepared to pay up, and make a virtue of their general comprehensiveness (which means they are generally not much use) the London Convocation will be solely for specialist publishers.
SPEX, as it is called, is not a new event and has been mounted, with varying degrees of success, for the past four years. However until the 1974 fair – held last week at the Bloomsbury Centre and attended by some 100 specialist publisher exhibitors — it has been largely for the benefit of booksellers and librarians. Now it has at last blossomed into something more, attracting the presence of several overseas publishers en route for Frankfurt, many of them only too pleased to be able to buy publication rights, in a civilised and manageable setting, from small British publishers who often cannot afford the expense of international jet-setting. All good wishes for a successful future.
It is exactly a year ago since the appearance of All Authors Are Equal, the second volume of memoirs from publisher Fredric Warburg — a welcome event which, as Bookend remarked at the time, showed that its author had lost none of his abrasive immodesty. It now appears that Mr Warburg is offering booksellers copies of the first volume (long since out of print) at the price of £2.50, postage included. Bookbuyer was more fortunate, having acquired the book in 1968 at its remainder price of six and eleven pence.
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