Selling Canadian Books in the UK

Transcription

1 Selling Canadian Books in the UK A guide for Canadian publishers 2nd edition

2 Selling Canadian Books in the UK: A guide for Canadian publishers, 2nd edition March Association for the Export of Canadian Books, 2012 Livres Canada Books All rights reserved. Published by Livres Canada Books, the national association of the Canadian book publishing industry for promoting export sales. Prepared for Livres Canada Books by Peter Kilborn. While every effort has been made to report information correctly, the publisher assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the information supplied by the authors, and disclaims any liability for loss or damage caused by errors or omissions. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author. Livres Canada Books 1 Nicholas Street, Suite 504 Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7B7 CANADA Design and layout by Zsusanna Liko Visual Communication, Ottawa ISBN We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for this project.

3 Table of Contents Introduction Overview of the UK Market Market Potential for Canadian Books in the UK Practicalities of Entering the UK Market Distribution Channels Marketing Strategies Conclusion Appendix Distributors Offering Client Services Wholesalers Sales and Marketing Organizations Trade Associations and Organizations Trade Press Bibliographic Agencies National Newspapers UK Book Trade Events About the Author III

4 Introduction The UK market is a tempting one for publishers in English speaking countries. Apart from the benefit of a common language both for content and for doing business it is compact, has easy internal communications, has national media coverage, and is relatively unencumbered by legislative and taxation barriers. It has a prolific and diverse publishing industry, numerous outlets for books and a book reading and book using tradition. It is also relatively easy to access as an importer, with very few import restrictions and little governmental interference in the trading process. Since this guide was originally published in 2003, however, there have been seismic changes to the UK book industry; and they are still continuing as it is being written. Back then, there was a good story to tell: of a thriving publishing industry supported by a successful retail supply chain, with few clouds on the horizon. The changes which have come about since then are only partly to do with the advent of a serious market for digital content and products, though that has certainly muddied the waters. Rather they have been the consequence of financial and social upheavals which have cast a pall over what now looks to have been a dangerously complacent industry. The most significant evidence of its complacency is shown by the fact that the UK industry, for many years a pioneer of progress and innovation and a world leader in developing and exploiting new markets, has largely failed to contribute to the digital world order which is now developing. Practically all the technology, almost all the significant new market players, all the digital hardware, most of the digital reading platforms have been from elsewhere and mostly from North America. This does not necessarily affect opportunities for Canadian publishers in this marketplace; but it is probably true to say that it has made the UK a less attractive and less relevant market. And, if the UK market has been challenging in the past, it is more than ever so now. This guide will not minimize the problems but it will attempt to show the best ways of penetrating the book trade; and illustrate how professionalism and attention to detail are the best weapons in the fight for a share of the market. 1

5 1 Overview of the UK market Facts and Figures Though the emerging market for digital content attracts most attention, much of this guide still deals with physical books and the problems Canadian publishers will have to surmount to penetrate the UK market in the conventional supply chain. At present, ebooks account for no more than 10% of the market, well behind levels in the United States, and too low to make meaningful statements about growth patterns. UK publishers have suffered from the late arrival of devices and platforms Kindle, the ipad, Google ebooks and activity has generally been focused on negotiating content acquisition with the major digital players rather than its delivery to consumers. Absence of reliable data on digital sales and market penetration makes measurement of the overall market particularly hard. There are no ebook charts and no reliable analysis of the digital market aside from statements issued by Amazon and by individual publishers. The more established methods of measuring the market, however, show a decided fall in the sale of physical books over the past couple of years: this may be the result of digital substitution but it is equally likely to stem from the reduced number of bookshops much of Borders turnover appeared to vanish when the business closed or from the dire economic climate. BookScan figures are now showing a year-on-year decline of 5-7%. Clearly one of the drivers for the decline in sales of printed books is the significant reduction in outlets selling books and, alongside that, major shifts in book buying habits. Apart from WH Smith, which is as much a general stationery store as a bookshop, there is now only one national chain of specialist general-interest bookshops: Waterstones. Table 1 shows just how radically the pattern of book buying has changed in recent years. 2

