Publishing Query

[ishtat]

One of my daughters writes childrens books. She has three on the market in Australia and one in the USA with a major publisher. Now she has an offer to translate the first one into German for sale in Germany/Austria/Switzerland.

However, the publisher refuses to consider the UK market because they claim that the three main UK retail book chains demand an upfront "promotion" fee from less experienced authors before they will put a book on the shelves. They are suggesting the kind of fee demanded is in the region of $10,000 from each of these retailers. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of this.

Apparently (they say) competition law prevents or limits it happening in other markets.

Thanks.

 

[oggbashan]

One of my daughters writes childrens books. She has three on the market in Australia and one in the USA with a major publisher. Now she has an offer to translate the first one into German for sale in Germany/Austria/Switzerland.

However, the publisher refuses to consider the UK market because they claim that the three main UK retail book chains demand an upfront "promotion" fee from less experienced authors before they will put a book on the shelves. They are suggesting the kind of fee demanded is in the region of $10,000 from each of these retailers. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of this.

Apparently (they say) competition law prevents or limits it happening in other markets.

Thanks.

It isn't just "less experienced authors" who suffer. The UK's new book retail chains are inundated with new books every week. The publishers are expected to pay for display material and placement. Unless the book is a sure-fire seller such as the latest Harry Potter, publicising and marketing is very expensive.

Independent book retailers are closing, beaten by the competition from supermarkets and book chains. If a book has a marked price of ten pounds, an independent retailer would have to pay six pounds, plus despatch costs, to buy it for stock. The book chains and supermarkets can sell it at five pounds, because they buy in bulk and only top-listed books.

If an author/publisher hasn't got a track record of massive sales, it is almost impossible to sell to the major retailers without up-front payment.

Og

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Despite my heart being with ogg, the law says otherwise.

If you walk into any bookstore between now and Christmas the major display of books will be the celebrity chefs, the kiss and tell celeb ghosted bios and Dan Brown taking a dump on fiction.

The publishers pay bookchains for product placement - IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. It's not on TV.

 

[oggbashan]

Despite my heart being with ogg, the law says otherwise.

If you walk into any bookstore between now and Christmas the major display of books will be the celebrity chefs, the kiss and tell celeb ghosted bios and Dan Brown taking a dump on fiction.

The publishers pay bookchains for product placement - IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. It's not on TV.

New books in the UK used to be subject to Retail Price Maintenance. Unless remaindered, a book couldn't be sold anywhere except at the price set by the publisher. That meant that no matter where you bought it, the price was the same.

That was considered to be a restraint on free trade.

Now the few major retailers have the real say in what a book should be sold for - NOT the publisher, and certainly NOT the author. The publisher is expected to take a low price, to take any unsold books back and reimburse the retailer, and to pay up front for the book to be displayed in a prominent position.

Og

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Wow, never realised that was the case.

I suppose it explains why haven't seen many interesting new authors around, or haven't really bought anything from a bookstore in years.