The new publishing

09.12.11 | Neill Denny

Speaking on Monday at Futurebook, this year’s biggest book trade conference, Faber chief Stephen Page said it was time for a new publishing to arise.

Three years ago Faber had asked itself how it could be more relevant in the conversation between reader and writer, how it could move from being a book publisher to being a business around reading and writing. Hence we now see spin-offs such as Faber Digital, Factory, Social and Academy, its writing school.

Page’s other preoccupation is copyright, and its paramount importance to publishers in a digital world. This is a long-standing concern of Page’s, one he detailed in a speech as PA president in 2007, but one that now means that Faber commissioning editors are no longer allowed to speak of “buying a book”—instead Page’s preferred term is acquiring “a licence to copyright”.

Such earnestness is unlikely to catch on, but the essential logic of Page’s call for publishers to reinvent themselves around copyright and readers is correct, and he has already been backed by the heads of Canongate and HarperCollins. In 2007, after his previous speech, we outlined the argument that the rise of digital could finish off one of the three links between reader and writer, and the years since have seen publishers become retailers, agents become publishers and retailers become publishers. No one is dead yet, but such cross-dressing may yet become the norm.

For publishers, problems remain. The need for J K Rowling to go outside the publishing fraternity for Pottermore shows the limitations of even the best publishers. To control the relationship between readers and writers data on who is reading what is critical, and that generally belongs to the retailers, especially Amazon. Publishers’ customers are readers, not retailers, and they need deep knowledge on them fast. And most, unlike Faber, do not have brands consumers have heard of.

• blog
• Faber
• Home
• Neill Denny
• Stephen Page