Saturday, June 13, 2009

Michael Palin leads outcry over WH Smith guidebook deal
Traveller joins storm of protest over deal to stock only Penguin guidebooks at travel stores
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 June 2009

Michael Palin. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

The Office of Fair Trading is due to look into the deal between WH Smith and Penguin following complaints about the bookseller's controversial plans to remove overseas travel guides from any other publisher from its shelves, with Michael Palin and Margaret Drabble adding their voices to the growing opposition. Speaking to the Guardian, Margaret Drabble branded the deal "ludicrous", and said that Penguin "should be ashamed", while Michael Palin called it an "unacceptable restriction of traveller's choice".
"No guide is ever perfect," Palin continued, "and the ideal situation is to pick and choose from all the alternatives available. If this is indeed their policy, I certainly wouldn't go to Smith's before my next journey."
"It's extremely worrying. It's very distressing for authors and for independent publishers. The monopolistic tendency is getting really out of hand," Drabble, who is chair of the Society of Authors, added. "I think Penguin should be ashamed of themselves. It's very distressing, we're all worried."
The Society of Authors has written to WH Smith expressing its concerns about the deal with Penguin, which will see 268 of the chain's 450 travel stores – including every bookseller at BAA airports following a deal earlier this year – stocking only Penguin travel guides, such as Rough Guides and Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness guides. Other brands, including Lonely Planet, Frommer's and Bradt, will not be sold from the shops. Smith's said it took the decision because customers at its travel stores "are often pressed for time and want to have a straightforward range of travel guides to choose from".
The full Guardian story here,

1 comment:

Alastair said...

As a former Penguin MD, perhaps you have a view?