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Indie publishers are struggling with increased costs and ongoing delays caused by Brexit, with one describing the situation as a “complete nightmare” and another warning it may have to ditch export sales from its site.
A particular cause for concern is the extra costs caused by increased bureaucracy, which must either be passed on to customers at the risk of losing business, or covered by the companies themselves. Some warn the extra charges will lead to them losing business.
New “friction and complexity" for Irish publishers is also a major feature, as the industry adjusts to the UK and Irish book markets no longer being treated as a single entity.
Bridget Shine, c.e.o. of the Independent Publishers Guild, told The Bookseller the late post-Brexit trade agreement, finalised on Christmas Eve, had given the industry next to no time to respond to some of the specifics of trading from 1st January.
She said: "We know that many publishers of all sizes have faced extra red tape on import and export logistics, and on customs declarations and rules of origin in particular. For some publishers, issues are being handled by third parties but, for others, especially those selling direct into Europe, it's an unwelcome new burden. They are also having to navigate the different tax arrangements of European countries they sell into, which is a headache. Commodity or customs codes in publishers' data feeds have been a source of confusion. As expected, some book freight from overseas printers has been subject to delays and extra costs.
"We hope that these are teething problems, and that the logistics of trading will settle into new routines over the next few weeks. In the meantime, clearer government guidance on the practicalities of imports and exports, and the everyday challenges faced by publishing businesses, would be welcome."
Ivan O'Brien who runs The O'Brien Press in Dublin said Brexit was “a complete nightmare”. He explained: “It’s introducing friction and complexity into lots of things that were very simple and straightforward before now in all areas of life: the UK and Irish book market has been treated as a single entity for centuries, so this is a big change. The lack of any notice on many of the key aspects, due to the last-minute nature of the negotiations, meant that all our planning and preparing still left significant gaps.”
He added: “Specifically in the book world, the main challenges are with logistics, both inbound and outbound: O’Brien Press deliberately avoided printing anything that originated in Britain, or crossed the land bridge, for most of January. We have printed things in continental Europe that would normally have been printed in Britain, and we have built in significant extra time buffers to allow for the expected delays for anything that has to cross the land bridge. We discussed delivery routes with all our printers through 2020 and have had printing delivered by direct sea routes from elsewhere in the EU to Dublin, which has gone smoothly.”
Supplying orders in Britain had become “hugely more complex” with laborious processes to go through and no sign of a more efficient solution. By contrast, there has been no impact on the publisher's home market so far.
“So far, as expected, we have had extra complexity, extra paperwork and extra direct cost, as well as delays and uncertainly,” he said. “There is no upside to any of this for anyone. The best we can hope for is that, over time, all of these issues will be minimised.”
Tramp Press UK publishing director Laura Waddell said stock printed in Europe was currently taking a week longer to enter the UK than it is to get to its Irish distribution centre, with knock on effects for distributors and the bookshops they supply.
She said: “We're already experiencing longer delays in having stock enter the country, and an additional layer of bureaucracy. Adverts and seminars for 'preparing your business for Brexit' were, unsurprisingly, vague: I think it's clear no one quite knows what the longer term impact is going to be, so we're all just waiting to see how this will impact day to day trading. Tramp Press is split between Dublin and Glasgow, and neither of us wishes to be dealing with this.”
Meanwhile Dr Wesley Johnston, financial director of Colourpoint Books and Blackstaff Press in Northern Ireland, said he had not experienced problems so far but was concerned about getting copies of a book currently being printed in England.
He said: “Our big fear is that GB companies will decide that the NI market is too small to bother with. Already we know of many non-book GB businesses that have simply stopped supplying NI, to save the hassle. A lot of businesses are now trying to source alternative suppliers in the EU.
“Going forward, it is going to be a lot easier for us to purchase goods from the EU than GB. If it turns out that there are logistical difficulties with using GB printers we may need to do more printing in the EU. However, we don’t yet know if that will be the case. We know there are great difficulties getting stock from Europe into Ireland as it depends so much on the GB land bridge. A lot of trade is re-orienting to the Rosslare-France route, but that’s taking time to ramp up.”
Hannah Bannister, operations manager at Leeds-based Peepal Tree Press, calculated the average order processing time for export sales, conducted via the press website, has increased by 20% as staff must fill out a “tedious” Royal Mail form for items. She is worried European customers will see extra charges on their bill.
“At the moment we are still waiting for parcels posted after 1st January to reach their European destinations, but I'm nervous about what charges our customers may have to pick up on receipt,” she said. “We export frequently to the Caribbean, where customs charges for documentation and mysterious 'storage' charges can frequently mean that the taxes charged are bigger than the original cost of the order — people in the Caribbean are well used to such barriers, but I wonder if our European readers are in for a shock.”
