Why do some shows have such a following and others just flop? Well, The Voice has many things going for it. Let’s start with our four celebrity coaches. Seal is exotic, charismatic, handsome, well spoken and has obviously been very successful. Those facial scars just add to his mystique, and you’ve gotta love those poo-catcher pants he wears … totally fab!

Then there’s my favourite, Joel Madden. How can you not love Joel? He is so sweet, so naughty and, funnily enough, so not stereotypically American as he’s not an over-the-top gusher. I love the way he flirts with the girls, the way he colours his hair differently each night, and I especially love the way he has put on that little bit of weight. He obviously likes Sydney seafood!

Our Delta is a bit of a ditz sometimes and she just doesn’t really know when to stop talking, but I do love her passion and her ability to put people at ease. She tries so hard not to say that someone is crap, and even if they are, she always thinks of a way to see the positive. Bless! And oh how good does she look — she really is drop dead gorgeous!

And lastly the Latino hunk Ricky Martin with his hint of smooth and that ability to dissect the voice — ‘The tone is just right, baby!’ And we all love that he is a dad and that he loves Australia and that he loves our singers. And even though he is gay all of us women think we can turn him! Oh it’s all so fabulous!

Then, of course, there is the talent. There are those who can really sing, those who look amazing, those who are quirky, and the ones who get so stage-struck that it is excruciating to watch. There are also the ones who have been dealt a bad hand in life that pulls the audience right in behind them and takes that performer to a totally new level. The power of a crowd! We love helping the underdog to make it. There were a few performers this week who really got in because of their hard-luck story; there were much better singers out there but it’s sometimes the ability to get people behind you that can make a legend!

Who will win? I actually think it doesn’t really matter as we are just watching amazing talent from people who can do what most of us can’t — sing their hearts out. Well, actually I do sing my heart out but even the dogs leave the house when I start up! Seriously though, a beautiful voice is something to truly cherish.

So I’m totally addicted and I love every minute of it! I will have withdrawals when it is over, that’s for sure.

Happy Reading!

Happy Singing!

My first foray into seeing the movie of the book, other than the normal school fare of Jane Austen or Shakespeare, was when I was about sixteen. I had fallen in love with a series of books written Kyle Onstott. They were set in the deep south cotton plantations of the USA, where the slaves were kept in terribly poor conditions and set upon at a whim while their white masters lived in stunning mansions, beating the slaves and as often as possible and taking away their dignity. They were hot and steamy, loads of sexual overtones, but also really opened my eyes to the disgrace of slavery. The jackets were often of some painfully handsome black man, beautiful muscly chest with a whisper of a shirt draped over him and in the back ground was some mournful, delicate southern belle looking at him wantingly. As I was raised in a fairly devout Catholic household the front covers were torn away and the books read under the sheets at night.

My favourite was Mandingo, and although I am actually blushing as I write this, I was so excited when the movie came out that when my first real boyfriend asked me out on date to see it I jumped for joy! What was unexpected for me as a young woman was that the movie was fairly steamy as the drop-dead handsome Ken Norton flexed his muscles while fetching water for the southern belle mistress, the pouting Susannah George. One thing lead to another on screen, leaving me in a lather of sweat and embarrassment, as I suddenly thought that the sweet boyfriend next to me may start getting ideas of his own! More importantly, and disappointingly, the movie was actually not the best execution of the book. What was missing? I think I find this is the answer to the question whenever I ask it – the depth of characters is what is missing, and the complexities of relationships that cannot be examined in a two hour film.

Some movies do capture this but not many. Two that come to mind that had some real effect on me – Cold Mountain and The Hours - both for very different reasons.

Both the Cold Mountain book and the movie had the same disturbing  effect of me. Both bored me senseless and at exactly the same time in the book and movie I had hoped, prayed, someone would kill the lead character as I could no longer take his dullness. So brutally  written was this character that I found him loathsome!  So I did not finish the book and nor did I sit through the movie!

The Hours by Michael Cunningham also had the same effect for both the movie and the book but totally different to Cold Mountain. I loved them both, could not stop reading and could not stop watching. I felt that the movie was so beautifully crafted that, although it was not one hundred per cent true to the book, it was as close as they could get. Both a wonderful experience!

