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Hachette moves to firm sale on backlist

15.11.07 Alison Flood

Hachette Livre UK is taking the radical step of moving its backlist publishing to a firm sale basis for environmental reasons. The UK’s largest publishing group, which includes Orion, Hodder, Headline, Octopus and Little, Brown, told staff and authors this morning (15th November) that it intends for all of its trade publishing to be put on a backlist firm sale footing by the end of 2008, following consultation with retailers.

“The printing and multiple transportation of books that may eventually be pulped is both costly and environmentally damaging and we are committed to reducing this practice,” Hachette said. “We estimate for our UK trade publishers that the cumulative initial saving will be the printing, paper, processing and transport of over one million books a year.”

Hachette will continue to sell front list on a sale or return basis, but will also start work with booksellers in this area “with the aim of further reducing our returns rate to our mutual benefit.”

Penguin and HarperCollins have also mooted a move to firm sale, but HLUK is the first UK publisher to announce a policy. Waterstone’s has said it will be responsive to discussions on firm sale when it opens its centralised warehouse next year.

The firm sale move is part of a new environmental policy for HLUK, which will also see the group working to achieve FSC certification for its paper on a company by company basis. It expects Little, Brown to achieve FSC certification by the beginning of 2008 and for the other Hachette Livre UK publishers, including Headline, Hodder & Stoughton, Hodder Education and Orion to achieve certification later the same year.

It says that it aims to move all its trade publishing onto FSC-certified papers by the end of 2009, and simultaneously "to have made major progress in the same direction" for its educational and illustrated publishing.

Hachette has also commissioned the Carbon Trust to advise it on a long-term strategy to improve its energy emissions. It has already embarked on a range of initiatives, including persuading its head office landlords to re-engineer its office lighting system so that night-time lighting is
restricted to areas occupied by members of staff; introducing dual fuel ‘hybrid’ cars into its company car fleet; and encouraging reduced use of cars.

"Energy-saving is a priority at our distribution centres with a Green Team ensuring that machinery, lights and other items are used efficiently and switched off when not in use," Hachette said. "This is monitored very carefully and substantial energy savings have been made year on year."

C.e.o. Tim Hely Hutchinson said: “Our environmental policy demonstrates that care for the environment and good business practices go hand in hand. We know that environmental issues are hugely important to our staff, our customers and our authors and I am delighted that we have brought together the best practices of all our companies into one policy for the group."

Greenpeace UK senior forests campaigner Belinda Fletcher added: "By choosing recycled fibre and paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council for their books, Hachette Livre UK is making great strides towards being a truly forest friendly company. Greenpeace welcomes Hachette Livre UK’s ethical and environmental policy- once implemented, it will be great news both for the
environment and for consumers."

Todays Picks Hachette Alison Flood Firm sale

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By Clive Keeble

Congratulations, hopefully other publishers will quickly follow suit : the idea that booksellers should expect to freshen their stock by making returns and re-ordering is archaic, let alone wasted fuel miles and environmental considerations. Its poor practice to expect others to subsidise one's business : it would be nice to think that *firm sale" for *all* stock (both frontlist and backlist) would become mandatory and be imposed, at an early date, even on all those non-traditional booksellers.

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By Gregory Norminton

I am a Hachette author (Sceptre) and have pestered the company to green up its act. I know other, much more financially significant, authors have done the same, and I was delighted to receive the letter from Tim H-H. yesterday. The fact that Belinda Fletcher of Greenpeace, with whom I've spoken, is satisfied with the progress promised is especially encouraging. Well done to the company for setting a course for a more sustainable future! And thank you, Tim, should you this.

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By Sheila O'Reilly

This idea of course has lots of "wins" for publishers, it means that once the book has left their warehouse they do not need to worry about it any longer as is it now the full responsibility of the retailer. The saving on time and money associated with returns would also be considerable for all parties, I do understand that. For the retailer it means that you must be 100% accurate in your buying, so one question for me at this stage would be: "Are publishers 100% accurate with their conmissioning etc?" I suspect not, so why expect retailers to be 100% accurate with their buying? We are an awarding independent bookshop based in West Dulwich and we have two sources for buying our stock - Wholesalers or direct from publishers. If we buy from publishers we get less discount but full returns right, if we buy from wholesalers we get more discount and the right to return between 5% & 10% of our previous three months sales. With most independent booksellers buying from wholesalers to ensure they have the best discount this arrangement means that we are able to have a "5%" error rate. I believe that this is as fair as one can expect. If firm sale comes in from all trade publishers Dulwich Books for one will be dramatically more cautious in our buying of backlist. For example picking up on the comment from Gregory Norminton we would be extremely unlikely to stock any of his titles (sorry Gregory) as they will be identified as backlist and therefore I could not take the chance they would sell and I can list many more titles like this. Of course our sales are not going to get Tim Hely Hutchinson or anyone at Hachette their bonuses for 2008, however scale that up from the 1,400 independents as well as the chains scaling back on stocking backlist titles, heaven help authors who sell only a few hundred copies very year because no one will be stocking their books in the future. This will even further drive bookshops to be stocking new titles and blockbusters - how will be readers tell the difference between a display in Tesco's and Waterstones? We stock around 10,000 titles and I believe it's the ability to offer a different range of titles then chains that is a winning forumla for independent bookshops and firm sale from publishers will make that job more difficult.

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By Gregory Norminton

In reply to Sheila, I was not writing about Hachette's backlist policy - which is, anyway, financially motivated rather than ecological. (And, yes, looking at this more closely, I see it's bad news for me too.) What I and other writers have campaigned on is paper procurement policy. The firm move towards FSC accreditation and a comprehensive low carbon drive are firmly to be applauded. In my enthusiasm for these parts of Hachette's announcement, I confess I overlooked what will be of more immediate concern to booksellers.

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By Clive Keeble

Sheila O'Reilly raises some interesting points, but also sadly illustrates just how backward thinking book retailing has been allowed to become. Most bookshops would at this time of the year stock diaries, calendars etc, all of which are only supplied *firm sale*. Within the retail sector bookshops stand virtually alone as an example where goods are generally supplied with a returns quota written into any contract : most other trades would have an enforced re-stocking fee from suppliers, with goods only being accepted for return in exceptional circumstances rather than as the norm. To suggest that if *firm sale* is ever mandatory then independent booksellers will be scared to be adventurous in their stocking selections is pure twaddle. I would also strongly dispute the fact that wholesalers on their entire normal stock items are prepared to offer better terms than publishers. UK's wholesalers also have little interest in offering firm sale contracts, whereas in USA there is always a differential to bookshops accepting stock firm sale. Nobody should need a 5% error rate written into their supply contract ; experience should indicate which titles will sell, and those which stick can always be cleared in a genuine January sale. Mine is one business which virtually never stocks a title which is in the top 100 bestsellers, and I would suggest that the vast majority of returns (from all outlets) come from this section : they are generally pulped because I would further suggest that there is no future for this (often) dreck in the overstocks or remainder market. Lastly, in the late Spring of this year one of UK's leading bookchains discussed with their line management the prospect of taking stock firm sale - initially only the backlist ; I would expect major developments before June next year, which will no doubt give Sheila O'Reilly a few sleepless nights.

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