She added there is a lack of clarity regarding what post offices are prepared to accept in the UK, saying: “ We are also confused by our local post office now refusing to accept international parcels — there's no guidance online. Depending on how this month pans out, we may well have to suspend export sales from our website, which currently makes up about 20% of our sales.”
Chris Jolly, m.d. of Jolly Learning, said a small number of customers had asked his firm to pick up the extra charges, something he has resisted so far.
He said: “Although the new arrangements are working it has not been easy. There are new guidelines, new rulings and more paperwork. Our shippers, and even HMRC, are still learning about the new requirements. For our customers there is the need to obtain an EORI number [an identification code for customs procedures], and to pay VAT and duties on purchases from the UK. This has been a disincentive, and has led to some of them asking us to pay these charges. In time, hopefully, things will all settle down.”
Retailers have also been affected by the post-Brexit changes. Online bookseller AwesomeBooks switched all its EU order channels off for the first two weeks of the month while it saw how the situation developed. Simon MacKay, head of books, explained: “We did not want goods stuck in ports as this invariably leads to refunds. A lot of the industry adopted this wait and see mentality, which otherwise would have comprised £50,000+ of sales for us.”
Nevertheless, MacKay said the increased costs involved in shipping goods was making the business less attractive for European customers. He explained: “Most goods are now more expensive to ship but those over ‚Ǩ22 have had a sharper increase in costs — a 15%-20% increase. This makes us less attractive overall as paying more will turn some people off. Alternatively, it also makes us less competitive as these books can be sourced by big wholesalers within the EU where there are no cost increases.”
For goods under ‚Ǩ22, and therefore subject to VAT, the cost rise was also “significant”, he said, as duties now must be paid at the border. He said: “In order to achieve this, carriers are asking customers to use upgraded postal solutions which are capable of this ‚Äì and these solutions are significantly more expensive. Further, as the carriers themselves don’t know how the next few months will pan out, they have also put in place surcharges on top of these more expensive solutions, as contingency costs.”
He added: “Sourcing product from EU book wholesalers has also become problematic. Some EU based wholesalers have still not resumed as the UK government has been slow to issue things like VAT numbers to them. In addition, delays in getting out of the UK via the Channel Tunnel has meant their delivery schedules are disrupted and so the ones that are operating are taking a cautious approach, delivering less often and smaller range of product.”
Waterstones has now resumed a full service of delivering to customers in Europe after removing the option when delivery partner Royal Mail suspended deliveries. However, many companies are still complaining of delays getting goods to the continent and into the country.
Karen Sullivan, founder and publisher of Orenda, said: “We have already noticed a huge delay in getting books to European bookshops, and this is definitely a big market for us. In the last week, we've had four calls from booksellers asking where the stock could be. Some have been waiting since well before Christmas. We post books out to a number of European publications, and the extra paperwork and cost, with no guarantee of speedy delivery, is immensely time-consuming and frustrating. One thing that has also been alarming is the fact that our staged payments to our European translators are costing triple the usual fee to send, which will add up dramatically.”
Sullivan also raised the potential costs of bringing authors over to the UK in the future. She said: “I am extremely worried about what the implications are going to be for bringing across our European authors ‚Äì definitely the mainstay of our marketing and publicity ‚Äì when this is possible.
“I heard that visas for a group of six musicians, for example, will cost upwards of £2,000. If this applies to writers, coming here to 'perform', we are likely to see far fewer festival invitations and opportunities. Right now, it's a headache none of us needs, when we are already struggling with the absence of bricks and mortar bookshops.”
Sara Hunt, publisher at Saraband, said Brexit had combined with Covid-19 to create a “challenging” climate for her firm. Saraband has avoided buying any print overseas in recent months to avoid port and border blockages but is now grappling with production-related problems at home, including a squeeze on print capacity.
Hunt said: “The combination of the extreme lateness of a deal before the year end, the chaos of publishers moving publication dates around in response to lockdowns, and some titles performing extremely strongly over the last few months and requiring repeated reprints has meant that capacity at the major UK printers has been a real problem. Add to that the fact that every publisher is vying for UK print capacity to avoid the borders problem.
“We've had longer than usual lead times and no quick turnarounds for reprints. Fortunately, printers have planned well for materials stocks, and so far we've been well protected from shortages. I would imagine there will be problems further down the line, though.
“Prices had already gone up at domestic printers for a combination of reasons, and I'd expect further rises will be likely because of materials logistics and extra admin.”