It’s crunch time in publishing. Super Thursday, which saw the publication of 800 books on one day in the race to reach the Christmas top ten, has long since been and gone. Now nervous publishers look to the high streets to see how this year’s financial crisis will affect their figures.
There has been much speculation in the book industry, as in every industry, about the possible effects of the credit crunch. The book trade is notoriously unstable, with many houses keeping staff numbers tight even in times of plenty. Yet there has been some commentary over recent months to suggest that book publishing will not only survive the hard times, but may even do quite well out of them. As one optimistic agent said about the fate of books in a recession, “books are good in the good times, and great in the bad times”.
Philip Jones, managing editor of thebookseller.com adds that “books are high value but low price… Everyone is saying that books are recession-proof, and so far nothing’s happened to disprove that.”
One of the positive characteristics of book publishing is that it is highly adaptable. The humble book is mutable, it can be quickly reworked to suit any given event or high street conditions. The credit crunch is no exception. Bookshops are now stuffed with thrifty how-to guides, escapist fiction and ‘nostalgia’ titles as publishers mine their catalogues for salable backlist books. Publishers hope that ringing the changes in subject matter will help keep the tills ringing.
So it is that Waterstone’s has seen a 200 per cent rise in sales of titles about keeping chickens, along with an increased interest in books about growing vegetables. This must go to show that there’s always a genre that will sell, even in hard times. And then, of course, there is the irrepressible Frankfurt Book Fair.
In the words of Richard Charkin, former Macmillan chief, now Bloomsbury executive director, “banks may crash, derivatives flounder, hedge funds wither, dotcoms rise and fall but somehow or other writers, publishers, booksellers, literary agents, publishing consultants and old bookish friends always manage to congregate for the autumnal bunfight known by the single word, Frankfurt.”
Many attending the fair this year noted that it was quieter than usual. There were fewer exhibitors (7,373 compared with 7,448 the previous year) and the number of big advances offered was down on previous years.
This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair also saw subject matter shifting, to favour titles about money matters, with the significant purchases that did take place being largely in the field of economics. Viking paid a five-figure sum to the former stockbroker turned writer Seth Freedman for ‘an insider account of greed, corruption and excess in the City’, due next April.
So change in subject matter is a necessary result of facing tougher times. With this change, the publishing industry is offered an opportunity to reconsider its focus. Richard Charkin adds that “For those of us in our dotage this is familiar territory… Batten down the hatches. Publish well. Waste less. Throw complacency out of every window.” There is some hope that the tightening of belts will inspire greater consideration of quality in the book world.
That celebrity memoirs seem to be one of the first casualties of the credit crunch will come as music to many ears. As well as cautious customers steering clear of more expensive hardback copies, publishing houses are no longer able to fork out the seven-figure sums required to get celebrities on their books. So while titles by Russell Brand, Jeremy Clarkson and Nigella Lawson had sold more than 50,000 copies by this time last year, works by Dawn French, Paul O’Grady and Jamie Oliver are currently hovering around the 30,000 mark.
Nick Davies, of Canongate, is sceptical however. He says, “Every time someone predicts the end of this type of book it surprises us. I would be reluctant to say it is over. The only difference now is that, in this economic climate, publishers will be a bit more cautious about whom they back.”
And he is right to be sceptical. It is often the case at this time of year that sales of books surprise publishers. There is always a run-away outsider success at Christmas that takes everyone unawares. There is also often a book that, having collected a handsome advance, bombs in the sales figures.
The phenomenon will be evident on a grander scale this year. Not only is there speculation about Christmas sales, but speculation about wider sales and the response to the unstable economic climate as a whole. The financial crisis so far has been like any good storybook. We have experienced a dramatic opening, a detailed and complex plot development, but no one yet has any idea how it is going to end.
