News Archive

The PANZ office is hard at work right now as we enter the awards season – judging of the PANZ Book Design Awards starts this week, the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards takes place next Wednesday, and finalists for the New Zealand Post Book Awards are announced on 1 June. We wish all members best of luck in these awards.

The PANZ council recently met for a useful strategy meeting to review the previous year, reflect on key strategic goals, and identify immediate priorities for the next 12 months. We were pleased to have PANZ end the current financial year in sound fiscal health and noted some key achievements for the organisation – significant new support for industry training, a regular e-newsletter, closer relationships with government, working with Booksellers on a revamped NZ Book Month and with CLL on digital initiatives.

The PANZ AGM will be held at the Booksellers Conference down in Wellington on Sunday 17 July and the Council look forward to talking with publishers then about future priorities.

I have just returned from a South Island trip where I met with authors at the one Canterbury University café that has both coffee and a roof, and then went on to launch a rural history book in the hall at Peel Forest (pop. 50) where almost 200 Cantabrians packed in and worked local bookseller Jeff Grigor to the bone. It’s a tough time down South and it’s great to see the resilience of authors and readers and the continuing enthusiasm for the great books that we produce in this country.

Kim Dovey from Book Design Ltd tells us

Last year we were lucky enough to have our design for Year 9 Graphics chosen as the Best Book Design for an Educational Book at the PANZ Book Design Awards and the design for Wonky Donkey gained a High Commended Certificate in the Picture Book category.

Apart from being totally gobsmacked , we were totally unprepared for the impact this award would have on our business. We’d received a Highly Commended in 2009 and this had certainly raised our profile, but it was nothing compared with 2010.

I’ve heard publishers say that winning awards doesn’t necessarily increase sales. Being shortlisted might, but not the big event. We found that our business became more reputable over night. It gave us credit, which helped open doors, that we had trouble previously opening.

All these have positively affected our bottom line and have given us the opportunity to grow. With more staff, better servers and more opportunities, almost 12 months later we are prepared to take an even bigger step and open another branch in Auckland.

The best bit though, is being held aloft by your peers. The fantastic comments from designers and illustrators whom we have admired for years, just makes all the hard work seem worthwhile. Design is like most service industries, you are only as good as your last book. But gee, the next great book is what makes us get out of bed each morning. Bring it on!

Thanks so much for PANZ and all the sponsors who make these awards possible for our industry. Here at Book Design, we really appreciate the opportunities you are giving us. 

Canterbury University Press (CUP) is enjoying an extra set of eagle eyes on the team as it hosts its first publishing intern.

North Islander Frith Hughes was one of 15 students to complete Whitireia New Zealand's applied Diploma in Publishing last year in Wellington and one of just three students chosen for a six-month paid internship at a New Zealand publisher in 2011.

The internships are offered by the PANZ in association with Whitireia and funded by Creative New Zealand. Frith, who began at University of Canterbury in early February, said she felt honoured to be chosen to undertake an internship at CUP and is enjoying the variety of tasks she is getting to tackle.

"One day I might be proof-reading or checking corrections, and the next I might be laying out a whole chapter of a book, putting together an index or writing a blurb. There's always plenty to be done, and it's really great to feel so involved in the production process.

"Working in such a small team (there are three of us who work full-time at CUP) I've had the opportunity to experience things that interns in larger, more commercial publishing companies may not: meetings with authors and illustrators, for instance, or giving my opinion on a book cover design. I feel as though my efforts at CUP are actually making a difference. I'm not just taking photocopies or making cups of coffee for the boss!"

Frith said her “boss", CUP Publisher Rachel Scott, has been "invaluable as a mentor".

"I'm learning new things every single day, even though we're currently each working from our respective living rooms!"

Frith said she has wanted to work in publishing for as long as she can remember.

"I've always been a booklover; I've always been a pedant. It's the only career I've ever even considered, to be honest. I just love words."

Prior to undertaking the publishing diploma Frith completed a Bachelor of Communication Studies at the University of Waikato, with a double major in Linguistics and Media Studies. In 2008 she received a Ministry of Education scholarship to study linguistics at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

CUP Publisher Rachel Scott said it was fantastic to have Frith on the team. "She is keen, sharp and very able. I can hand things over to her and know she’ll do a great job. I wasn’t sure whether she would come back after the February 22 earthquake, but she decided to tough it out! Working from home is not ideal for an intern, but Skype is great and we’re working it out."

A voucher promotion without vouchers? Unthinkable. But that could have been the case until Blue Star Group New Zealand came to the rescue of NZ Book Month and printed 2.5 million–plus vouchers that went out to consumers.

This is their story:

Blue Star Group New Zealand was delighted to be able to assist the Publishers Association New Zealand (PANZ) with this year’s New Zealand Book Month, a superb initiative to bring books into the homes of Kiwis of all walks of life. Much has been made of the tough times suffered by those in the book trade, but the outstanding success of Book Month demonstrates that reading and readers are alive and well in this country!

Blue Star partnered with PANZ as the print sponsor for Book Month, printing more than 2.5 million Books Change Lives $5 vouchers, along with services such as the management of total print run and paper supply.

But we also help make books! Our book printing specialist arm Printlinkis keen to work with PANZ, publishers and booksellers to deliver powerful campaigns to encourage book sales in New Zealand.

With a number of award-winning publishers among its client base, Printlink is able to handle both large and small-scale runs to a diverse range of specifications. It offers extensive in-house production capacity across a range of technologies and services, from pre-press, including page layout and design services, through to offset and digital printing, extensive binding capabilities and mailing and distribution services.

Printlink is part of the trans-Tasman Blue Star Group, which is made up of industry-leading operations across print manufacturing, print management, mailing and logistics.

For more about what we can do for you, please contact: John O’Connor, Account Director, Printlink 027 281 3019

Blue Star Group New Zealand was delighted to be able to assist the Publishers Association New Zealand (PANZ) with this year’s New Zealand Book Month, a superb initiative to bring books into the homes of Kiwis of all walks of life. Much has been made of the tough times suffered by those in the book trade, but the outstanding success of Book Month demonstrates that reading and readers are alive and well in this country!

Blue Star partnered with PANZ as the print sponsor for Book Month, printing 4 million Books Change Lives $5 vouchers, along with services such as the management of total print run and paper supply.

But we also help make books! Our book printing specialist arm Printlink is keen to work with PANZ, publishers and booksellers to deliver powerful campaigns to encourage book sales in New Zealand.

With a number of award-winning publishers amongst its client base, Printlink is able to handle both large and small-scale runs to a diverse range of specifications. It offers extensive in-house production capacity across a range of technologies and services, from pre-press, including page layout and design services, through to offset and digital printing, extensive binding capabilities and mailing and distribution services.

Printlink is part of the trans-Tasman Blue Star Group, which is made up of established, industry-leading operations across print manufacturing, print management, mailing and logistics. For more about what we can do for you, please contact: John O’Connor, Account Director, Printlink 027 281 3019

New Zealand Book Month, March 2011, showed a 12.6% positive YOY sales swing versus the first two months of this year. “Figures we’ve had from Nielsen Bookdata show that these sales have bucked the poor year-on-year trend seen through January and February,” says Book Month project director Nikki Crowther.

As 5% of sales for the first three months of 2010 came from blockbuster authors Stephenie Meyer, Stieg Larsson and Lee Child, sales for these three authors were taken out of both years. This shows underlying sales in the market are up 6.6% on March 2010, versus January and February sales which were down 6% on 2010.

With over 80% of booksellers reporting their voucher redemptions, New Zealand Book Month estimates that voucher redemptions are likely to exceed 85,000.  Says  Nikki Crowther: “This is a tremendous result for the first year of the promotion, with over 2% of the 4,000,000 vouchers redeemed. The usual expectation for results with such promotions is a 1% redemption rate so we’ve achieved double that and driven March sales in a difficult market.”

The NZ Book Month $5 voucher campaign was supported by 130 publishers and 296 booksellers. New Zealand Book Month attracted over $500,000 worth of sponsorship from outside of the book trade, thanks to Printlink, Blue Star Group, TVNZ 7, BNZ, Caltex, MediaWorks Radio, the Sunday Star-Times, The National Library and Rapport Advertising & Marketing. This enabled the design, print and distribution of 4,000,000 vouchers. The sponsorship also enabled the charity trust to produce a TV advert, which appeared 62 times over the month on TVOne and TV2; a radio advert, played over 5000 times nationally on More FM and Solid Gold; and ten press adverts in the Sunday Star-Times.

New Zealand Book Month also received sponsorship from Creative New Zealand and the ASB Community Trust, enabling over 50 “activists” to be recruited to organise 300 author and book events in libraries, cafes and schools in their local communities, many of which also involved booksellers.

Adrian Keane, chairperson of PANZ comments “This is a tremendous result for the trade, particularly in the light of the current trading environment and the Christchurch earthquake – which directly impacted 10% of the booksellers who had committed to being involved in New Zealand Book Month. It is great to see that the publishers and booksellers who engaged with the campaign have reaped the rewards.”

Anna Hodge, AUP, will go to Sydney in September to attend the New Horizons for Editing and Publishing Conference hosted by the Society of Editors (NSW) with funding from the new PANZ Training Programme.Three streams will cover different areas of publishing: trade (fiction and nonfiction); academic, education and technical; government and corporate.

