Saturday, October 09, 2010
A Tight Wad Publisher
My copy of the British General Election of 2010 arrived today. I always order the hardback copy because I have the complete set since 1945 in hardback. Imagine my surprise, though, when I discovered that this year Macmillan appears to have been so tightfisted that they haven't even put a dust jacket on it. I paid the best part of £50 for a naked book. So if they want a link for people to buy it, they can whistle for it. Indeed, I'm so appalled, I am not even going to review it, as I had originally intended. Apologies to Dennis Kavanagh and Phil Cowley, but they have been shortchanged by a publisher who ought to know better. Shame on you, Macmillan.
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12 comments:
'So if they want a link for people to buy it, they can whistle for it.'
That was ironic, right? Given that clicking on the picture took me straight to Amazon?
Ah, I see it was an advert embedded in the post. Not your picture at all.
Still rather ironic!
For that kind of cash it should have been case-bound. But this is Macmillan, isn't it?
You were done: £43.19 hardback on Amazon.
In passing: just four months to publication? Hmmm ... a bit premature or rushed? I remember when these tomes were considered, scholarly volumes. That 1945 volume by McCallum and Readman took nearly two years in the making. Butler and Pinto-Duschinsky didn't rush to judgement either.
Iain - out of interest did you contact MacMillan to make sure there hadn't been a mistake made - kind of like when Ikea don't include all the screws?
Ask purely as if it is an innocent error {I have no way of checking} your post would be a little harsh - and I imagine you would be rather offended if a prominent political blogger & publisher reacted similarly to any production/distribution error on a Biteback book.
/Just trying to play devils advocate
Malcolm, Well, I suppose it is a possibility but I know of two other people it has happened to too, so it would be a bit of a coincidence.
Did the 2005 version have a dust jacket? I'm pretty sure Palgrave Macmillan haven't produced dust jackets for these types of books for ages.
In the mean time, stop pulling a silly hissy fit and get your act together. This is a first class book and easily the best of the books published so far on the 2010 Election. No one was compelling you to buy the (much more expensive) hardback version in the first place, and I hope you give this book to someone to review as it deserves a good write up.
Wrong. The 2005 book did have a dust jacket.
I agree, these are great books, undermined by a publisher who is desperate to save a couple of hundred quid.
"Now Barabbas was a publisher." (attr. various)
"I know of two other people it has happened to too, so it would be a bit of a coincidence."
Not if this was IKEA. Coincidence - nothing. IKEA is totally consistent - in its failures....
You ... didn't get a dust jacket on your £50 book? Ah, there's a twitter hashtag for this:
#FirstWorldProblem
:)
Would you really expect the directors of Macmillan to drink supermarket claret at lunchtime just so your book had a dust jacket? At school we used to make them for our textbooks from leftover wallpaper.
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