The 2014 London Book Fair

The London Book Fair is an important event to meet global business partners and to negotiate distribution and market rights for the New Year. It is an event where you can meet players of both the global industry as well as emerging markets, drawing parallels back to home and taking the best offered for customisation to our own local market’s needs and culture. The focus of our meetings was very much on the digital space, and finding new and innovative ways to enhance data about e-books. It was clear that globally, publishers truly are embracing the e-book market. To date, e-books have mostly been digitised versions of printed books. But it is becoming clear that the difference between reading on printed pages and on screens is far greater than initially thought, which has in turn shaped new offerings from publishers – for example e-books with interactive video and audio elements.

But is it really important for the South African book trade to follow the global trends when it comes to e-book publishing and marketing? Or rather, is our market not too small to embrace an e-book culture? To get answers to this very important question we need to look beyond the London Book Fair to what the giants of the industry (exhibiting in full force at Earl’s Court) have achieved in 2013, and draw from that a picture of what can be expected for the rest of 2014 and beyond. Book Publishing has become over the past two decades a very special sector within the international content and entertainment industries. The global publishing industry is predicted to be worth $273 billion by 2016, for an increase of nearly 12% since 2011, according to a report available at ReportLinker. com. Books are bigger than the music-, gaming-, magazines- and entertainment industries. Even so, it continues to be the industry resisting the digital transformation longer than any other.

At the start of the digital transformation process, the misleading question was, if or when, digital books would replace the physical product. This has now become an “exhausted debate” in the words of William Heinemann (from The Guardian, 31 March 2014): “Digital will continue to grow for a while at least, and continue to exist, because it has become part of the world we inhabit at a level below our notice, no more remarkable than roads or supermarkets.” Changing patterns and statistics: UK Market as a case study. The Nielsen Books & Consumers Report Q4 2013 survey shows that purchases by UK Customers fell 4% in both volume and value in 2013 versus 2012, despite double digit increases in purchase of e-books.

For print and digital combined, children’s books fell 7% by volume, compared to 2–3% decreases for adult books. Much of the decrease in 2013 versus 2012 reflects the extraordinary jumps in sales of Fifty Shades in 2012. So, excluding E.L James, purchase of books by UK consumers rose 1% in volume and fell only marginally in value in 2013, with print down 6% in volume, e-books rising 31%, and adult fiction (all formats) up 10%. With Fifty Shades included, fiction grew faster than non-fiction, or children’s e-books, but fell faster in print. Average  price paid decreased for e-books in all three categories, contrasting with rising prices paid for print books. The rise in the e-book share within adult fiction, nonfiction as well as children’s books in 2013 vs 2012 came at the expense of paperbacks.

Many of the leading publishers gained share of adult fiction purchases in 2013 at the expense of Cornerstone. Hodder was the main winner in non-fiction, while Penguin, HarperCollins and S&S took shares from Scholastic, Egmont, RHCP and Hachette in children’s. The Amazon self-publishing share of e-books rose from 14% to 20%. Internet-only retailers gained share overall in 2013 vs 2012, with this being especially true in adult fiction. The internet share increase reflected the shift to e-books, with little change in channel share within print or e-books. The Global Industry and its influence on emerging markets The Global e-book Report, (Spring 2014) by Rudiger Wischenhart, spent a whole section on this subject. To summarise, I want to draw your attention to an analysis the report mentioned, in which it has a closer look at 24 of the larger book markets worldwide.

They identified 23 countries with data that was sufficient in detail and reliabilityle to build a ranking, by total value at consumer prices (how much people spend on books and reading). The results reflect complex balances and disparities of wealth and cultural status, of access to knowledge, and of trading power. The results show a few countries standing out from the crowd – most notably the UK and Spain, because of their strong export in books. Others like Norway, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland stand out because of huge public funding for books and reading (Norway and Sweden) and the drive being put behind the importance of books and reading for their national culture.

The results also show the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) finding common ground on subjects like access to knowledge and education as key strategic goals for further development. The resulting book markets, and book and reading cultures, will differ greatly from those in Europe, UK and the USA in that the role of digital is amplified because of its potential to offer this access. The market has been turned on its head by digital technology. Amazon, Google and Apple were the leaders identified in the Bookseller’s Digital Census, with Amazon in the undeniable leading position. Software and hardware companies are behind these leaders while mobile operators facilitate on-the move reading that many think of as the future of publishing.

The US and Western Europe are no longer the only nuclei of activity: the big global players have arrived in Brazil, India and other emerging countries, including South Africa, while these local markets feel the results of an economic slowdown. The future of e-books now being written  “The 2012 Digital Census found that more than three quarters of publishers predicted their digital sales would be worth at least 10% of sales by the end of 2015. But this year’s poll found a slight decline in that number. Publishers remain confident that digital sales will be a significant part of their future, and two in five believe they will be drawing more  sales from digital than from print by 2020. But while it is too early to say that sales of digital content are plateauing, much of the industry appears to have become more realistic in their projections in 2013.” (From The Bookseller Digital Census .)

In order to bring about the “Education of the masses” in new emerging markets, we as an industry will need to adapt to the transformation of reading. This can only be achieved cost effectively by applying the new technologies of digitisation through basics like internet connection and mobile applications.

Freda van Wyk

Wischenbart, R et.al, 2014, Global ebook; A report on market trends and developments, Ruediger Wischenbart Content and Consulting.

• Nielsen, 2014, Books and Consumers, UK industry Standard Report Q4 2013, Nielsen, United Kingdom

• Jones, P, 2013, The Bookseller Digital Census; The annual tracker of how the book business is managing the shift to a highly digital future – December 2013, The Bookseller and Futurebook