The selfless devotion of Andrew Wylie

To Frankfurt, where my Anglocentric complacency is reinforced. The minibus from my hotel drops me outside Hall 8, home of the UK and US publishers; no need to trudge through the acres of exhibition space devoted to exhibitors from the rest of the world. On route, the bus passes cigarette posters of the kind you no longer see here: an improbably handsome man, tweedy but dashing, twinkles with relaxed self-assurance, fag planted in the hand that thoughtfully cups his chin. The words on the poster are "The more you know". The bus driver's radio blares out an ad which concludes with the catchline, "Are you ready?" If you want a message to be sexy, it seems, you say it in English.

At the hall, publishers are eager to tell me about deals they did last week. Then they want to talk about Waterstone's. Yes, yes, I say; but what is going on here, now? "Our rights people/export sales department have been very busy," they report. "Have you heard anything?" they add. Hall 8 is full of people asking each other this question. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important event in the publishing calendar; something must be going on somewhere, surely.



Thank goodness for Andrew Wylie. Mr Wylie's negotiations over a five-book deal for Salman Rushdie provided London literary publishers with the best story of its kind since he last acted for Martin Amis, especially as there was scope for similarly unkind observations about the trajectory of the author's career. The only problem for the gossipers is that it will be almost impossible for them to establish whether the acquiring publisher has got a good deal or not, because so many rights will be bundled into the transaction. Mr Rushdie's last five books have taken nine years to publish; by 2008, no leading publisher will have the same structure and personnel it does now, and very few will have the same owner. The chances of a renegotiation of the contract, clouding the issue still further, are high.



Publishers, resentful that Mr Wylie has squeezed such huge advances from them, question his motives. But I have evidence that his fighting on behalf of his authors is selfless. Before the fair, he sold world rights to Nicholas Pearson of Fourth Estate in Mark Svenvold's biography of the outlaw Elmer McCurdy. Since then, he has talked up the project to everyone he has met, even though the rights are no longer his. "Being Andrew," Fourth Estate m.d. Victoria Barnsley told me, "he can't resist trying to sell it. Which is very nice of him."



Fair-goers looked on the vast Bertelsmann stand in awe or despair, according to taste. It was so big that there was a map to help you find your way round it. The effect of this grandeur, though, was to make Bertelsmann's constituent companies seem rather small, and it depressed the spirits of some of those companies' representatives. Their compensation was the coffee and sandwiches provided at the stand—the best in the fairground, I was told.

One could not help wondering what it all cost. The sum would be best expressed, not in pounds or dollars or marks, but in Rushdies.



Barry Winkleman, m.d. of Prion, looked rather dejected on Friday. "I have just found the most pointless book ever," he told me by way of explanation. "It was in the German halls: a history of striptease, with no pictures."



Simon Littlewood, international sales director of Random House, hosted an excellent dinner in Frankfurt on Thursday night. Among the guests were Bridget Impey of David Philip Publishers in South Africa, Jane Connor of Random House New Zealand, Brian Phillips of RH Australia, and John Beaufoy of New Holland.

Simon told me the story of how, early in his career, he found himself in Bangladesh following a coup. The local words for publisher and journalist are the same, so the authorities decided he was an undesirable and arrested him. After a 13-hour interrogation, he was told he would be able to call the British Consul. No one answered. He went to pay the attendant policeman for his call, pulling out a $20 bill. Suddenly the policeman "realised" Simon had the wrong number. "I called the new number and heard the glorious words: 'Hello, Duty Desk of the British Consul here. How can I help?'" He was back on the streets in no time.



You would think that choosing a cover star for a magazine aimed at encouraging teenagers to read would be easy: just ask "the kids" whom they most admire. Miranda McKearney, of the library campaign Well Worth Reading, found that the answer was the computer game character Lara Croft.

However, as the issue of Boox was taking shape, it became clear that the image of Ms Croft and her trademark gun was not appropriate. The next version, Ms McKearney tells me, showed Lara side-on, with "absolutely enormous bouncing breasts"—again not suitable for school libraries. With the deadline fast approaching, a third picture was found, of the Tomb Raider character reading a book. Now, why couldn't she just do that all the time?



Much excitement in WC1: "Playboy centrefold signs at Forbidden Planet", proclaims a press release. The New Oxford Street branch of the science fiction retailer is holding an event with Claudia Christian from the television series "Babylon 5"; apparently it is "a rare chance for fans to meet the actress in person, following her appearance in the October issue of Playboy magazine."

That demolishes the clichéd portrayal of sci fi fans as sad, nerdy types with no social lives.



Amazon, excellent as its service is, does get it wrong sometimes. A friend ordered Being Dead by Jim Crace for her mother; this week, her mother was puzzled to receive a gift of Transforming Practice: Pastoral Theology in an Age of Uncertainty, with a note saying, "This isn't all that cheery, but I enjoyed it."

Meanwhile, Amazon advertisements on London buses describe the e-tailers 50% discounts as "irresistable".



Room for one cutting: Hugh Grant, who played a bookseller in the film "Notting Hill", is to spend a few hours behind the till of a new bookshop, called Notting Hill, due to open in W11 in late November (Evening Standard).

Horace Bent