Happy New Year!

So, this is my second day at Elliott & Thompson where I have joined as Publishing Executive, taking over from Ellen whose domain this blog has been to date. Now it is mine! A triumphalist beginning indeed. For those familiar with this blog, hello. If you hadn’t heard, Ellen’s moved into the charity sector. I saw that in her goodbye post she gave me a golden curse by asserting that I’d be nine (or nineteen? I forget) times better than her. I met her briefly last year and she was incredibly impressive – that coupled with the fact that multiplying things by nine (let alone nineteen) is a tricky task in itself after a while makes her prediction a tall order to live up to. So let’s sweep it under the carpet now and start from scratch.

What have we found out in 2011 so far then? Jamie Oliver was Christmas #1. The top selling book of 2010 was Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’. I have hold my hand up and admit I have never read Stieg. However, I can redeem myself as ‘The Da Vinci Code’ remains the biggest selling book for the period 2008 to December 11 2010 and that I have read along with, and with varying degrees of enjoyment, the rest of Dan Brown’s output. Including ‘The Lost Symbol’ (a low point) on my mobile phone. Which leads neatly into…

…ebooks! I love ebooks. Not necessarily to read, not yet at least, but as a publisher. There is so much opportunity in the digital environment that the avenues of exploration are nearly endless. There is the potential (and it is not necessarily a good one) to change almost everything about books from the content to the revenue generation. Digital in books is only partly about adding videos and so on to books (and remember that adding to books is not always a good thing – the ‘The Great Gatsby’, for example, was heavily reduced … and is regularly selected as many people’s favourite book). It is about new ways of doing book business, from getting money in to getting content out and into the hands of the readers. Ebooks will, I’m sure, crop up on this blog more than a few times.

I will also aim to continue Ellen’s brilliant accounts of life at Elliott & Thompson. As well as Ellen departing, Mark has also left. I have joined from Icon Books, another independent publisher, and at the moment it’s just me and Lorne in the office although person #3 will be joining in the near future I am sure. There are some fantastic looking books coming up – as soon as I’ve got to grips with them all myself I’ll blog about them here.

And to sign off, this wouldn’t be an introductory post without actually introducing myself – so hi, I’m Nick Sidwell. I’m aiming to make this blog as interesting as possible to read – I definitely want it to be interesting to write! It’s exciting times to be joining an ambitious independent publisher based in Bloomsbury. There’s a lot going on out there in the book world, from fantastic authors, publishers, readers and books to all sorts of threats and hurdles. I can’t wait to get stuck in!

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