Bookbuyer's
Bookend
G. Hodder and Stoughton, as befits publishers founded in congregationalist spirit, have usually tended to keep a low profile. With a fine religious list and wide range of comfortably clean fiction (Norah Lofts, Mary Stewart, Anya Seton, Elizabeth Goudge) this nineteenth century family business prefers quite reasonably to avoid the brasher excesses of some of its noisier rivals. Characteristically, Hodder chose not to respond to recent criticisms in the letter column of the Times over the publication of hi-jacker Leila Khaled's book, Let My People Live. (Not surprisingly the British Airline Pilots Association had taken an unsporting view of the idea, and so, too, had several ordinary citizens who thought that such a widely condemned criminal deserved a fate even worse than authorship.)
When, several days later, the controversy refused to lie down, Hodder finally admitted that although they did not particularly want to say anything of their own, they did rather agree with the defence of the Sunday Telegraph's editor who was also criticised for publishing an extract from the book — he thought that it was a matter of public interest and that, Miss Khaled's cause needed to be understood. The publishers, who two years ago issued a John Gardner novel about hi-jacking, went on to add that everything was all right because the royalties for Let My People Live were going not to the author but her friend George Najjar who ' edited ' it. In view of Hodder's dignified and undemonstrative attitude towards such sensitive material, Bookbuyer is surprised that they should now be advertising it as "The book that is making news." It would make more news if the public refused to buy it.
British Printing Corporation's Queen Anne Press are an imprint to watch. Until BPC bought it from Lord Thomson in the late 'six ties it had produced sponsored publications for any company prepared to put up enough money or purchase enough copies. In 1970 Queen Anne's new management decided to tailor the sponsorship concept to a specialised
area, and opted for sport. With sundry cigarette manufacturers wondering where on earth to spend their advertising budgets, Queen Anne's editor had little difficulty in finding companies prepared to put up anything between 0,000 and £20,000 towards the cost of producing and promoting such titles as Rothman's Football Yearbook (sales last year of nearly 100,000), Wills Horse and Rider Yearbook, Woodbine Angling Yearbook, John Player Cricket Yearbook, and several others. Last week Queen Anne quietly acquired Playfair Publications, whose small-format cricket and football annuals have been steady sellers (around 50,000 each last year) since they were first launched by the News Chronicle many moons ago. This gives their new owners the makings of a monopoly in the profitable field of statistical sports books (Whitaker's Wisden excepted)—which goes to show that it is still possible for a small publishing operation to corner a large slice of a book market in a very short pace of time — and on someone else's money. Shall we see other publishers following suit? Could the day come when Collins sublimate their New Naturalist series with a sponsored history of Rio Tinto Zinc?
Bookbuyer is sorry to learn that on top of all its turmoil of recent weeks, Pergamon Press has now had a fire. Unlike a similar misfortune of several years ago, when a number of valuable scientific magazines were destroyed, this latest at the firm's Hadington Hall premises on Thursday night — did not, happily, damage any warehouse stocks, merely some sales documentation. Bookbuyer hopes that things will be back to normal soon and that the losses are not irreplaceable.
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