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But for one publisher of mountaineering books based in a small
house on Glasgow's South Side the storm cloud does have a silver
lining. Ernest Press publisher Peter Hodgkiss is celebrating a spectacular
double for author Roger Hubank's masterful novel Hazard's Way, which
won the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and went
on to win the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature.
It's been the shot in the arm every small publishing house needs.
In the wake of the awards the Spanish rights were snapped up by
climbing magazine publishers Desnival, complete with a non-returnable
advance on royalties and other outdoor publishers in North American,
Italy and France have declared an interest.
"Financially we've had the worst year in our 17 years of existence,"
Hodgkiss explains. "Revenue has been down about 75%. Foot and mouth
started in February, our revenue fell the following month. I'm absolutely
delighted by the Desnival deal which will give us time to do Roger's
next novel and provide more funds for me to pursue other publishing
projects which the foot and mouth has denied me."
Hazard's Way is a very British book. Set at the turn of the century,
George Hazard, a young middle class man from a privileged background,
the family has a Scottish estate called Black Mount, searches for
a purpose to his life as he struggles with a medical training he
feels particularly unsuited. While his contemporaries fight the
Boers, his sister fights the establishment and the nation that prides
itself as introducing the concept of "fair play" to the world, herds
Boer women and children into concentration camps.
Hazard's safety valve is Wasdale Head, a rope, nailed boots and
the old dictum "a leader must never fall". A new generation of climbers
are pushing the boundaries of fear and technical achievement on
the crags and questioning their peers, while some of their peers
realise they must seize their moment before it's too late.
Of the two awards it was Banff that really surprised Hodgkiss.
"I was sat at dinner when the organiser of the book festival at
Banff phoned me. I was so stunned I never finished my meal. I said
to her "but this is such a British novel, the Boer War, Edwardian
society, climbing at Wasdale Head, very, very British".
"She said the judges had discussed that but they were unanimous
in choosing it as the best book out of the 122 entered. The judges
decided the writing was so terrific and the structure of the novel
so clever and had such depth, it was just too good to pass it by."
The praise was echoed by chair of the BT judges, former Independent
journalist Steve Goodwin. "Good climbing fiction is a hard act,"
he said at the award ceremony. "Too much of it in recent years has
either been thinly disguised autobiography, or of the airport novel
harness-ripper variety.
"The Great Climbing Novel has taken on the status of a Holy Grail
for Boardman Tasker judges. I'm not sure that the search is really
over yet but Hazard's Way comes pretty close."
It isn't the first book from the Ernest Press to have won the Boardman
Tasker. Jim Perrin's classic "Menlove" won the first award in 1985,
followed by Will McLewin's "In Monte Viso's Horizon" and Ian Mitchell's
"View From the Ridge". Numerous other books have been shortlisted
including the recent biography of John Cunningham, Creag Dhu Climber.
But as every "professional" climber, photographer, writer and artist
knows, awards and critical acclaim do not automatically pay the
bills. From where Peter Hodgkiss is sitting, publishing mountain
fiction, biography or literature, isn't a quick route to early retirement.
Publishing guidebooks is a different matter and Hodgkiss freely
admits that the range of mountain biking guides published by the
Ernest Press, provides the company's bread and butter.
"The general mountaineering reading public is declining," Hodgkiss
continues. "Ninety percent of the orders we get on our website are
mostly from people under 40 and the majority are under 30 and they
are ordering mountain bike guides. The orders we get through the
post, over the phone and by email for mountaineering titles are
almost entirely from people over 40 and the majority are over 50.
"There's no doubt that the current trend in book selling is away
from carrying backlists of esoteric books; mountaineering, canoeing,
fishing, whatever. The small independent retail bookshops which
used to carry wide range of titles on the shelves, are all going
to the wall. The big shops are going for stack em high and sell
em cheap. Go into Waterstones and the shelves are full of Harry
Potter to the exclusion of many, many other titles and that's having
a terrible effect on small publishers."
The UK's biggest specialised distributor of outdoor books and maps
is Leicester based Cordee. Started in the 1960s to distribute Climbers'
Club guides, it now services UK outdoor retailers and book wholesalers
with a massive list of maps and climbing, walking, cycling, canoeing
and travel books published throughout the world.
Director Ken Vickers agrees that discount, muscle power and promotional
spend dominate the thinking of the big bookshop chains but with
more than 100,000 new or imported books in the English language
published in the UK every year, it's hardly surprising. However
Vickers feels other factors are at play in the world of mountain
literature - oversupply and poor quality.
"There's too much climbing literature being published. People have
limited time to read, so they become more choosy. Often they'll
buy a product but find it is not very worthy and a disappointment,
so next time they may not buy one. It's a finite market and people
are only prepared to spend so much on books," he said.
"In the past small publishers would produce a book, expect bookshops
to put it on the shelves and for the thing to sell. It's worked
very well in the past with climbing guides and I think it will always
work because the climbing community is very close and word of mouth
gets out rapidly. People sit there in anticipation of a new climbing
guide coming.
"But, I don't think that's good enough today for non-climbing guides.
A certain amount of publicity and marketing has to be done simply
to compete with all the other products out there looking for the
same pounds in people's pockets."
Vickers' advice to small publishers is simple. Stick to a market
you understand and clearly identify with, produce your books economically
and pitch them at the right price. Tell people the book exists and
rely on specialist outdoor retailers who will see the value of a
good book coming from a small publisher, aimed at their outdoor
market.
Tom Prentice
14/12/2001
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