Peter Cox writing in The Bookseller

Hello – my name is Peter, and I’m a book thief.

There, I’ve said it.  It’s a weight off my mind, I can tell you.  I’ll come quietly – you don’t need to use the cuffs.  Well… just this once, then.  Make sure they’re nicely lubricated.

Last year, I stole oodles of books.  JK Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, Lemony Snicket, Michael Crichton… all these authors and more were my victims.  I stole blatantly in public, even on Sky Television – so there’s no doubt about my guilt.  My thievery was even splashed over the front page on The Times.  Please… won’t someone stop me before I do it again?

Well, I have done it again.  Go to my agency’s home page and you can watch a video of me stealing another book, just a few days ago.  And you know something?  Both I and countless thousands like me can be certain of one thing – our crimes will not be punished.

Shoplifters are not tolerated on the High Street.  We employ CCTV, security guards, undercover detectives, RFID tags and a host of other measures to deter “five-finger discounters”.  When we catch them, it’s blues-and-twos or Black Morias and a summary hearing at the Magistrates Court.  But online – well, that’s different.  Because the truth is, no-one appears to give a damn.

After last year’s publicity, I had hoped that the industry would have responded robustly and quickly.  Instead, there was much hand-wringing and pious talk about the need for “public education”.  But nothing substantial has changed.

My favourite website to steal books is Scribd.com.  After last year’s exposure, they claimed to have tightened up on piracy.  But as you’ll see from my most recent video, Scribd is now smugly charging users to download a pirated e-book!  This is surely intolerable.

For years, it has been obvious that the West-coast venture capital elite have no respect for our profession.  They can have an entire business financed, launched, pumped and then dumped in the 18-month timeframe it takes us to get one book out.  And they will cold-bloodedly eviscerate any existing industry to build their own website traffic (look at newspapers, look at music).  Play by these guys’ rules, and we will get burnt.

We must do three things.

First, we must print a clear warning in every book that scanning it and posting online is stealing vital income from much-loved authors.  Next, we can eliminate piracy-hosting sites by attacking their source of funding.  And third, we can and must lobby to remove any vestige of legal protection from these sites.  Lobbying works for other industries – why not us?   The alternative is, to be blunt, economic annihilation.

And frankly – if we lack the willpower to protect our own goods, maybe that’s what we deserve.

This column first appeared in The Bookseller on the 10th September 2010

Over a year ago, Peter appeared on Sky News (see below) to warn about book piracy on websites such as scribd.com.   “What’s changed in the past year”, says Peter, is that Scribd now has the effrontery to charge for illegal downloads!”.  You can watch Peter steal a book here - we hope the industry is paying attention.

Picture by Drewhound

Peter Cox writing in The Bookseller

Strolling back from a publishing party last week (yes, we still have them) I dropped into Apple’s late-opening Regent Street store to observe the fanbois fondling their iPads.  Imagine a petting zoo for adults, with shiny little tablets instead of guinea pigs, and you’ve got the scene.  The hushed atmosphere is one of awed devotion: if Jobstown’s next product were the iFlagellate, there would certainly be blood on the floor here.

Apple is, of course, a deeply tribal company, and has adroitly leveraged the faithful to become the world’s largest tech company.  Yet publishing has always been the quintessential tribal business.  We obsessively organize ourselves into houses, imprints, authors, series, festivals, reading groups, prizes and genres.  No other business has had so many opportunities to profit from its inherent tribalism, and no other business has so consistently failed to seize the potential it offers.

The  defining quality of a tribe is whether it is inclusionary or exclusionary.  Most publishing tribes define themselves by whom (or what) they exclude. “Did you go to Random Penguin’s party?” No?  Then you’re clearly not one of us.  “Have you read Murakami’s latest?” No? Then you’re patently not my intellectual equal.

Exclusionary tribes rarely thrive.  When Mancunian mill worker Ann Lee founded the Shakers, her curious prohibition on procreation sealed their fate from the outset.  Awesome furniture, but lousy marketing.  From a peak of six thousand believers in their heyday, only three Shakers remain today.  Successful tribes flourish by both proselytizing and procreating.  Publishing does neither very well.

And yet, the tools exist.  When I founded the online community The Clan (www.torak.info) for readers of Michelle Paver’s series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness some six years ago, my aim was to create an inclusionary tribe.  I wanted hard-core fans, the sort that would go out on the net and evangelize for us.   Even though the series has now come to an end, The Clan goes from strength to strength.

You can’t build a tribe overnight.  Litopia, the net’s oldest community for writers, has taken many years to evolve.  We’ve certainly taken a few uncertain steps along the way, but here’s another benefit of tribalism: the community will guide you, if you let it. A healthy tribe trusts its members, because without them it is nothing.  A tribe is a conversation, not a monologue: the more power and authority you devolve, the stronger you become.  That’s deeply counter-intuitive to most of the type-A personalities who currently dominate publishing’s top-down management structure.

But, hey – even if publishing withers – I’m sure we’ll leave behind some awesome intellectual furniture.

