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Publishers and retailers need to better understand each others businesses in order to improve a "broken" bookselling model, trade figures have said following this week's Booksellers Association Conference.
Industry collaboration was a key theme of the event, held at the University of Warwick on 16th–17th September, with BA president Patrick Neale urging delegates to recognise that "[booksellers and publishers'] relationship cannot, and must not, be adversarial. In partnership there is power".
For the first time at the conference the heads of the three trade bodies—the BA's Neale, the Publishers Association president Ursula Mackenzie and the Society of Authors chair Lindsey Davis—sat together on the podium to raise crucial issues together.
Julia Kingsford, c.e.o. of World Book Night, said: "All I ever hear from publishers is a desire to support booksellers but I think it's not clear on either side what the most valuable way of doing that is. The thing I took away from the conference is that it is crucial that publishers and booksellers understand each others businesses much better—primarily so that they can ask for more achievable things." She added that bundling physical books with a digital copy was "the absolute silver bullet for how we make it all work—it's what consumers want".
Tim Walker, owner of Walkers Bookshops, said that publishers needed to help make selling books a more profitable business for indies. Research cited at the conference found those retailers who only sell books are only just breaking even as a consequence of low margins. "Publishers appear to be understanding that the model of bookselling is broken," he said. "If the publishers are looking to move the industry forward and looking to increase the number of books in circulation, we need to make it profitable for people to sell books."
Sam Husain, Foyles c.e.o., said consignment stock was an issue "very close" to his heart. "We are increasingly becoming bookselling showrooms and I think that is a model that needs to be supported. If we got the much more expensive books on consignment it would be a very direct help. It doesn't necessarily mean book sales will drop. We need to get this across to publishers: if we stock more books, we could sell more books."
Kate Gunning, key account manager for independents at Random House, reiterated an oft-raised point from the conference in saying that a strong, direct point of contact needed to be forged between publishers and indie booksellers. "The importance of the publishers rep and the role of that rep came through very clearly— they are a lynchpin," she said.
Gunning also backed Mackenzie's proposal that publishers should directly support booksellers by providing advice and core stock guidance for genres they may not have in-depth knowledge on, such as the Sci-fi & Fantasy and Mind, Body & Spirit sectors.
SoA chair Davis said that authors wanted a more direct relationship with booksellers, but haven't always felt that was something they could get: "I suppose a part of it might be publishers having to think about money. They have been asking: ‘Is it worth us sending out authors?'
"But they can't measure success on the basis of money taken that night on the till. They are investing in the future," Davis added. Lucy Hale, sales and marketing director at Hodder, said that "being able to communicate effectively about author tours" was a key point she had taken from the conference.