6 Table 1 UK retail book sales, Volume (%) Value (%) Large chains Independents Bargain bookshops Supermarkets Other shops Direct mail Internet Source: Books & Consumers (BML/TNS) for the years cited. Note: Consumer book purchases only; purchases by institutions are excluded and those by students/academics may be underrepresented. Figures include ebooks and printed books. The big winner has been the Internet and Amazon.co.uk in particular, taking market share most conspicuously from the chains and from the independent sector. The Booksellers Association still has around 4,400 bookstores in membership, though the number is in decline and it includes individual branches within the chains and non-specialist booksellers such as supermarkets and others. The decline in numbers of independents has been very steep over the past five years, down from 1,483 in 2006 to 1,099 in Superficially at least, publishing continues to grow apace and continues to expand. The number of titles published has grown year-on-year (with the exception of 2010) from 109,143 in 2001 to 151,969 in At the same time the number of new publishers registered by the UK ISBN Agency has risen from 2,248 in 2001 to 3,412 in To some extent this growth in publisher numbers and output can be attributed to multiple versioning of ebooks, better systems for information gathering and a growing awareness of the need for robust identification in the supply chain. Many of the new publishers are one-book self-publishers. At the other end of the scale, it is reckoned that 50% of sales are made by just four major publishing groups. 3

7 Publishers sales in 2010, according to the Publishers Association, using data supplied by the leading publishers and distributors as its basis, amounted at invoiced prices to a total of 3,115 million, of which 1,861 million was in the home market and 1,254 million in export, amounting to a total of 739 million units. Consumer sales in the home market, according to figures from Book Marketing Limited (BML), stood at 2,183 million. In broad terms, the consumer market accounts for around two-thirds of industry revenues, with academic and professional publishing taking 25% and schools and English language teaching publishing around 7.5%. These figures show that, despite the changes in the marketplace, the book business continues to be highly active and highly competitive. Since the disappearance in 1997 of the Net Book Agreement, which enabled publishers to set the minimum price at which a book might be sold, the consumer market has become increasingly competitive and bestseller-driven, helped along by very high levels of discounting. It is true to say that, with the exception of many independent booksellers, all retailers discount new titles on publication, sometimes by as much as 45%. Some but not all of this is funded by publishers in the form of special discounts. At the same time, the shelf life of new titles has continued to decline. With so many new books coming to market, the period in which a book is likely to be on prominent display will be very short unless it shows real signs of performance. Inevitably, given this scenario, many titles fail to achieve the exposure and sales they deserve. ebooks There are few reliable statistics on ebook sales and use, but the Publishers Association estimates that the market in 2010 was valued at around million. That it is growing at a great pace is beyond dispute, but it still represents less than 10% of sales. As far as devices are concerned, Kindle has been the big winner: after a very soft initial UK launch, when it was available only to order from the US, it now has a commanding lead in the market and is being very heavily advertised and promoted: at a recent conference a survey of 4,000 consumers by BML found that 59% bought their ebooks from Amazon with only 14% using the ibookstore, the second most popular source. This dominance has been gained largely through lack of plausible competition and may well now prove unassailable. At the start of the ebook boom, Waterstones backed the Sony Reader, and Borders another 4

8 About the Author Peter Kilborn was until his retirement in March 2012 Executive Director of Book Industry Communication, the UK book trade s supply chain and standards organization. In his past career he has been a production director and general manager with a number of well-known London publishing houses, a director of the Publishers Association, and a writer and consultant specializing in the supply chain and business improvement. Among his past assignments he acted as an adviser to the Department of Canadian Heritage on its supply chain initiative. In the past decade has undertaken a number of writing and research projects for Livres Canada Books. 50