Publishers

Toby Faber on the pleasures and surprises of writing the history of the firm founded by his grandfather

In January 2017, I succumbed to a long-standing temptation and decided to pitch a history of Faber & Faber.

With some 687 million books sold in the U.S. in 2017, book-selling has been on the rise since taking a dive following the 2008 recession. Still, there's the odd politician, religious group, or police institution eager to advance an agenda by labeling a particular book persona non grata - or, since it's a book, "liber non grata."

British publishing houses broke all previous revenue records in 2017 to see their collective sales rise 5% to £5.7bn, driven by a growth in export sales which now account for 60% of publishers' revenues. However, while most areas of business performed robustly, domestic sales of textbooks to schools took a 12% hit, revealing that savage public sector cuts are starting to bite in the education.  Read more

New Delhi: In 18 short years, David Shelley has gone from being an editorial assistant and then publishing director at independent publisher Allison and Busby, to becoming chief executive of Hachette UK last month-a career that's nothing short of phenomenal. Along the way, the Oxford graduate in English literature has also been the CEO of Little, Brown and Orion.  Read more

Dear Publicist,

What is the one piece of advice you can give me before my book is published?