The Future of Publishing programme, kicked off by a Book Hackday last weekend, combines a national overview with a focus on the South West. The South West economy has fared reasonably well over the past year of uncertainty and challenge. The South West Observatory, in its ‘State of the South West’ report for 2011 estimated it to be worth £95.3 billion in 2009, 9% of English ‘gross value added’ (GVA), the measure of business output which, although not the whole picture, gives a good guide to the health of industry.
But, as with everyone, the period from 2008 to 2010 was difficult, with negative growth rates in the South West matching the glum national average. Not surprisingly, the publishing sector, as one of the largest contributors to Gross Value Added (GVA) of all the creative industries in the South West, was one of the hardest hit, and not only because of a general economic downturn. The publishing sector in general is facing one of the greatest sea-changes in its history with the explosion of new production, distribution and consumption models appearing on the market every day. The concept of writing, printing and selling books under the market influences of a few major publishers is changing, and that brings both challenges and opportunities.
The UK publishing industry is the second largest in Europe, with over 8000 publishing companies spread mostly across London and the South East. The major publishing companies employ more than half the workforce in publishing – and that means the rest are mostly freelancers, sole traders or small businesses, who traditionally feel the pain of hard times first. Though these smaller organisations are usually more able to respond quickly and flexibly to new ideas, they are the least able to draw down financial capital and support to help them develop a more robust business defence.
The industry is also faced with the added complication of the sheer size of product that the word ‘publishing’ encompasses: it includes printed and digital information for individuals and businesses, books, magazines, newspapers, journals, databases, directories and electronic media – and, of course, the internet and other digital channels are changing the landscape of the whole industry in ways that we can’t even imagine yet.
Understanding these changes, and being able to effectively innovate and develop new business models, is critical. To this end Cyprus Well and Media Futures, supported by the Creative Industries iNet, are presenting a series of workshops and a conference at which we want to meet as a many publishers from around the region as possible – to find out where they feel their sector is headed. We read in the press that publishers need to seek new, and more personal, ways to engage with their consumers – so we want to find out what that means for them in terms of developing sustainable business models. Consumers are becoming more demanding in terms of making their own choices about how they want to engage with books and literature – and our workshops and conference programme with Media Futures will engage with that debate.
Books are going to be digital product in the future, I think we can all agree that much, but ‘digital’ is proving to be such a ubiquitous term – iPads, twitter feeds, the cloud, web, Xboxes, Kindle – as an industry, publishers still seem unclear as to where their long-term future lies. At what point should they draw the line in the sand and say ‘right, this is where I’m prepared to invest…’?
New technologies will be fundamental to the future of publishing and a greater co-operation between the creative design and publishers can begin to develop new ways to reach new markets. But this brings with it the thorny question of copyright. It’s not just about the technology, however beautiful. If writers, authors or ‘content producers’ cannot make a living from creating narratives, then the whole industry will shrivel, free-ware will rule, and any notion of digital services being able to sustain a business will disappear.
Publishers, especially the smaller ones, have by necessity always been entrepreneurial, so we want to work more closely with them to focus on ways to diversify their incomes to protect against short term solutions, volatile markets and fast moving technologies. We need to find out what their key issues really are. Is it just about access to financial investment and support in ways that allow them to innovate? Do they really feel they’ve lost connections with their consumers? If we can develop more and better ways for publishers to strike up a two-way conversation between production and consumption – then that will surely help publishers survive. This may mean the end of the ‘book sitting between two covers’, other than at the high-end collector’s market – but reading should always remain the key aim.
If you want more information about our conference, planned for Bournemouth BIC, October 6th 2011, please get in contact with us.