The conversation arises often – book or movie, movie or book. Should movie makers just leave beautiful books alone? But if they did that we would not have been able to enjoy the innocence of To Kill a Mockingbird, or the grandeur and immortality of Gone with the Wind. I recently read a fabulous new thriller from my friends at Quercus titled Alex and I found myself thinking what a great movie this would make!

And yes I will take myself off to cinema and see The Great Gatsby. It’s been a while since I read the book so maybe it’s time I had another shot at it. Actually I guess that is the beauty of turning books into movies – people get to read great stories!

Happy reading

Happy movie

This week’s guest blogger is Sandra Bowden, co-author of the new graphic book for teens I just get so…angry! – which is released today!

When we started thinking about a possible second title for Exisle after I Just Want To Be…Me!, we knew it would be in the same graphic format and it would encompass the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. We just couldn’t decide what it would be about!

The two main options were anger and anxiety- the “bread and butter” of the school counsellor day. Each day we encounter young people who are struggling with both emotions, often choosing ways to “deal” with it that end up being problematic in the long run.

In the end, anger was our choice. Things are in the pipeline for a book on anxiety too, but as we had a character in our first book who was punching a wall in fury towards the end of the story, we went with him- Andy, the Angry Young Man-  in I Just Get So…Angry!.

Feedback we’ve received from our first book confirmed our belief that a comic-style format would be engaging and hopefully more relatable for young people.  It helps open up many conversations and allows humour into the equation also.

Anger gets a ‘bad rap’ a lot of the time: fact is, we all experience anger. It’s a normal human emotion, and it can be helpful, telling us when things are unfair, or need to be changed. But- it’s what you do when you’re angry that can lead to problems.  We wanted to reinforce this as an alternative to the popular idea of “getting rid” of anger. You may as well try and “get rid” of happiness, sadness, fear, and every other emotion that shows up when you are living your life. It just can’t happen!

In I Just Get So…Angry!, Andy is struggling to deal with a range of strong emotions. He’s faced some tough things in his life, and he’s developed some ways to try and protect himself from getting hurt in the future.  Unfortunately those ways are taking him further away from the things in his life that matter most.

Like in I Just Want To Be…Me! help arrives in the form of a helpful bird- this time, the sea eagle. The bird helps Andy see how the choices he makes in anger are not helping him be the sort of person he wants to be. In the end, Andy learns to accept that life will sometimes “suck”, and that’s how it is- but even in the face of this, he can choose his own direction.

I just get so…angry!

Tim and Sandra Bowden

RRP $24.99

eBook $9.99

The venue is at Earls Court, an area I tried to avoid at all cost as when I lived in London some thirty years back. Earls Court was then inhabited by a lot of drunken Australians and Kiwi’s that thought wearing cricket hats with bottle tops hanging from them was the height of cool! I had bright blue hair, wore only clothes from St Vinnies and considered myself a punk so going to Earls Court was a slightly dangerous excursion for me! But alas all these years later here I am with the Husband embarking on another little adventure!

I christened the fair ‘The Friendly Fair’  as it was a lot more relaxed than the manicness of Frankfurt. It’s much smaller in size but there was a real buzz that we, the publishing industry, had gone through the worse of the worse and maybe, just maybe, we could now start getting on with what we are really good at – that is publishing excellent books.

Our UK distributor, Chris Lloyd, was very helpful in setting up my little area on his stand which I shared with a few other publishers that Chris works with. We were a happy little group and although I pretty much had back to back meetings (so over the sound of my own voice!) we did manage to share some information and have a pretty fun time! I do love the British and their sense of humour….made for a fun fair!

Business was good with hopefully some great results. Now that Exisle has really honed into some very good niche markets and we publish books that are truly leading in their fields we are getting good feedback from our international colleagues. They even seek us out now which is always very rewarding for us, especially given we are so far away from the rest of the world, we truly do punch above our weight!

