By Roger Tagholm
In order to protect territorial rights and the best interests of authors, the industry should adopt the model used in other areas of publishing, such as STM and academic, and look at global publishing for trade works. That’s the view of Evan Schnittman, Bloomsbury’s MD, Sales and Marketing, Print and Digital.
He says: “Whilst the ineluctable surge of e-books spreading across the globe has prompted the usual death knell punditry on the future of the book, there has been a noticeable spike in bookselling via the Internet around the world via sites such as the Book Depository and Amazon.com.
“Markets long protected by huge oceans and extremely fragmented supply-chains are now feeling under siege by Internet sourced imports. The combination of e-books and global print supply chains exploits the already frail territorial rights situation by misaligning the incentives of global selling by allowing one publisher to gain at the expense of another for the same work.”
He believes trade publishers must learn to buy and sell works globally “in order to manage the global portfolio and optimize sales and author royalties. Without this change, the book may indeed be dead –- with it, then long live the global book.”
The Internet respects no borders’ has almost become an industry cliché. Yet the difficult issue is precisely this: the Internet’s increasing pressure on the sustainability of territorial rights. Perhaps that young kid with the specs and funny mark on his forehead on Bloomsbury UK’s list might have an answer.
Event: “The Book is Dead; Long Live the Global Book”
Time: Monday, 11 April at 11:30 am
Place: Cromwell Room, Earl’s Court 1
Speakers:
- Keynote speaker: Evan Schnittman, Bloomsbury Publishing plc
- Corinne Turner, MD Ian Fleming Publications Limited / Finfoot Limited / FourteenFiftyFour Ltd
- Santiago de la Mora, Google
- Chairperson: Adrian Laing, Solicitor Advocate, Laing & Co