Gail Rebuck: Power behind the prose
As Tony Blair's memoir flies off the shelves, it's not just the former prime minister who is celebrating. So too is his publisher
By Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, Saturday, 4 September 2010

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Gail Rebuck: 'My husband is involved in politics and I am involved in books. We lead very separate professional lives. I am not one of Tony (Blair)'s cronies.'

Forget Tony Blair and his journey. This week's most important move in Gail Rebuck's publishing empire at Random House arguably came with the report that Robbie Williams will sell his third ghosted autobiography – You Know Me – exclusively through Tesco for six months.

Published by Ebury Press, one of the 40-plus imprints within Britain's second-largest publishing group, the Take That veteran's own memoir and its chosen outlet reveals another front in the campaign that all publishers now have to fight in their efforts to keep books, in whatever form, in the forefront of our national conversation.

In spite of the quantity of ink and pixels spilled in the debate about e-books and digital reading – a cause Rebuck has championed for years – the rise of the supermarket bookshelf, and the near-terminal crisis of traditional bookselling, have so far made a deeper mark on readers. Electronic books still have some way to go before they account for even 5 per cent of the UK market.
The full story at The Independent.