“I’m thrilled to get funding and support from the new PANZ Training Fund to attend this conference in Sydney,” says Anna. “I’m particularly looking forward to seeing how our colleagues across the ditch are meeting the challenges of e-books and electronic publishing.

“It’s always useful to get together and pick the brains of other editors – and doing so in Sydney is extra neat.”

The other successful candidates for the March funding round are also delighted at the selection panel's decision.

Hachette’s Candice Vallimont and Alison Shucksmith are off to a two day course later this week to up skill in Dreamweaver and HTML Essentials. “This will tell us how to make an online marketing campaign from launch page to website and to be able to brief a web designer on the elements that are needed to back the site,” explains Alison.

Rebecca Simpson, publicist of Random House will be using her Training Grant in August to attend a Write Here, Write Now course run by the Public Relations Institute of NZ.

Others have already taken up their grants, which were to attend last month’s PANZ Residential Training Course. Te Papa Press’ Angelique Tran Van, Sue Beaton and Harriet Elworthy were there, along with Taramea Publishing’s Candice Paewai, Gecko Press’s Jane Arthur and Wily Publications’ Jenny Haworth.

Inspired to upgrade your skills? Note that applications for the final funding round of 2011 close 26 August and application forms are available here and criteria here

Canterbury University Press is still very much off campus and likely to be for some considerable time. Editor Rachel Scott’s temporary office is a spare bedroom and her dining room… Across town in her own flat is PANZ intern Frith Hughes. The two communicate by Skype. “It is really hard for Frith, but she is very able,” says Rachel. The arrangement is working, but there is a lot of driving back and forth to deliver and drop of material.

Manager Kaye Godfrey is also working from her home, but uses a “hot desk” on campus once a week for information she can’t otherwise access.

The shine is wearing off the initial sense of adventure, because there is no relief in sight. Students will trade tents for lecture halls after Easter, but it appears CUP is neither management nor an essential service, and restoring accommodation for them is not even on the schedule as yet. “It is frustrating not knowing when the situation will end,” comments Rachel.

On a brighter note: “We’ve still got jobs.”

And the books are still getting through. Letters to Grace – Writing Home from colonial New Zealand edited by Jean Garner and Kate Foster will be launched in a church hall in Avonhead on April 28

Jenny Haworth of Wily Publishing has her car back… post quake it sat in the Farmers carpark building in the city for five and a bit weeks before it could be safely accessed, along with hundreds of others in the same carpark.

But her business is currently experiencing cashflow problems. “People are just not paying, and that is for commissioned work we have delivered.” Fortunately more business is coming in and Wily is applying for Creative NZ funding for two projects. The publisher will also apply for additional local funding for two quake-related books.

Jenny has made a conscious effort to contract fellow Christchurch designers and editors for her projects so that there is a web of support for colleagues.

Quentin Wilson is happy; he and Bev Prout have had six moves since their house was declared unsafe after February 22, and they finally have a spacious temporary rented home in an old St Albans villa. Better still, all the lash up arrangements for computers have ended (the last one was a line through a window) and they have an internet connection as of April 11.

Bev is manager of the Christchurch Central Library and was able with other staff to pick up personal possessions recently, but Quentin says it will be a long time before the Library is open – he understands the library building is intact and OK, but neighbouring buildings have to be stabilized or demolished before it can reopen. Quentin’s been working on the design of two books for CUP about which he is highly enthusiastic – June release Ikawai – Freshwater fishes in Maori culture and economyby R. M. McDowall and Sandra Arnold’s Sing No Sad Songs about her daughter’s death from cancer. Quentin thinks the book moving and beautifully written “It’s poetic and lovely but every so often I have to stop and have a bawl.”

We know Alison Wong’s award winning As the Earth Turns Silver, now we and the rest of the world can read it in Spanish.

As the Earth Turns Silver was the first recipient of the Creative New Zealand translation grant programme in partnership with PANZ. Published in March 2011 by Ediciones Siruela, Cuando la tierra se vuelve de plata uses the same artwork as the NZ edition – by the Awa Press Young Designer of the Year, Keely O’Shannessy.

Translation of Friends: Snake and Lizard into Norwegian is also under way with an expected publication date of May.

In February, funding was awarded to assist the translation into Dutch of Hand me Down World by Lloyd Jones.

International Publishers: The next translation grant deadline is 1 May, 2010. Apply online at www.publishers.org.nz under translation grants.

Catherine Montgomery of Manaaki Whenua Press, based in Lincoln, had one of the more distressing second quake experiences. Her son was finishing school at Linwood High at midday, because the afternoon was teachers-only. Catherine knew he was heading into town on either his skateboard or by bus and it was 30 agonising minutes before she had a reply to her text: he was OK. All the more poignant in retrospect because one of her son’s classmates did go by bus and was killed when masonry fell on that bus in the city.

