With the recent transatlantic takeovers and mergers, books are suddenly an international commodity, and London and New York are battling for supremacy in the global market. Media barons now collect publishing houses like books for a library. Shirley Conran, Paul Theroux, George Weidenfeld, Andre Deutsch, P. D. James, Paul Hamlyn, Peter Mayer and others comment on what this means for readers and writers.
For one author whose new novel is published this week it means serious money and hard travel. Douglas Adams's previous success was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. His agent Ed Victor sold the book and its sequel for 2,275,000 dollars in the US, and for £500,000 in Britain. Today Adams flies to New York to continue the modern writer's pilgrimage, the promotional tour.