Been a while since I posted anything, so I'll aim to refresh a bit more regularly from now on.
This piece is from a couple of years ago now, but I thought of it as it's Canongate's 40th anniversary this year.
I'd been wondering whether I should revisit it and its boss Jamie Byng... but would I end up with anything different to this piece?
Sometimes there is an element of 'groundhog day' to working the same features patch for so long...
JAMIE BYNG bursts into the reception area of his Canongate publishing company, mobile phone clenched to his ear, all wild hair, skinny tight jeans and mild panic.
"What do you mean he won't get into the car?" he says, whipping his left hand through long curly locks, then dashing back outside, the door slamming behind him.
A crisis is unfolding with one of his major authors - he won't leave home by taxi for an interview he thought had been cancelled.
The author, a high-profile TV regular with a big contemporary following, isn't budging, but if anyone can smooth things out, it's the charismatic, likeable, easy-going boss of one of Scotland's most successful publishers.
The Honourable Jamie Byng, son of the Earl of Strafford - he is also a descendant of Admiral John Byng, executed by firing squad for failing to prevent the French capture of Minorca in 1756 - and one-time party animal behind a successful Edinburgh club night Chocolate City, is not your run-of-the mill, every day kind of boss.
Today his business is riding high with the publishing scoop of the year - perhaps the decade - after spotting the potential two years ago in a series of memoirs written by a certain little known American called Barack Obama.
Byng read Dreams From My Father and his political biography The Audacity of Hope, thought both were "remarkable books by a remarkable person" and swooped to secure the UK and Commonwealth publishing rights.
One presidential election later and Byng has just overseen a print run of 100,000 more copies of one and 40,000 of the other - brown cardboard boxes stuffed with the paperbacks are piled high around his offices - to add to the astonishing number already sold. He also holds the rights to Obama's just-published third book.
On Canongate's office wall is a mocked-up picture of a smiling Obama, sporting a Santa hat, pointing towards a line of numbers - the movable arm is currently set at around 900,000 - with the words "Obamometer, one million. Sell it - yes we can!".
Obama's arm is almost certainly going to be pointing off the scale before long.
While last year's Canongate turnover was a very respectable GBP 8m, next year's looks set to escalate even further, to an astonishing GBP 13m.
"Those books are two of the best acquisitions we've ever made, but it's about more than that," he nods, hair flopping back into his eyes. "I think these are not only great books but they are extremely important books, and I believe there's a long, long life ahead of them."
Byng, 38, fell for the books before Obama's presidential prospects became clear. He wooed the politician via a succession of complimentary e-mails - and insists he would have battled to bring them to the UK market regardless of the historic events over the past six months.
"It's apparent when you read Dreams From My Father that this is a wise, serious, open-minded, articulate and really visionary human being. This is someone's memoir written back when I was taking over Canongate - and it's amazing what he has done in that period of time, growing in the most extraordinary way," he enthuses. "It's very exciting for us to be on this journey with him."
He speaks with sincere passion about all the books that line the walls of Canongate's offices in a 16th century building off the High Street,
not just those by the President Elect.
For example, he's immensely proud to point out his Booker Prize winning author Yann Martel, whose The Life of Pi has sold over a million copies, and that comedy partnership The Mighty Boosh's GBP 20 hardback has shifted an impressive 225,000.
He's also champing at the bit to talk about David Simon, creator of the US TV series The Wire - acclaimed by many critics as one of the best TV dramas ever - whose 17-year-old book, Homicide, was languishing out of print until he swooped, republished and sold, so far, 65,000 copies.
"That's unbelievable," he grins, turning the book over in his hands, caressing its cover like he's holding a precious jewel. "It's a brilliant book."
His enthusiasm is clearly infectious. Next year, Canongate will mark its 15th anniversary under his dynamic control and his staff appear to be just as hooked on their jobs as he is. Take the heavily pregnant receptionist. She is due to give birth in a fortnight, already she's planning her return to work later in January.
That, it seems, is the Jamie Byng factor. Certainly his striking presence has led to a stunning turnaround for a Canongate. It twice faced financial collapse before he sauntered in for a spell of work experience in an industry he knew little about, and instantly became hooked.
That was back in 1994, when Canongate founder Stephanie Wolfe Murray brought him into the offices. He'd been weighing up what to do as his English literature course at Edinburgh University drew to a close. Until then, his key interest had been in running Chocolate City one night a week, enjoying a party animal lifestyle while cutting his teeth in business, learning how to hard sell, spotting what people wanted and sending them home happy, hopefully with a profit in his pocket. He applies a similar formula as a publishing house boss.
For example, he pulled out of a potential money-spinning deal to publish Sir Sean Connery's Being a Scot after the book swerved in a direction he didn't feel comfortable with.
"You are asking a reader not just to buy a book, you're asking them to give you their time," he says. "If someone makes that investment to give hours of their life to a book you have published, then it's not something to take lightly.
"You have got to publish with complete passion and conviction. Publishing is built on dreams and passion. You've got to say, hand on heart, this is a great book, it will change the way you think, it will enrich your life, make you laugh or cry and stretch yourself and your sense of who you are if you read this book."
He knows his business inside out, yet becoming a publisher was never on his radar when he first walked in back in 1994. His eyes were opened: "I loved books but I didn't know what a beautiful creative process there was in publishing," he explains.
As the business fell on hard times, Byng and business partner Hugh Andrew - who later founded Edinburgh-based Birlinn publishing - pooled resources and contacts and bought out the company. Byng's connections - his step father is Sir Christopher Bland, former chairman of the BBC governors and now Canongate's chairman - certainly helped.
He steered the business into a new direction, remaining true to its Scottish roots but broadening its contemporary appeal. One of his defining moments was snaring the likes of Bono and Nick Cave to provide their take on books of the Bible, guaranteeing news headlines in the process.
While home is in London with his second wife, Elizabeth Sheinkman - he moved to be near his first wife Whitney and theirchildren, Marley, 12 and Leo, ten - Edinburgh is where Canongate will always remain, insists Byng, and even though 2008 has been a remarkable year he says there's no room for complacency.
"This is a very precarious and unpredictable and mercurial business. There's no such thing as a sure-fire winner.
"We're still the small guy. We're the underdog and we live by our wits. But it doesn't stop us."
A FORCE IN INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING
JAMIE BYNG helped save publishers Canongate from bankruptcy in 1994, when he bought the business.
It has grown into an international publishing force, with offices in Melbourne and New York as well as a London base. It employs 20 people in Edinburgh.
Among the titles it publishes are Lanark by Alasdair Gray, 2002 Booker Prize winning The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller.
Canongate authors Kate Grenville and M. J. Hyland were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006.
Appeared Edinburgh Evening News 19 December 2008
The Scotsman Publications Limited
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