The demise of the booksellers is a real issue for every single publisher I met with. Sadly, it is a growing issue with many booksellers closing their doors and publishers having to find other streams of revenue of which I sad to say many are slow in the uptake. We can no longer rely on traditional bookselling so it is imperative that we are creative and entrepreuinal in how we let people know our books are available. Happily I can say that Exisle is well into this and actually it is great fun exploring other avenues.

Other than meeting with my lovely international colleagues I did manage to have a look round and see what else was being offered. To me there seemed to be a lot of gorgeous coffee table books being published with truly luscious illustrations and content. Kids books are also flying high  – just so much fun. The digital giants were there in force but I have to say I am a little over the ebook hype – yep it’s here, yep they have made inroads  but no they have not taken over the world and nor will it ever!

It was a good fair with loads of mini presentations from authors and book industry types that were very well patronised. The guest of honour was Turkey and happily we were not too far away so I had the added joy of smelling lovely coffee all day long. I totally enjoyed myself and hopefully will get some good orders to finish of a truly successful fair.
Happy Reading

Happy Fair

This week’s guest blogger is Emma Campbell of the Australian War Memorial, talking about the new release  Gallipoli: A ridge too far.

The story of the landings on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 is a familiar one to Australians, commemorated each year on the anniversary and revered as a nation-building event. Yet much of the Gallipoli campaign – and in particular the major battles that took place in August – is not understood. In a new book, a group of distinguished international historians set to challenge some of the long-held misconceptions of the campaign by presenting fresh insights into that pivotal offensive.

“In Australia we focus on ANZAC Day and the battles of ANZAC Day, but the major battles of the campaign were really in August, when the allies made a last ditch effort to break the deadlock that had lasted since the landing,” says Ashley Ekins, editor of Gallipoli: A ridge too far.

“They brought in five fresh divisions from Britain and new troops from Australia. But every single attack resulted in heartbreak and failure. That’s the story that’s told here.”

The allied troops that landed on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli on 25 April expected to fight a swift campaign, and to win. The aim was to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), and knock Turkey out of the war in a master stroke. But the steep terrain of the peninsula and strong Turkish defences made it impossible for the allies to penetrate far inland, so they dug in and resisted enemy attempts to force them back to the beaches.

After months of stalemate, the allies planned a series of assaults to break the military deadlock and achieve a decisive victory. The fighting was fierce and bloody, and the casualties mounted on both sides. The August offensive resulted in the largest battles of the eight-month-long campaign, but it did not lead to victory. The allies finally evacuated the peninsula in December. More than one million men on both sides had been involved in the campaign, and half of them became casualties – killed, wounded, or wasted by disease. Almost 9,000 Australians died.

Gallipoli: A ridge too far features chapters on the August battles by historians from every country involved in the conflict – including the indomitable Turks, the enemy that could not be beaten.

Ekins says the international nature of the Gallipoli campaign would come as a surprise to many Australians.

“The men who fought were from all over the world: on the Turkish side they came from right across the Ottoman Empire, from the Arabian areas through to Anatolia and the Balkans. Then of course there were Germans – not as many as popular imagination has it, but their story is told in the book, too.

“On the allied side there are the French, who always get left out of the story. Their casualties were almost twice those of the Australians. Of course troops came from New Zealand, from India, from Australia, from all parts of the Empire –- even Canada: right near the end troops from Newfoundland arrived. And from the United Kingdom itself there were troops from England and Ireland, from Scotland and Wales. This is mostly unknown to Australians and I think it’s a really important part of the story and it puts the Australian role into perspective.”

The book tackles a wide range of subjects in four sections: the first establishes the strategic context of the campaign; the second examines the Anzac breakout battles, made famous through place names such as Lone Pine, the Nek, Chunuk Bair and Hill 60; the third section looks at the August offensive from the perspective of the enemies and the allies; and the final part explores the enduring legacies of Gallipoli.

In the opening chapter, Australian historian Robin Prior debunks the popular perception that if the Gallipoli campaign had succeeded, the First World War would have been won in half the time.“If the entire operation had succeeded, and Turkey had been knocked out of the war, there would still have been the considerable inconvenience of the German army intact on the Eastern and Western Fronts,” he writes. “In that sense, Gallipoli was not tackling the main problem of the war – namely, how to defeat the Germans.”

