Doing it by the book has turned into big business for publishers

UP on the second floor of Waterstone's on Dawson Street in Dublin, there are four feet high pillars of business books twisting up from the ground. They've taken over much of the aisle space through which customers could once cruise.

"This is just today's pile - we can't keep up with demand," says Ms Linda Moore, head of the section. "Anything new is just devoured." These days, business books are big business. Over, perhaps, two years, they've broken into the mainstream of publishing as never before.

Ireland and the rest of Europe have picked up on an US trend there are hundreds of new titles, and with a far broader target market than in the past. Some are so popular they've hit the general bestseller lists, and this has encouraged publishers to invest in big promotional budgets, selling business success guides like diet books.

"Sales have easily doubled," says Ms Moore. "It's not just fellows in suits - everybody's buying business books. They're using them to get ahead, to give them negotiating skills, to give them marketing skills."

The books are designed to appeal to everyone in business today - and the many readers who aren't, but want to be. Two titles that made the Irish best seller lists in recent weeks reflect the demand: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey, and Starting a Business in Ireland by Brian O'Kane.

American publishers say all employees are turning to the bookshops for advice about a fast changing workplace, and how they can get an edge on the competition, or even stand out a bit within their own companies.

"People are thinking more about their jobs. It's what makes them wake up screaming in the night. You can't ignore that," one senior US publishing executive was quoted recently as saying.

Ireland's most successful business publishing house is Oak Tree Press.

"People are just lapping it up," says Ms Anne Marie Murphy, head of marketing. "It's nearly a comfort thing. They're saying: `I need this for my job.' And they want them as reference books, right there on the desk in front of them."

Since 1994, when it first published its guide to starting a business in Ireland, Oak Tree has broadened its range. In addition to general management and "best business practice" guides, it now covers specialist areas, like training and industrial relations. Oak Tree says it publishes 20 to 25 new books a year, and has a backlist of 70 titles.

With the growth in business courses at third level institutions around Ireland - and the shift within those colleges to a more practical, less esoteric, approach many books previously attracting just a small number of business executives are now turning up on students' booklists.

Some companies are now helping to drive sales upwards by buying books in bulk for their employees, or for seminars and conferences.

The business side of the worldwide McGraw Hill publishing company said recently that it would publish 110 titles in 1996, compared to 25 in 1991.

Ironically, the most successful business book this year is one which quietly but effectively satirises the "best business practices" advocated in all of the others. The Dilbert Principle by cartoonist Scott Adams, has already sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. HarperBusiness, an imprint of Harper Collins, is releasing a sequel, for the Christmas market.