Monday, March 24, 2008

A neo-colonial enterprise in books?

Australian publisher Henry Rosenbloom in the age articleBrits in the Bad Books:
"The problem starts in the United States, the home of much of the best writing in the English-speaking book world. When US publishers or literary agents try to sell English-language rights to their authors' books, they usually look first to Britain, which has a domestic market of 60 million people — and access to many more. Although Britain is choosy about what it wants, this is where the big bucks are.

The trouble is that British publishers have almost always insisted, when they acquire domestic rights, that so-called "Commonwealth" rights — that part of the globe that used to be coloured red — be included. They have even tended to refuse to consider buying rights in books that originate in Australia.

Why? Because Australia is a highly profitable market for British publishers. They usually do not have to pay for the Commonwealth component when they acquire the rights; they get to pay the authors what are called "export royalties", which are around half of what are known as "home royalties, and they sometimes sell more copies here than they do in their own country. They don't even have to publish the books here — simply distributing moderate quantities is still money for jam. The disproportionate profits go straight to their bottom lines, and help prop up their own ailing industry. This is rent-seeking and coupon-clipping on a grand scale.

.....
I understand very well that the British book trade is in a sorry state, and that UK houses have come to rely on Australia to subsidise their often marginal domestic operations.

But we must put our own interests first. As in all neo-colonial enterprises, British publishers, by protecting their own financial interests, are holding up the development of Australian publishing and the Australian book trade in general. To the extent that they prevent Australian publishing houses from reaching their potential, they weaken the financial base of our industry, and even the prospects of local authors."
I wonder what is the situation in other commonwealth countries.

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