LONDON’s smaller presses are struggling to get books into Europe due to rule changes in the wake of Brexit.
Clare Bogen of Fitzcarraldo Editions, which publishes recent Nobel literature prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk, below, told us: “We’re really struggling to get EU customers their books. The UK used to be a publishing centre but now due to red tape that is flagging.”
Books sent to reviewers or for literary prizes in the EU often get returned due to customs rules which came in last year, meaning some have asked US firms to send copies.
Robin Christian, director of Makina Books, recently lost £1,000 sending books to Ireland, and said sales were down by as much as a fifth in the past year. He says: “No one I know in a small press doing print runs under 5,000 is shipping to the EU. The information online is so confusing and even if you follow it it isn’t working.” Christian urged bigger publishers to unite with smaller ones.
A government spokesperson said: “We’ve always been clear that being outside the single market and the customs union would mean changes. We are continuing to discuss export issues with the EU.” The Government this week launched a “Benefits of Brexit” paper.
It’s a tough job at police watchdog
AS tricky jobs go, being a media officer for the Independent Office for Police Conduct has to be up there. A source pointed The Londoner to a recent recruitment listing on the civil service website for a candidate to liaise with the press for the IOPC. With the police under fire from all angles, working for those policing the police means the successful candidate’s hands are likely to be very full indeed. The job ad stipulates that they will deal with “high-profile cases” that make headlines, and adds that a “problem-solving approach” is needed. That’s one way of putting it.
Music helped twigs grow again
FKA twigs is on the road to recovery after the end of what she alleges was an abusive relationship with actor Shia LaBeouf, who denies the claims. “I did lose an incredible amount of confidence and self-worth,” the musician says. “Music was a part of — not me getting my confidence back, because I don’t think it really works like that — but it was a part of me being able to know who I was again,” she said. Reclaiming.
Winning poet is top of the class
POET Hannah Lowe won the 50th anniversary Costa Book Award — and £30,000 — for her collection The Kids last night, which fictionalises her time working in a sixth form in Angel. Lowe told us she wrote the sonnets partly as a corrective to hours spent trying to teach poems that “even I didn’t understand”. She also has a tip for teachers: “If a student asks a question and you don’t know the answer, say to them: ‘Why don’t you find out and tell me next week for homework?’” She’ll go far.
Literary line-up as hotel hosts Costa awards
THE PAN PACIFIC hotel hosted the Costa Book Awards last night, as winner Hannah Lowe joined fellow nominees Caleb Azumah Nelson, Claire Fuller, Manjeet Mann as well as Judy Murray, who was on the judging panel. Over at Soho House, model Nyome Nicholas-Williams and Pernilla Sjoholm were at the screening of new Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler. The true crime series tells the story of the victims, including Sjoholm,
of Shimon Hayut, who is accused of using dating app Tinder to seduce and exploit women emotionally for financial gain.
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IT was the day of blue trouser suit in the Commons on Monday. Heather Wheeler MP was teased as Theresa May’s “stunt double” online for a picture of their matching outfits. She tells us it was “one of life’s happy coincidences” and that she showed the image to May, who said it was “wonderful”. Snap.
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ANOTHER day, another cake ambush in Westminster’s corridors of power. “Thank you to my team for my surprise birthday breakfast — coffee, croissants and cake,” trilled Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing yesterday alongside a picture of her with cheery fellow MPs. Happy birthday, but let’s hope Sue Gray doesn’t see this.