This column first appeared in The Bookseller on the 24th June 2010

With big-name contributions from the likes of Lee Child, Bernard Cornwell, RJ Ellory, international YA success MG Harris and Charlaine Harris, the first issue makes gripping reading.  Written and produced by members of Litopia, Muse contains author interviews, articles, reviews and short fiction – not to mention a writers’ agony column with the irate (and somewhat batty) Granny Bates, an anonymous Stig-like publishing guru.

MUSE, the new literary e-zine from Litopia Writers Colony

Litopia founder, London-based literary agent Peter Cox, said: ‘We’ve always been a pioneering community, from being one of the earliest online writing forums through to the development of our podcasts and our use of social media to engage new members and listeners.

‘The birth of Muse is another groundbreaking move. The publishing climate is undergoing a radical transformation, particularly the relentless rise of online media set against the decline in printed media, and Muse positions Litopia at the forefront of this changing climate.

Rising Stars

‘Muse encompasses everything that Litopia is about,’ Cox said.  ‘One of the most pleasing aspects about the way the community has developed over the years is the collegiate atmosphere that prevails, and this is something that is at the very heart of Muse. I took a back seat when the idea was first being discussed and left it to the editorial team to get the magazine off the ground. They’ve done a fantastic job, both in terms of the content and the design of Muse – it looks absolutely first-class.  I believe this is where many of the ‘nets rising literary stars will first make their debut.’

Team Effort

Most of the Muse team have never met each other, working instead in Litopia’s forums.   Holding the editor’s reins for the first issue of Muse is John Quirk, a former journalist now working in PR and advertising.

He said: ‘It’s been a fascinating project to be involved with, particularly as the editorial team has been on board from the very start and we’ve all watched Muse grow from an initial throwaway comment within the Litopia forums. The finished product has been a real team effort and I’d like to thank everyone within Litopia who has contributed in any small way.

‘We were also very lucky in that one of the editorial team, Jamie Mollart, is an associate director at Leicester-based PR, marketing and design company Rock Kitchen Harris, which kindly offered to look after the design. I was knocked out when I first saw Muse in all its glory. The designer, Matt Laws, has pitched it spot on.’

John explained:  ‘Each issue of Muse will have a theme running throughout, chosen by the editorial team, and a section focusing on a particular genre, chosen by the editor, with the plan being that each member of the editorial team takes a turn in the editor’s hot seat. The theme for issue one is, naturally, “beginnings”, with the genre focus on crime.’

Coming Next

The online build-up to the launch of Muse is being coordinated by Jamie.

‘The beauty of an e-zine is that its potential readership is unlimited,’ said Jamie. ‘It hasn’t cost us a penny to put together, other than the time of those involved, and there is no print run or physical distribution to worry about.

‘We will put Muse in the RSS feed for the Litopia podcasts, which have in excess of 20,000 listeners a week, and everyone who is subscribed will automatically receive it. Muse will also be promoted via our Twitter profile – @litopia – which has more than 8,000 followers, in addition to being available as a download from Litopia itself. All this, of course, ensures we are hitting our target audience – and all of it at no cost.

‘The same principle applies to promoting Muse – via Twitter, Facebook, and a host of blogs, with our members, and those who contributed to the first issue, all posting a teaser PDF to whet people’s appetites. As word-of-mouth spreads, the potential readership can only increase.’

Issue two of Muse is scheduled for distribution towards the end of August. Litopia members who would like details of how to get involved can email muse [AT] litopia.eu or keep an eye out for announcements within the Colony.

Peter Cox writing in The Bookseller

What is it about this business that makes us so allergic to the idea of competitive selling?

When I first became an agent, I was shocked to discover that “respectable” agents did not compete against each other for business. In fact, I initially avoided joining the Association of Authors’ Agents for precisely that reason: it’s only in recent years that they’ve relaxed their position on members competing for other members’ clients.

I can think of no end of talented authors who are today poorly or even negligently represented…Even now, any agent who overtly prospects for business is widely considered to be, well, wide. “Be wary of an agent who solicits you,” cautions the queen of literary scam-busters Victoria Strauss. “Good agents don’t need to advertise—or to solicit. Questionable agents, on the other hand, often derive much of their clientele from solicitation.” No wonder poor old Andrew Wylie is called the Jackal. Clearly the likes of Roth, Bellow, Mailer and Rushdie didn’t realize that Andrew was “questionable” when he enthusiastically chased after their business. Your fellow agents may hate you, Andrew, but I bet your clients love you. And so do I, for making our business a bit less pompous.

Even outside the cloistered and ultimately rather petty agents’ demi-monde, the situation is oddly similar. You would think that, in a declining market, all the major publishers would constantly be at each others’ throats in a never-ending, blood-drenched struggle to woo blue-chip authors away from rival houses. In fact, this kind of competition is surprisingly infrequent (tellingly, no publisher that I’m aware of has the equivalent of a dedicated new business unit) and when it happens, sporadically, it inevitably boils down to a cash bidding war between houses. How unimaginative.

