Adapt to recover, warn publishing chiefs

12.07.10 | Bookseller News Team

The c.e.o. of HarperCollins has warned that the publishing industry is unlikely to return to pre-recession prosperity, after eight of the top 10 publishers saw a drop in sales in 2010.
Victoria Barnsley was speaking as figures from Nielsen BookScan, for the first 24 weeks of the year, revealed a fall in the total value of book sales of 5.7%.
She said: “Our business needs to change, regardless of whether there is a recession or not. The economic situation has merely hurried the process along . . . To be honest, I don’t anticipate the market ever returning to pre-recession levels in its current form.”

Barnsley, whose company saw sales fall 13.3%, the largest drop among the top 10 and despite Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winner Wolf Hall, explained it had been necessary to take “a lot of cost out of the business”, including cutting the number of titles published by 20%. “We are focusing more on profit than on market share [now at 7.3%],” she said. “Most publishers over-publish for today’s market.”

Random House also suffered, with sales dropping 9.8% and market share falling from 13.1% to 12.5%—creating the greatest gap yet between it and Hachette’s increased 16.2% share.
While stressing the role the recession and “mood of austerity” was having on the customer, Gail Rebuck, chairman and c.e.o., warned competition from other industries played a role.
“With every day comes the invention of yet another device or distraction which competes with the time people have previously devoted to reading, so it is increasingly incumbent upon us as publishers to seek out new ways to deliver the most compelling content we can, for readers to consume in whatever way they desire," she said.

At Hachette UK, which saw sales fall 5.5%, chief executive Tim Hely Hutchinson agreed with Barnsley.
“The market is very challenging and it is not all to do with the recession,” he said. “Digital changes everything: what people want, what they are prepared to pay for and how they want it delivered. As an industry we must focus on understanding our consumers and delivering what they want. We cannot build a healthy future on cost cutting and a constant battle over market share.”


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