Ekins concurs and says the perception that taking Gallipoli would shorten the war was “the biggest myth of the whole campaign”.

“There were too many things stacked against us: the numbers of men, the difficulty of the terrain, the inadequacy of the supplies and equipment, the inadequacy of the artillery. And of course there were ineptitudes in command … but the Gallipoli campaign, and particularly the August offensive was never the moment when the fortunes of the whole war could have turned, as some people think.”

The origins of Gallipoli: A ridge too far were in an international history conference held at the Australian War Memorial in 2010 to mark the 95th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign. As the centenary of ANZAC fast approaches, Ekins says he hopes “that people will read it and get a greater appreciation of the fact that the campaign wasn’t a single, short, sharp event on 25 April”.

“I hope this will give people a greater understanding of the scale of the Gallipoli offensive, its huge mixture of nationalities that comprised the forces fighting there, and a greater sense of the tragedy that was this campaign because of its international reach into so many homes, in so many countries.”

Gallipoli: A ridge too far

Edited by Ashley Ekins. Standard edition RRP $49.99.

Gallipoli: A ridge too far

Edited by Ashley Ekins, Limited, leatherbound, signed and numbered collector’s edition RRP$150.

Available from www.exislepublishing.com.au and in all good book stores.

I’m sure you’ve heard of ‘Christmas in July’ celebrations but ‘Christmas in April’ probably has you confused. Well, welcome to the crazy world of publishing schedules!

For you, the silly season might be far away, but for me it seems all too scarily close. Right now, I’m working on eight books — the titles that Exisle will be releasing in the months running up to Christmas. Over the next three or so months the final files for all of these books will make their way to the printers, to then be printed, bound, shipped and finally end up in our warehouse ready to hit the shelves — both bricks and mortar and virtual — and entice you, our readers.

It’s a frantically busy time. Some books are at editing stage; others are being designed; a few are close to completion — about to head out to proofreading and indexing. It’s a lot to juggle but I have a fabulous team of freelance editors and designers helping me to pull it all together, while Carole, our production manager based in the New Zealand office, makes sure our print schedules run like clockwork. And what makes it so worthwhile is seeing finished copies of the books and knowing that all that work has resulted in such great product.

This year I think is probably Exisle’s best yet in terms of quality and variety of titles. We truly will have something for everyone. From groundbreaking self-help books to inspirational health titles as well as the perfect gift book for each member of the family, we have it covered. And as I look at these books taking shape now, I’m reminded again and again of why I love my work. I can’t think of any other profession where each ‘product’ is so completely different from the next. As our list is a non-fiction one, I get to learn something new from every book (as a result, I’m a valuable asset on any trivia night team!). Book publishing is also a wonderful mix of precision (an eye for detail is essential when it comes to analysing costings, checking text for typos, and working out pagination) and creative flow (liaising with a designer on the perfect font for a heading or which shade of blue is just right for a case). I also get to work with people who, by and large, are in the business for love not money and that means they bring a passion and joy to the task that is usually enough to see us through most challenges with our sense of humour intact!

So, please stay tuned over the coming months as we start to release our end-of-year titles. I promise they’ll be worth the wait!

When I was a child, I loved playing dress-ups, making mud pies, drawing and colouring-in.  I’d run around the garden with the neighbourhood kids playing imaginative games, climbing trees, riding bikes and dreaming up plays on a make-shift stage.

When I started secondary school, life became more serious.  I didn’t know what I wanted to be when “I grew up” and I remember praying fervently for a vocation (I went to an all girls’ Catholic school).  In my late teens I did nursing, both general and mothercraft.  I married, had two children, studied at uni and became a counselling psychologist.  I immersed myself in ongoing professional development, clients and group work – all stimulating and very satisfying.

Then in my mid 40s I was curious whether there was something else to discover that was different from what I had been doing. I’m not sure exactly why, but I started to draw.  I was definitely a raw beginner!  After practicing at home I eventually attended some classes and also learnt how to paint…and I’m still learning. I became fascinated with the creative process and how we can go from knowing nothing, or very little, to developing our own unique creative style. I have watched countless others develop creatively– both young and old.

