The Special Relationship

Obama has been in the UK this week, and I’ve been thinking a lot about America. Or rather, as usual I’ve been thinking a lot about books – but in an America-related sort of way. My colleague Stuart Williams has just acquired the brilliant political writer Thomas Frank’s new book about the American Right; I’m extremely excited to have closed a deal on a book by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith about one particular death-row conviction he tried to get repealed, and the dreadful paradoxes of the American legal system in general. Neither book yet has a definite title; both will be published next year, so we’d better get thinking...

It has also been the BEA this week –  Book Expo America – and Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel The Night Circus (which Harvill Secker is publishing in September) has been stealing the show. It was picked as one of the BEA’s five ‘Buzz books’. This meant that Alison Callahan, Erin’s editor at Doubleday US, who was the first of all of us round the world to acquire this extraordinary book, had to stand up in front of over 300 people and tell them exactly  why she is so excited about it. Clearly it went well, judging by the wave of press that followed, calling The Night Circus the most buzzed about book at the BEA. As did Erin’s presentation to 200 librarians. (Luckily her mother was a librarian, so perhaps it didn’t seem that intimidating …)

On the one hand I’m relieved that it was Alison and Erin addressing the crowds, not me. On the other I’m rather jealous of the incredible response that Doubleday US have been getting from American booksellers. Though we have had very positive comments indeed from the UK booksellers who have so far read a proof of the The Night Circus, it can’t really be compared to torrent of ‘bookseller endorsements’ that Doubleday have been receiving, with booksellers, from both the chains and the independents, taking the time to express how much they love the book. Elizabeth Jordan of Book People Bookstore has written to them to say, ‘Erin Morgenstern’s debut is cinematic and intoxicating … I don’t remember the last time I was so thoroughly immersed in the world of a book,’ while Eric Sample of Barnes and Noble wrote, ‘You have a truly special book on your hands and I’m betting this will be a #1 bestseller… How many different ways can I say, I love this book.’

Doubleday is part of Random House US, and so we are in close communication about our publishing plans for The Night Circus, sharing our cover, marketing and publicity ideas. It’s a fantastic and inspiring collaboration, and our UK publication will definitely be the better for all the input from Doubleday. I hope they will say the same about us.

The relationship between UK and US publishers is not always plain-sailing though. As our world becomes ever more globalised and digital, the boundaries between territories become increasingly blurred. For instance, a crucial part of Doubleday’s marketing campaign is a Facebook site for The Night Circus  – a forum that is available to all English speakers around the world but will, of course, strongly feature the US edition of the book. Meanwhile, we have entered into an exciting collaboration with Failbetter Games (the company behind the online narrative game Echo Bazaar) to create an innovative piece of interactive, storytelling marketing for The Night Circus. You can read a really interesting article about it by our Digital Editor Dan Franklin on The Literary Platform. Again, Americans will be able to take part (indeed readers throughout the world ), but will be directed towards the UK edition of the book.

I wonder where all this is going … It might suggest that trying to cling on to territories is an uphill battle. For example, but I sort of doubt that Larry Kirshbaum, the man who has been brought in to run Amazon’s publishing outfit, is going to be content with buying US rights only. No, he will want UK rights as well, to sell through Amazon.co.uk. And though print and transportation costs might entail a separate UK edition being produced, is it really logical to do that? As for the e-book: no problem there …

The power of American publishers means they often manage to acquire world English language rights. For instance, an agent who refused to sell me world English language rights for a Chinese book (i.e. she would only license me the rights for the UK and its territories) quite happily sold World rights in another Chinese book the following month to an American publisher. Of course, I could try to buy the UK rights from the American publisher, but there are several reasons why I’m not terribly inclined to. It’s a big publishing corporation, so their UK arm will get first look anyway. It’s got to be translated from the Chinese, and I always prefer to be the one guiding the translation, because differences between UK and US English are greater than you might think. But also because part of the fun of that project was the sense of discovery and ownership. These things take an editor a long way over the gruelling months it takes to publish a book.

This is also why a global publishing model won’t necessarily be as efficient as we fear. The individual passion and creativity of editors in particular territories who know their market and can adapt cover design, marketing and publicity accordingly is often crucial to the success of a book. This is why agents are increasingly hiving off Australian, Canadian and Indian rights from World English language rights deals, and selling those rights to indigenous publishers. From a financial point of view, I was sad not to be sold the Indian rights to Alice Albinia’s Leela’s Book, but watching Chiki Sarkar of Random House India publish Leela’s Book has been inspirational. Chiki collaborated on the editing of the book, to make sure everything in it would ring true to an Indian audience. Though she took our UK cover design, she made subtle changes to it to suit her market. And Alice has just come back from an incredible publicity tour of India that could only have been arranged by people on the ground who are hugely invested in the book’s success. I only hope we can match them here when the book comes out in June …

But now I have to go to Hay on Wye for the literature festival at which I have authors Jean-Claude Carrière and Annalena McAfee appearing this weekend (check out the production values on Carrière and Eco’s This is Not the End of the Book – I’m so proud, and proud of our Production Manager Simon Rhodes). It’s six o’clock in the morning and I’m desperate to post this blog because I haven’t written one for so long. Actually it was because I did a trip to New York to meet publishers and agents, about which I’d love to say so much more except that I’ve realised that, if I’m going to be able to keep this blog going on a semi-weekly basis, I’m going to have to be shorter and sweeter. So, till next week …