The flip of a coin

The flip of a coin

At Bloomsbury’s first Frankfurt in 1986 when the company was only a week old, a man with inquisitive eyes and a twinkling smile rushed on to our stand looking like he was in a hurry.  He’d heard we had a book of unpublished photographs of Marilyn Monroe.

His information was accurate.  David Reynolds then described our shoebox full of 5,000 memorable unpublished pictures of Marilyn taken by the MGM stills photographer Sam Shaw including the blowing skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch and the 30,000-word text we commissioned by the American poet Norman Rosten.  The publisher of Heyne declared that he “had to own it”.  

We then entered the sticky territory of numbers andreached an impasse – he wanted to buy 6,500 copies at £3.35 a copy and we wanted to sell 10,000.

Hans-Peter then made a characteristic remark out of the side of his mouth: 

“We could always flip a coin”.

My shock at this un–business-like proposal was followed rapidly by amusement. 

I agreed and we flipped a coin.  

The coin – it must have been a Deutschmark in 1986 – fell badly for me, awarding the lower quantity of 6,500 to a jubilant Hans-Peter.  

He had won.  

However, Bloomsbury had achieved its first co-edition deal – or I suspect deal of any kind in that early phase.  Our friendship was born in his act of whimsy.  It reflected the sheer randomness of book publishing (why else would another publisher have the word ‘Random’ in their name?)

“We aged better than Marilyn”, Hans-Peter told me later. We even discovered we both had daughters named Catherine.

We were to go on to do many co-edition deals of the illustrated film and music list at Heyne in the years to come, always with Hans-Peter, sometimes with the support of Rolf Heyne but never with the assistance of a coin again.

Hans-Peter soon had to order a reprint of 3,000 of Marilyn Among Friends at a higher unit cost and should have listened to me in the first place !

Speaking of Rolf Heyne, one of the reasons why Hans-Peter has managed to have only two employers in the last 35 yearsis because he picks his bosses well.  His second boss Stefan I know well.  When Stefan was 26 years old and living in Spain in about 1988  either Hans-Peter or Anne Louise Fisher approached us and said, “This son of a great German publishing house wants to do a six-month internship at Bloomsbury”.  I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of the von Holtzbrincks – this was before the days of their entry into English language publishing and ownership of Macmillan.  I was urged by Ruth Logan to accept regardless so I went along with this idea. Soon this tall man who was to become Hans-Peter’s boss a decade  later in 1998 walked into Bloomsbury’s first office at Number 2 Soho Square.  I didn’t know what to do with him so I thought, well, he can write a report on efficiency, hoping that the sort of skills which made Porsche, Bosch and Mercedes Benz tick would be brought to the recently born company of Bloomsbury.  He was from Stuttgart after all. Sure enough he wrote a masterpiece for us and his guiding principles influence us to this day.  

Thanks, Stefan – Stefan is, like Hans-Peter, another of my long term publishing allies. 

It may be a coincidence but we have been paying Macmillan Distribution tens of millions of pounds for years ever since to warehouse and distribute our books in the UK and USA.  Or it may be because I was a Macmillan graduate trainee and they got me on side early by giving me my first job in 1976 in London – a brilliant act of soft diplomacy which has worked its influence for life.

So Hans-Peter, I understand why you have worked for Holtzbrinck for the last 20 years – they are good people.

Hans-Peter’s leadership of Droemer has been legendary.

I have considered what his qualities are that have made him one of Germany’s, if not the world’s, most successful publishers.

First of all, I think he is quick to identify an opportunity and to act on it.

Secondly, he has been willing to back his judgments with money and has not been hesitant in fighting the  fight of German publishing in competition with other robust houses to acquire the great books of the day.  You have only to look at his roster of authors of John Grisham, Stephen King and Robert Harris at Heyne to his great authors at Droemer, Val McDermid, Don Winslow and Preston Child. Hans-Peter was a legend at world book fairs and if he came on to your stand, your problems were over !

Thirdly, like all great publishers he has courage and is not afraid of a fight – I remember having lunch with him during the Book Fair one year when he had to go and appear before television cameras to speak about the publication of Helmut Kohl’s memoir.

Fourthly, he loves good food and wine and translated this into some bestselling cookery publishing.

Finally, he is a warm human being with a great sense of humour-he is one of life’s enthusiasts and people wanted to do business with him.

My business relationship with Hans-Peter then took a ten year hiatus following a phone call from Arnulf Conradi who offered to sell Berlin Verlag to Bloomsbury. I couldn’t resist and spent a happy decade with colleagues being a German publisher.  It was fantastically exciting with its ups and its downs and some huge successes including selling I think 2,000,000 of Schotts Samelsurium and 53 weeks at Number 1.

But soon the English language beckoned again and we sold Berlin to Piper, started Bloomsbury India instead and began to trade with Hans-Peter once again.

It was a two way traffic and he extracted an enormous advance from us for Last Testament by Pope Benedict, thereby proving that with God on his side that he can sell as well as he can buy.

And it was a successful book for us too.  Thank you Hans-Peter.  

Dominus Vobiscum.

So why am I here in Munich ?  It is not in fact to have the honour of speaking to you tonight – that is a happy coincidence.  At my final Frankfurt lunch with Hans Peter in the Trilogie Restaurant in Hall 3.1 I turned to Hans-Peter and said that I would like to continue our friendship even after he hung up his publishing genius and his cheque book.

“How are we going to do that ?”, I asked.  Instead of saying, „Maybe we could flip a coin“, he looked at me quizzically and asked, „Do you like opera ?„. Is Pope Benedict Catholic ?  Yes, please. So months ago Hans-Peter booked tickets for Sissi and my wife Joanna and the two of us to see Parsifal in Munich on Sunday and here we are. 

It was therefore a most wonderful development when Hans-Peter said to me many months after landing the tickets for Wagner, „Nigel, there is a surprise party that I am not supposed to know about being held on the Friday you are coming to Munich – will you and Joanna come to the party ?“  Well, Hans-Peter, wild horses wouldn’t have kept us away.

When Doris later asked me to give a speech at it, I agreed because it was a chance to sing the praises of one of my dearest friends in book publishing.  Like Hans-Peter, I am a great fan of Robert Harris and having just read Munich I thought, „Great, I can fly to Munich, give a speech and bring world peace ! It works every time.”

I know that Hans-Peter too is one of the dearest friends of many people in this room so please all raise your glasses in a toast to Hans-Peter and the spectacularly successful publishing career of the man who, when he flips a coin, wins !

Peace and love !

Dominus Vobiscum.

To Hans-Peter .

Nigel Newton

Founder and Chief Executive 

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc