Ian Hislop on Private Eye as a small publisher: "It softens the blow of some of our legal bills"

"St Albion Parish News" in Private Eye has won what, for a satire with a Church of England theme, is the highest possible endorsement. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is among "the most avid fans" of the column, according to the Observer.

The column, which portrays Prime Minister Tony Blair as a smug and unconvincingly matey vicar, occupies a prestigious slot in the Eye. The journal's previous Prime Ministerial satires have been "Mrs Wilson's Diary", "Dear Bill" and "The Secret Diary of John Major", all of them hugely popular. The last two became bestselling books: one of the Dear Bill volumes sold 130,000 copies, and one of the John Majors sold more than 100,000.

By comparison, St Albion has been a slow burner. The last book sold about 25,000 copies. But it has been gaining in popularity, Eye editor Ian Hislop says. "It's a more acquired taste. With Maggie, people loved seeing the boot go in straight away. They've got progressively disillusioned with Blair." Private Eye Productions brings out St Albion 5 on 1st October (£4.99, 1901784290).

The Eye's big seller is the Private Eye Annual (1st October, £8.99, 282), which gained in sales when the company began publishing its own titles five years ago. In 2001, the Annual was the fifth bestselling humour title in Nielsen BookScan's General Retail Market (source: Book Sales Yearbook); in the four weeks up to the end of the year, it was number one.

Before 1997, Private Eye had copublished with Deutsch and then Transworld. "I think that we were a bit too mid-range to be interesting to Transworld," Hislop says. But the Eye did not need a mass market house to edit or design the books, which are all produced at its Soho office; and it seems that Derek Searle Associates can sell them as effectively as did the Transworld machine. Philippa Perry handles publicity. Last year, Private Eye Productions turned over £640,000 in the GRM.

With low overheads, this is nice business for the Eye. "It softens the blow of some of our legal bills," Hislop admits. Private Eye v Conliffe, a 10-year case the company won, nevertheless left it owing lawyers a six-figure sum.

The books provide, as well as turnover, the satisfaction for Eye contributors of seeing their work in more durable form. "The books are a solid indication of what the Eye does," Hislop says. They also act as advertisements. "A lot of our younger readers come to the Eye having seen the Annual first."

The company has been an effective publisher of a kind of title that, since the days of Penguin Specials, larger houses have handled with less conviction: the instant, topical polemic. This year it has published pamphlets on the MMR jab and the foot and mouth outbreak; the latter sold 30,000 copies.

Also out this autumn are Colemanballs (1st October, £3.99, 304), the 11th collection of broadcasting gaffes; Better Latte Than Never (15th October, £4.99, 231), Knife and Packer's cartoons about precious north London folk; and The Little Book of Dumb Britain (15th October, £1.99, 24X), a second collection of stupid answers to quiz show questions.