PRECIS OF VOLUME 18 ISSUE 2
- Transnational synergy between publishing industries (as distinct from companies) has long been part of the LOGOS theme. But it takes a conscious effort by individuals. The professional associations are by definition devoted to promoting national interests. Individual efforts are particularly necessary when the neighbouring countries have histories of antagonism. The article by Alan Gleason in this issue on the East Asia Publishers Conference, bringing together publishers from Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, is a significant initiative illustrating this syndrome.
- Californian businessman James D. Jameson tells an extraordinary story with great frankness of how by chance he became involved in post-Communist Polish publishing and finished up as the majority owner of Poland's leading publisher. The story not only crosses national borders, and overcomes cultural differences, but reveals how an experienced businessman with no publishing background can become a successful publisher.
- This issue also sees the start of a new series, called "Publishing entrepreneurs", written by people who founded their own publishing houses. We are asking independent publishers from many countries to share their wisdom and experience with their fellow professionals. They are asked to tell not only of their triumphs, but also their hardships and failures. The series launches with two fascinating articles, the first a contribution by Philip Kogan, founder of Britain's Kogan Page publishers forty years ago, who writes with a mixture of shrewd wisdom and wry humour on how to succeed in an industry dominated by conglomerates. The second article in this new series, written by Richard Abel, shows how niche publishing can be a fount of creativity-in this case, by publishing sophisticated books for identifiable readers, on subjects ranging from Japanese maples to Mozart.
- The latest contribution to our series on how personal libraries reflect and influence the lives of their owners is by Eric de Bellaigue. As with earlier contributions, it reveals dimensions in the life of the author hitherto unknown even by close friends.
- One of the great internationalists of the book business, Fred Kobrak, who was recently honoured for his fiftieth consecutive attendance at the Frankfurt Book Fair, reveals how he got into the book business, and what made him stay in it, in the latest addition to our Credo series.
- Angus Phillips adds a coda to his recent article in the previous issue on book covers, by reporting the press's reaction to the publisher's decision to make Jane Austen look more attractive.
- The Editor Emeritus, exercising the privilege of seniority, started out to write on one subject but devotes most of his column to another. The title of this issue's The Last Word is, intriguingly, "Robert Maxwell and me".
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