Summer Publishing... and No Harry Potter please!
The Bookseller had an interesting feature last month about the best time to publish books. There are some rules of thumb for the book trade, it seems - Literary Fiction is for Spring, Hardbacks in September and October; Health and Diet in the New Year.
But July is a quiet month - The Bookseller suggests that July catches the end of the prime time for Crime Fiction (paperback), and is fine for those 3-for-2 paperbacks you find in every bookshop. But woe betide any publisher who tries to launch a new author, or publishing something meaty and thought-provoking!
So what are the Scottish publishers publishing this month?
We'll, there's a fair selection of fiction, especially crime and thrillers - Lin Anderson's fourth novel Dark Flight, Paul Johnston's The Death List, Val McDermid's The Wire in the Blood. There's some general fiction too - McCall Smith's The World According to Bertie is out in hardback.
Canongate, who are quoted in The Bookseller article, are taking risks with The End of Mr. Y by first-timer Scarlet Thomas (although it's not really a risk, as it's so good).
Polygon have some classics reissued (you can publish classics at any time of the year; according to The Bookseller début novels must come out between February and April). So look out for James Kelman's Not While The Giro and The Busconductor Hines; John Buchan's John Macnab and others.
Quite a lot of history titles - like The Medieval Castles of Skye and Lochalsh and To War With The Black Watch, for instance. I guess history books, especially local history, can be published at any time.
But it's a very quiet time for other genres - only two poetry books, only two travel guides; only three children's books.
I'd like to hear what publishers think? And readers, too - is summer only a time for mass-market paperbacks and light reading? Or would you rather take War and Peace to the beach?
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Of course, the the big publishing event the summer is the last Harry Potter novel from JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. You won't be able to escape its publication on 21st July. There will be launch events across the country, midnight queues outside bookshops. Amazon have pre-orders for over a million and a half copies worldwide. It's a little bit scary, to be honest; and it's probably scaring some publishers away from July as well. So BooksfromScotland.com won't be doing anything special for Harry Potter at all. Think of us a safe haven. (Plus, we couldn't possibly afford to sell it at the sort of price Amazon or Tesco will, so we're not evening going to try.)
Happy reading!
