Publishing

RIP TFP

The Friday Project, darling of trade rag The Bookseller, has sadly come to grief. Today’s Telegraph reveals that an administrator was appointed on the 25th February (why didn’t The Bookseller tell us this?) and reports that HarperCollins are close to buying the publishing rights to The Friday Project’s book titles.

I first looked at TFP’s prospects and indeed their prospectus in December 2006, and sounded a note of caution about their focus.

I then briefly looked at The Bookseller’s lavish but totally uncritical coverage of TFP as recently as the middle of last month, when they were said to be up for sale. At the time, The Bookseller enthused:

The feisty indie published 44 titles in 2007. Bestsellers include Blood, Sweat and Tea, a diary of a London ambulance driver, and the Popjustice series of mini-biographies. It had a gross turnover of £2.2m last year and hopes to hit £3.5m in 2008 with 60 new titles.

No mention of “the feisty indie”’s loss of £705,713 on turnover of £360,000 in y/e 2006, or even the slightest questioning of their business focus.

For a small publisher, TFP has led a charmed life in the trade press. Apart from today’s coverage (which is largely cribbed from The Telegraph), The Bookseller has printed 14 articles either about or indeed by TFP (as columnists) – again, totally uncritical.

Congratulations to TFP’s publicity nowse for all this great publicity. What will TFP people do next? I think they should consider going into the PR business.

As for The Bookseller – their so-called “news” coverage falls yet again in my estimation. Increasingly, publishers are telling me how irrelevant The Bookseller seems to be these days. I can quite see why.

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© 2008 Peter Cox’s Blog.