Animal Farm & the Plague of Doodle Bugs

On this day (August 17th) in 1945, George Orwell's fifth novel, Animal Farm, was published.  As is often the case with great fiction, the book - which is now regarded as a classic of 20th century literature - initially struggled to find a publisher.  Indeed, the very fact that the book saw the light of day at all is a testament to the tenacious determination of its beleaguered author.

The book was written during the height of World War Two, while London was being pulverized by a steady stream of flying V1 bombs known as ‘doodle bugs'. In fact, the book itself very nearly fell victim to the deadly doodles - when, in June 1944, Orwell’s flat was, er, flattened, and the author was reduced to scrambling around in the debris in a bid to rescue his tattered manuscript.

George Orwell

And rescue it he did - but having narrowly escaped a quick death at the hands of a German bomb, the book looked set to suffer an agonizingly slow death at the hands of its potential publishers.

By this stage, Orwell's regular publisher, Victor Gollancz, had refused to take the book, fearful that its anti-Soviet themes would be unpopular at a time when the Russian alliance was proving crucial to the success of the British war effort.  TS Eliot, then editor at Faber & Faber, had similar objections.  An acceptance by Jonathan Cape was swiftly reneged upon after the publisher paid a visit to Peter Smollett, a shady official at the Ministry of Information. (Interestingly, Smollett was later discovered to be a Soviet agent.)

Thankfully, soon after the curtain had fallen on the Second World War - and not long before an entirely different curtain was erected on the edge of Eastern Europe - the book finally found its audience. Where once political tensions had hindered the book’s path to publication, the climate now proved to be much more favourable. In the lead up to what was to become the Cold War, the British Establishment were no longer concerned with suppressing criticism of the Soviets. Anti-Russian sentiment, it seemed, was now the order of the day. Publishers no longer baulked at the book’s themes, and in fact, rushed to snap up the manuscript. But it was too late for them.  Animal Farm had been accepted by Secker and Warburg … and, when published in the late summer of 1945, with the subtitle A Fairy Story, it was an instant success.

A full transcript of TS Eliot's rejection letter can be viewed here:
http://georgeorwellnovels.com/letters/t-s-eliot-rejects-animal-farm/

World Book Night - The Debate

With the inaugural World Book Night happening in just a few days time on March 5, debate is raging in the media as to the relative merits of the scheme (or lack thereof). To date, I am still undecided as to whether World Book Night will prove to be a massive boon to publishing or the death knell for the industry.

For those of you who may be unaware of the scheme, here’s a brief outline: In a bid to introduce more people to the joys of reading,World Book Night with the support of various publishing, booksellers and library associations is planning to give away one million books to lucky recipients all over the UK and Ireland – free, gratis and for nothing. The organisers have chosen 25 titles to be part of the world’s first en-masse book giveaway, including works from authors as diverse as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alan Bennett, John le Carré, Margaret Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy, to name but a few.

The logistics of such an operation are not to be inconsiderable. Probably the biggest task confronting the organisers has been the recruitment of an army of 20,000 volunteer givers, who will each give away 48 books to people and organisations as they see fit on March 5. (Another 40,000 copies will be offloaded by the event planners.) Add to this the need to co-ordinate the printing, boxing and distribution of one million books to pick-up locations the length and breath of the UK, and you begin to understand the size of the task confronting the organisers.

Despite the audacious nature of this undertaking, the scheme was greeted with almost universal enthusiasm when it was first proposed.

Commentators were quick to heap praise on the project, declaring it a bold move in the battle to revive the ailing fortunes of the humble book in our new multi-media world. Big-name publishers soon clambered onto the growing bandwagon. The project soon attracted some high profile and deep-pocketed sponsors – the list of patrons includes such illustrious names as Nigella Lawson, JK Rowling, Tilda Swinton, Dominic West, Damien Hirst and Richard Branson. The BBC and RTĖ (Ireland’s national broadcaster) responded in kind, announcing a raft of bookish programmes to coincide with the giveaway on March 5.

However, the barrage of positive publicity was not to last. As the World Book Night project gathered steam, faint rumblings of discord were heard on the horizon from various splinter groups in the publishing and bookselling industries. Small publishing houses, independent booksellers and struggling writers, who individually lacked the clout necessary to challenge the big hitters, joined forces to voice their concerns. And, as it turned out, they raised some valid points.

The crux of their argument centred around the belief that flooding an already struggling market with one million free books will have a hugely detrimental effect on the smaller players in the industry. How can booksellers hope to sell any of the 25 titles involved with the project when readers are getting them for free elsewhere? Why buy a book when it is given away for free from another source?

Another argument put forward by World Book Night detractors centres on the fact that money spent by publishers in support of the scheme (estimated to be as much as £40,000 each) is money that could be spent publishing a new author.

Adding to the quagmire of negative publicity is the fact that WBN organisers are struggling to cope with the aforementioned organisational nightmare of bringing this project to fruition. High volunteer drop-out rates are resulted in a frenzied, last-minute flurry of activity in a bid to recruit a large group of ‘reserves’, and a plague of computer glitches has seen a number of emails sent to participants with confusing or incorrect information.

So, will World Book Night be an unqualified success, or will its critics' worst fears be realised? Search me! I’m still oscillating, with my loyalties divided between the two opposing sides. Let’s just wait and see how it all comes out in the wash …

Jamie Oliver - the Patron Saint of Publishing

Pause for a moment to consider what the name Jamie Oliver means to you. Undoubtedly, you could come up with a variety of words to describe him - chef, media personality, campaigner, philanthropist. All these indisputably and accurately illustrate the trajectory of Jamie Oliver’s career since he first burst onto our TV screens as The Naked Chef in 1998. But the latest string which has been added to his bow, that of record-breaking author, has caught many by surprise, not least, one assumes, Mr Oliver himself.

The figures for total annual book sales for 2010 have recently been released - and the numbers tell quite a story. Jamie’s latest cookbook, 30 Minute Meals, sold a phenomenal 1.2 million copies last year, making it the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time. This achievement is even more remarkable when one considers the fact that the book was released quite late in the year, at the end of September.

These astonishing sales figures make Jamie Oliver one of the most successful British authors ever, second only to JK Rowling. It is unprecedented that a non-fiction book, and a cookbook at that, could post such huge sales. Not bad for a dyslexic boy from Essex who famously said, “reading bores me to death, I’ve honestly never read a book from cover to cover in my life.”

All this has been like manna from heaven to the publishing industry. At a time when pundits are predicting the demise of traditional publishing, Penguin (the publisher of 30 Minute Meals) has posted record profits. A recipe for success other companies will be keen to replicate.

No doubt there will be some purists out there who will take exception to the fact that a cookbook, of all things, has been lauded as the saviour of the UK’s publishing industry - and to some extent they have a point; a recipe can hardly be described as high literature, can it? However, in these straitened times, let’s just be thankful that people are buying books, no matter what genre they happen to be.

Lastly, let's spare a thought for Jamie's arch-rival, the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay, who may now be regretting his catty, if somewhat prohetic, remark: "Jamie Oliver inspires me with what he has done - with his publishing arm."