In my old industry—advertising—the pitch was a reality of everyday existence. Far from being a scurrilous activity, the art of effective pitching was celebrated, rewarded and actively developed as an essential skill. Beyond that, it is obviously in the client’s best interests.

I can think of no end of talented authors who are today poorly or even negligently represented. Is it fair to deny them the possibility of better representation simply because the more atherosclerotic parts of our industry consider competition to be ungentlemanly?

The lifeblood of business is competition. Other industries thrive on it: we can too. I’m calling for a major rethink of our attitude to this subject—and an appreciation that fair competition can only benefit authors. Until that happens, we’re not really in business at all—we’re just dilettantes.

This column first appeared in The Bookseller on the 23rd April 2010

Set in 1937, DARK MATTER is a terrifying ghost story set on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen now known as Svalbard.  A group of idealistic young Englishmen set off with high hopes of scientific discovery – only to discover how long the arctic night is when something is out there in the snow.

Michelle Paver explained her fascination with the Arctic:

“I’ve always loved ghost stories and for the past decade, I’ve have had DARK MATTER at the back of my mind.  The title came first, and soon afterwards, I realised that the story must take place in the Arctic: the land of extremes that has haunted me for years.   DARK MATTER is my attempt to capture the beauty and menace of the Arctic – in a ghost story that will scare the hell out of you.”

Jon Wood said:

“If you’ve ever woken up in the dark and blindly searched for the light switch – convinced that there is something in the room with you – then you will know exactly how this novel makes you feel. When you add in an intensely powerful personal story and the wonderful atmosphere of the arctic, you have something pretty special.”

Malcolm Edwards, Deputy CEO and Publisher of Orion said:

“Quite simply, DARK MATTER is the best book I’ve read in the last year.  It wouldn’t put me down.”

Michelle Paver is one of the top bestselling authors in the UK.   As well as being published as an adult author, her highly-acclaimed children’s series THE CHRONICLES OF ANCIENT DARKNESS has sold two million copies since publication with rights sold in 33 territories.

For further details use the contact form here.

“Writing this book is the most important thing I have ever done”, says David.  “I was compelled to write it although at times it was an intensely painful experience. Though this book is a fiction and I am not the father in it, he is the man I nearly was. Like him, I fell victim to alcohol. There came a time when it controlled me and nearly killed me.

Some years ago I realised that I would die if I did not stop drinking entirely, and I saw that I needed help. Fortunately, I found that help and I chose to recover. Too many choose the other route. Too many children are left either in chaotic homes or without parents. I have not drunk alcohol since 2005, and have no intention of ever doing so again. I’m lucky, I have a happy and wonderful life but I have it only because I stopped in time.

This is a book about truth. Alcoholism is too often swept under the carpet. I hope my novel will encourage adults and children to talk about the issue, but I also want this book to show children what recovery is so they may seek it if they ever need to.”

More about David Yelland here.

Peter Cox writing in The Bookseller

If history books exist in the future, they will surely record that the year 2010 was the defining moment in our exodus from analogue to digital publishing.

Yet of all the extraordinary things to have happened thus far,  the most far-reaching has also been the least-publicized.  Steve Jobs may have grabbed the limelight, but it’s Macmillan who have truly changed the game.

…and authors will be rewarded with a well-deserved 90% royalty…In case you blinked, here’s the bottom line.  Publishing is moving away from the traditional wholesale/retail  model to the agency model.  Macmillan can take credit for this adroit solution to their recent spat with Amazon.  Briefly, it means that the digital sale is concluded directly between the publisher and the customer, for which Amazon (now demoted to a mere publisher’s agent) receives a commission.

Just think.  Publishers will be free to set their own prices: reminding grizzled insiders like me of the good old Net Book Agreement days. But unlike the NBA, the agency model is not subject to the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements that proved to be the NBA’s death-knell.  And there’s more: publishers will become increasingly adept at marketing direct to consumers; supermarkets will no longer murderously sell our hottest products below cost price; and authors will be rewarded with a well-deserved 90% royalty.  I made that last bit up, but the rest is pretty kosher.

So – good times, yes?

I’m no Cassandra, but some of this is giving me pause. For a start, Amazon caved too quickly for my liking – over a weekend.  “Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles” says Amazon, ominously.  If I were a publisher’s chief executive, I’d be a tad concerned by that “M” word.

More worrying is the possibility that this rather delicate arrangement might be misconstrued: that the only practical change that consumers or regulators see is a sudden absence of price competition.  And what would happen then?  I asked Stuart Richards, a partner in the IP department of Fasken Martineau, to explain.  “If an agreement is not regarded as a genuine agency agreement,” he told me, “then depending on its terms, it may be found to infringe Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning Of The European Union.  Such arrangements could also, if the tests are met, constitute an abuse of a dominant position”.  And that’s not good.

Agency model or no, Apple are squeezing publishers mightily to discount e-book prices in their new iBookStore.  And Amazon will not accept being less competitive. My nightmare scenario sees e-book prices even lower than they are now – with a massive European lawsuit thrown in.

Of course, this won’t happen.

Will it, chaps?