Bookbuyer's
Bookend
It is no secret that British publishers are facing one of the most testing periods in their entire history. Their problems at home are no more or less critical than those of other industries, but their problems overseas, where exports constitute over 40 per cent of their total turnover, are increasing all the time. In the so-called 'open' markets — that is, Europe and South America — where British and American publishers sell competing editions of the same book, the traditional British price advantages are disappearing as production costs rise faster here than across the Atlantic. In those areas where British editions have enjoyed exclusive territorial 'rights' — Pakistan, India and Singapore, for instance — their supremacy is gradually being eroded by the surruptitious infiltration of American editions through West Coast jobbers. And in the key English-speaking markets — in particular Australia which is virtually "closed" to American publishers — there are moves afoot to wrest them from British dominance.
Hardly the time, you might think, for the Post Office to raise overseas 'printed paper' rates so as to make them higher than American postal rates for the first time ever. But that is exactly what the Post Office has done.
British books and periodicals account for an annual turnover of £150 million, well over one per cent of all British exports. They are, as the book trade has always been quick to point out, an important force in British cultural and intellectual influence throughout the world; other trade, it has always been said, follows the book. So far the Post Office Users Council appears to have ignored protestations over this aspect of the increases which came into effect this summer. The Secretary of State for Industry has twice refused to meet book trade representatives to discuss the matter. Another case, perhaps, in which some gentleman of the back benches may care to take an interest.
One American paperback publisher clearly anxious to gain access to Australia is Avon, the go-getting subsidiary of the Hearst organisation. It therefore comes as little surprise to learn that they are currently more than slightly interested in acquiring the London-based Tandem Books which is owned by another American company, Universal Publishers and Distributors. Though not the most literary of publishers (their recent successes include The Happy Hooker) Tandem are quietly holding their own as one of the younger and smaller British paperback firms. Acquisition of Tandem would put Avon in a rather special position since the other two American paperback houses in London — Corgi and, ironically, New English Library — have both retained a strong degree of independence. Avon, on the other hand, would almost certainly regard Tandem as an integral part of their own operation and as a convenient passport to the much-coveted Commonwealth markets.
According to Bookend's New York sources, Avon's editorial whizz-kid Peter Mayer offered £100,000 for Tandem, a figure which appears to have earned him the coldest of cold shoulders. The man who paid 808,090 dollars for the US paperback rights of Watership Down will have to try a bit harder than that. Bookbuyer has a feeling lie will.
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