Being creative isn’t something that is only possible for a select few – we all have the capacity, but we need to give it time, play and learn.  On the one hand, this sounds straightforward, but naturally we have ourselves to deal with in the process.  I know for me, I had lots of doubts, times when I stopped for a while, when I felt frustrated and thought that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my art or my writing.  I’ve had similar experiences in other creative areas, such as acting, singing, dancing, photography and more recently crafts such as knitting and sewing. It’s fascinating redefining myself as someone who is creative.  Of course, as I say in my book, we are already creative in many different ways, whether we plant a flowerbed or plan a business meeting. But what’s exciting is channelling our creative energy into new and undiscovered areas. We can develop creative talents that may have been buried for years. For me, to have sold a few of my paintings, sung in front of others and now have my book published is so far removed from what I ever dreamed possible.

The Creative Seed helps readers identify the areas of creativity they are likely to enjoy and has a host of strategies on how to manage the common ups and downs that inevitably occur.  The book is not only for beginners but also for people well established in any form of creative expression.  Regardless of how long we have been involved, we all need to deal with challenges, such as frustration, wavering self- confidence and procrastination.

Creativity is about tapping into the unique gift that is within each one of us and finding ways to express this gift is deeply satisfying. I hope you enjoy the The Creative Seed and most of all, enjoy the delights of your own creativity.

Lilian Wissink

The Creative SEED

Lilian Wisssink

RRP$ 24.99

It was exactly one week after I’d finished my university degree that I got the call to go for an interview at Exisle. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d been applying for every job under the sun and after the interview went well and I was given the job I thought someone must surely be watching over me. It is every uni student’s biggest fear to not find work – and is not an uncommon occurrence either. So I thanked my lucky stars and dove head first into my first full time “grown up” job.

While I grew up living in the country, working in the country is an entirely different matter! From office regulars Nero, Winston and Big Ted barking when you’re on the phone to battling magpies out of pantries with brooms, from having a possum die in the water tank and not being able to drink the water to seeing red belly black snakes slivering past your door, from having to work from home for days on end because flood waters had made my bosses driveway impassable to getting an early mark because the power had gone out. My time with Exisle has definitely been unique and I wouldn’t exchange it for anything!

Having said that, looking after publicity was at times very stressful and demanding . The weight of a book’s success ultimately comes down to you and if it doesn’t get out there the book generally doesn’t sell. At times it wasn’t pretty – from having an irate TV reporter yell at me down the phone, to having disagreeable authors, to times when no one genuinely gave a toss about the book you’re trying to get exposure for, to the time when I developed a week-long eye twitch as a result of it all. But in the end it’s all been worth it because with the lows came the highs and having that irate TV reporter air your story and have hundreds of orders come through our website as result was a pretty amazing feeling!

So now it’s time for me to jet off on a new adventure and explore what this big world has to offer. I’ll miss all of the team so much and I know I’ll always treasure the memories of my time working here.

Farewell and goodbye!

Carlie x

Exisle is well and truly a multi-channel business, we have traditional bricks and mortar bookshops selling our books, we have online book sellers selling them, we have specialist businesses like pharmacies and health food stores that sell our books, we have customers that purchase online directly from us, we have institutions and wholesale customers that buy directly, we operate directly in two countries, and we have distributors that represent our books with their own rep teams in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, plus we also sell rights to international publishers all over the world. It’s quite unique for a small operation such as Exisle and something we are very proud of.

As the Sales and Marketing Manager, I spend a lot of my time trying to get to know our customers and distribution partners better. Both here in Australia, where I am based, and also in New Zealand where our fabulous New Zealand team takes care of business day to day and publishes some excellent New Zealand-centric books. I have enjoyed meeting people like Diabetes Australia (and look forward to seeing Diabetes NZ in the next few weeks) about Understanding Type 2 Diabetes, Deakin University Bookshop, and my regular meetings with the sales team at MDS. Every time I meet with a customer I come away sensing the value of the time spent for both of us.