Catherine’s assistant at the publishing house couldn’t take any more and has left to live in the North Island.

Her home – fortunately a modern design and secure – is in Lyttelton, and she said the attention from Navy personnel and others they received immediately after the quake was wonderful and reassuring that they weren’t alone.

Now, she says, she is adjusting to the ‘new normal’. “Everything takes longer, it is at least ten minutes longer to get home, and if I go round the long way, I risk being hit by boulder as an alternative to being stuck in a traffic jam when the tunnel is temporarily closed!”

Catherine’s son will have been off school for five weeks before it reopens – and he’ll be in the afternoon shift. “Perfect for a teenage male – he will be able to sleep in.” Meantime, she is downloading sample lessons to occupy his time.

Quentin Wilson reported on February 28: “Our wonderful old 1881 home (and my office) is a write off. I was very lucky to get out unhurt. Secured bookcases came down all around me in my study and over the desk. Chimneys down in all the rooms, upstairs and down, bricks over everything, plaster off all the walls (as in old lathe and plaster which is very heavy and deadly). Extremely shaken, we have spent the days since in a total daze, trying to make sense of it all, gather possessions together, get valuables into the lockup and somehow manage the aftershocks which are … just as nerve-wracking.”

As of March 15, PANZ News has been told by David Elworthy that Quentin and Bev hope to move to a rental property in Mt Pleasant owned by Juliet Rogers. David and Ros endured some scary times helping get stuff out of Quentin’s house ‘when there was no officialdom about’. “It was the only time I have been really scared, with masonry and plaster threatening to fall and aftershocks…” says David. To put that in perspective, the Elworthys are living at Moncks Bay, close to the epicentres of many tremors. Fortunately their house is an old weatherboard that just rattles and shakes according to David.

Finally getting a number for Quentin, PANZ News phoned, and all he wanted to add to the story was that he and Bev could not have got through the first week without the generous direct assistance of three friends in the literary and publishing world.

Jenny Haworth of Wily Publications works from her home in Shirley. A home that was fortunately little damaged on February 22 – “We’ve lost a bit of china, but that’s nothing.” Power took a week to be reconnected to her home.

And Jenny is carless. “I was talking to the Canterbury Club about a history of the club they have commissioned me to do when the quake struck. Their building is one of Christchurch’s oldest, so they were fortunate all that was damaged was a corner of the building.

“But my car was in the Farmer’s carpark! It is still there and I don’t know if it is squashed or undamaged. Apparently the building was threatening the Christchurch Library so at one stage they were considering complete demolition. You now have to register your car with the police and wait to find out what has happened.” Jenny had to slog home through silt and endure that she and her husband have no shopping centre near them, no proper mail and not many buses.

Wily Publications has two commissions under discussion and Jenny is trusting they both get the go ahead. “Send us in Christchurch the work. We need to keep working to move forward.”

Paula Wagemakerreckons she is one of the lucky ones, living and working in the suburb of Russley which has come through both quakes relatively unscathed. Most of her clients are overseas or in other parts of New Zealand so it has been business pretty much as usual. “All I’ve got is survivor guilt,” she says, “But I’ve tried to make up for it by letting friends have showers and do their laundry at my place.”

Geraldine Sloane of Essential Resources lives near Christchurch’s CBD but says her home is structurally OK. “The garden is a bit of a mess, but that can wait.” Contract designers for Essential Resources living in the city are all personally OK and she is sending out care packages when PANZ News phones. Geraldine is doing lots of cooking for friends in the area. While she says she has ‘quake brain’ her concern – like all the others in publishing in Christchurch – is more for industry colleagues than herself.

Also like others PANZ News interviewed, Geraldine is grateful to be contacted and to know colleagues concern is nation-wide.

Kim Dovey at Book Design blogged on March 2: We are back. It’s so great to be back in the office and back into an almost normal routine. We are so grateful to all our wonderful clients and the lovely messages… Contact with the outside world and knowing that things are still operating normally somewhere is so important at the moment. It’s really helping us all get our lives back together as well.  Read the rest of the moving blog (with pics) at http://bookdesignz.blogspot.com/2011/03/we-are-back.html

Rachel Scott at Canterbury University Press has an update: she and Kaye Godfrey have just been allowed back into their building at the University to pick up files, computers and so forth. However, the building is required by university management for at least the next 12 weeks – the registry building is red-stickered – so like it or not, it is work from home. “CUP Head Office in Sydenham!” jokes Rachel. Frith is coming back to finish the last four months of her internship, working partially from her St Albans flat and partially at Rachel’s house. “All three CUP ‘offices’ are connected by Skype,” says Rachel.

Meantime Rachel is available on 03 337 9498, and the email address rachel.scott@canterbury.ac.nz will still apply.