Radio Check

Charlie Bell and Ian Deacon, alias Eddy Nugent, will be appearing on BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage a week on Saturday to talk about Map of Africa, Belize and Germany.

They're very dry and funny, so it should be a good listen.

What price cheap books? asks James Hall in the Daily Telegraph, taking a pessimistic view of the mid- to long-term future of publishing if everything comes down to cost.

'Small bookshops simply can not compete with the big chains on price and are therefore closing at an alarming rate,' he says. 'Book publishers suffer too in a clear case of cause and effect. This in turn means that publishers are less prone to sign-up niche authors. To increase the likelihood of the first book being a hit, publishing sources tell me that there is a massive emphasis on an author’s “marketability” – will they look good on GMTV, are they the right profile for target demographics etc? The industry therefore becomes less and less to do with the words on the pages.'

We've just rejected a good possible future title because the author wanted to remain anonymous. We've done anonymous books where the authors will talk to journos and do radio and TV, and we've done them where they won't. The difference? About 40,000 sales.

In the comments, 'Bu on U' adds: 'And this isn’t even taking into account the tendency of people to buy & sell books – including recent best-sellers – even more cheaply on the internet, resulting in reduced need for the new book, and leaving booksellers out of it altogether.'

Another commenter points out that very few men now read books.

That may be true, though I think all the men I know read them. It's true that publishers and bookshops are being squeezed, and it's obviously the case that a sophisticated second hand market distorts the first hand one.

But there is an upside to more books being sold more cheaply - reading is a habit, and one we need to encourage.

Posted by Dan