The differences between the channels and the markets we operate in fascinate me. I have quickly learnt that one can’t assume that just because something works in one market it will in another. Yet the exchange of ideas and the ability we have at Exisle to cover such a wide range of market opportunities, I believe, gives us a valuable advantage over just being in the one market place via a single channel.

It actually amazes me that more small businesses haven’t taken a similar approach and adopted a multi-channel strategy with their own business. Many bookstores are doing it tough out there at the moment, as are many retail businesses. Yet some are doing exceptionally well; these are the ones who appear to be proactive in their approach. Gone are the days of sitting back waiting for a customer to come in to a store and buy.

In the same way, Exisle can’t sit back and do things the way they used to be done, relying on a single distributor to sell in our books to the traditional book trade. There are so many opportunities out there if only some effort is put in to cultivating them. We haven’t abandoned the traditional trade but have looked to expand beyond it and will continue to do so. We still publish quality books (just look at our new book Gallipoli: A Ridge Too Far to see what I mean) across a diverse range of topics but we are becoming more focused on what we can do to get them to market.

One of my current objectives is to improve the level of communication we have with these channels, be they wholesale, retail or direct to consumer. I have been seeing as many of our key accounts as possible to personally ensure we are doing everything possible to help get our books into the hands of readers. We want them to be successful and profitable and working closely with us to promote local authors and locally published books rather than see overseas imports flood our local market.

If you are a bookstore you might have noticed that we have implemented improvements to our publicity and new-release updates with the aim of being timelier in getting to you what you need to know. Our trade newsletter — Out of Exisle — is for anyone who is selling books (sign up here if not receiving it).

We also continually work on our direct to consumer newsletter to ensure there is always something relevant and interesting about our latest releases. And as we know you like to receive a good deal, we work hard to include special offers and competitions just for subscribers (sign up here for the customer newsletter).

However, for this to be really meaningful it is important to remember that communication is a two-way street. In order to lift what we do to the next level we also need to hear from you and I welcome any comments, criticism or suggestions you care to share. There are lots of ways to do this: via our Facebook page(Exisle Publishing) or Twitter (exislepublishing@exislebooks), comment below this blog post, send me an email mark@exislepublishing.com, use the contact form on our website or even be truly traditional and pick up the phone 02 4998 3327! So don’t be shy, we really do love to hear from you.

On the weekend we had another dear publishing friend staying with us — a lovely man who runs a very successful operation. We enjoyed showing him the beautiful Hunter Valley and we also enjoyed a few glasses of fine wine — this time some Hunter Valley rosé from Stonehurst, which was spectacular! But it’s not all about drinking good wine, although I can understand why you would think that! What I really enjoy most about spending time with my publishing mates is our capacity in this business to create really clever books ideas from conversations about the mundane and ordinary and those lightbulb moments can lead to some terrific brainstorming, passionate debate and enjoyable bickering … just like a family!

London Book Fair is not far away — just over a month — and as I prepare my notes and look at the list of publishers I am seeing I am starting to get pretty excited about the possibilities for our upcoming projects. For such a small company, we really do publish some truly dynamic and ground-breaking books — it makes me very proud of what we do and I hope my international colleagues see that in our books as well. Funnily enough, just yesterday I received an email from a Romanian publisher who walked onto our stand at Frankfurt. We had a lovely conversation and I recommended a couple of our books to him, and now he is negotiating the rights for one of them! That makes it all worthwhile to me.

But where was I? I started this blog with something else in mind so will just finish off with this. The Husband called me from the airport saying there is a new Pope. As he is an atheist it rather amused me, but he knows that as a Catholic I am excited about the possibilities for what a new Pope could bring. When the announcement came that the new Pope was someone I had never heard of, I was a little worried. However, I’m quietly delighted that he is calling himself Pope Francis — St Francis is a terrific saint with loads of gold stars for goodness and looking after the less fortunate, so hopefully there will be a new dawn at the Vatican. That the new Pope is a Jesuit and from Latin America is also a bonus. Sadly, I think his conservatism could be a drawback, but if his focus is on social justice and reform then I wish him well.

There is something in the air. When dawn finally broke this morning I had a feeling that things are going to start changing for the better. I hope so!

Happy Reading!

Happy Pope!