REFRESH FOR NEW POSTS. NEWEST CONTENT AT THE END
09.25 – The conference has begun with the Bookseller Only AGM section. The conference proper will kick off in about 10 minutes (assuming all goes to plan).
09.50 – Here come the Angry Men!
09.55 – Matt Cooper – Opens the show by thanking booksellers for prominently displaying their books and selling so many of them!
10.05 – Pat Leahy – Bertie Ahern model was a political model that put immediate gain ahead of long term and medium term planning for the country!
10.10 – Pat Leahy – Consequences of the model go far beyond the destruction of the Fianna Fail party. Faith in the idea of a polity has been destroyed. But there is a positive; real appetite for reform, real and profound reform.
10.15 – Fintan O’Toole – Talks about how the maps we use to place ourselves in the world have been destroyed by the crisis in our economy, politics and globally.
10.16 – Fintan O’Toole – Optimism about the recovery of the Irish economy are, like news of Mark Twain’s death, greatly exaggerated
10.20 – Fintan O’Toole: From the political collapse of the 1890s Ireland experienced a period of amazing cultural flowering: Lady Gregory, Yeats, Abbey, etc. This actually could be a very exciting time, if you can hold on!
10.25 -Matt Cooper – wouldn’t start from here says Matt Cooper as he opens to the floor for questions!
Q1: Any combination of politicians or parties that Fintan might have faith in?
Fintan O’Toole – Two contradictory things to say: 1) System has failed us and 2) it remains absolutely necessary. Can’t change without engaging with political system. Doesn’t believe Kenny represents a fundamental alternative to FF. To paraphrase, Fintan sees the need for a re-alignment to RIGHT/LEFT divide!
Matt Cooper – Thinks it’s shocking that Coughlan was made Minister for Education. Sticks the boot in! Our government hasn’t grasped how big the crisis is.
Q2: Is Haughey turning in his grave?
Fintan O’Toole – Haughey’s legacy is to get and hold power and see national interest as their own interest!
Matt Cooper – Charles Haughey was a cancer in Irish society, in what he did.
Q3: Boston Vs Berlin. Why do we concentrate on American instead of Europe?
Pat Leahy – European Commissions role in budget approval hasn’t been debated enough. Look at what they did to Greece, forced them to squeeze the public sector more.
Fintan O’Toole – Real problem is that European Union is too weak.
Q4: What about the unreality of the Public Sector Unions?
Fintan O’Toole – It’s about fairness. [Talks about how it isn't fair to reduce the wages of the low paid and to leave the higher paid alone!]
Q5: What would you do if in charge of the morning?
All three pretty much avoid answering this!
Q6: What happened to the money?
Matt Cooper – A lot of it never existed. It was based on values that were never realised.
Fintan O’Toole – A lot of it is off shore. If someone got pad 400 million for the Glass Bottle Site, someone got 400 million.
Pat Leahy – period of FF as natural party of government is ending! Not sure that FF has psychologically accepted it!
Matt Cooper – Brings it to a close by pushing their paperbacks! Good work, great applause!
11.00 – And it’s coffee time!
11.30 – Up now, Julie Meynink from Nielsen with “The State Of The Market”
Julie Meynink
- Overall market by 8.8million driven by trade non-fiction which was down over 9million!
- Trade Non-Fiction down -5.2% and remains largest segment at about 41%
- Adult Fiction 30% of overall market +7.3% in 2009! Children’s – 4.5 m units, (+13.6%)
- Value sales down 5.3% but volume up 4.4% ASP 10.75
- Long Tail effect Top 1000 now only 33% in 2009 versus 37.1% in 2005
- Top Ten Publishers losing share 2005 – 62.9% and ion 57% in 2009
11.43 – Julie Meynink
- Hachette up (Some divisions had different fortunes).
- Penguin Ireland up by 12.6% despite Penguin as a whole being down.
- Faber Up (Ship of Fools)
- Folens Up
- Publishers 11-20 make up about 10% of over marketplace
- Quercus and Paragon had good years both up.
- Harlequinn saw strong growth on their Mira list!
- Bad year for O’Brien
11.45 – Julie Meynink
- AC Nielsen Grocery data showing stores visited interesting!
- 32% shopped in one store in 2005 but only 8% shop in one store in 2009. That’s huge!
- Is that value searching?
- In 2005 only 1% shopped online, in 2009 33% of people shopped online.
11.47 – Julie Meynink
- RRP has declined over time but nothing like the actual selling price has €12.60 in 2007 down to €10.75 in 2009. The Sterling impact discussed!
11.50 – Julie Meynink
- Trade Non-Fiction in Value Terms Hardback and Paperback are both down.
- But Volume of Hardback is slower decline than paperback.
- But Hardback ASP is dropping faster than paperback ASP.
- Biography down €2.1m
- Travel down €2.1m
- The Arts down €1m
- Sports the only of the top ten trade non-fiction to see an increase.
11.58 -11.45 – Julie Meynink
- On To Fiction & Childrens
- Literary Fiction down.
- Christmas down 2.7m driven by Trade Non-Fiction down 2.4m
- How does Ireland compare?
- Ireland only place that see such pronounced volume growth but value decline.
12.05 – Julie Meynink
- How has the year panned out so for in 2010?
- Not good news YTD: Value -9.3% and Volume -5.4%
Some great questions to Julie, the Twitter feed records most of it!
12.20 – Bookselling Through The Recession
Chaired by Eoin McHugh of Transworld Ireland
Fergal Toibin – Gill & Mcamillan
Will Atkinson – Faber & Faber
Michael McLoughlin – Penguin Ireland (Up first)
Michael McLoughlin steps up and rolls DK’s Future of Publishing Video:
Michael McLoughlin
- change will come here!
Michael McLoughlin
- Harlequin sell 1 million romance books each month in japan for reading in mobiles!
- Penguin’s internal minimum for % digital sales of whole in 5 years times is 15%
Michael McLoughlin
- Over the last five years the number of Irish publisher books in the top 1000 has moved from 20% -30%. – This even excludes Irish Authors published by UK houses!
Michael McLoughlin
- Publishers can’t wait another year or two, everything is changing so fast.
- This Autumn first digital Christmas, the question is how big is it going to be?
Will Atkinson from Faber & Faber is up now
Will Atkinson
- Irish business is healthy, classic case of people reading more in times of hardship.
- He is Exploring how Irish booksellers can respond to change and say that the war will be won on recommendation and selection!
- Apple is a Deathstar. No friend of the Music Industry. Could trample over our industry without really thinking about it.
- Google has no upside for retailers, big upside for publishers and that can create a conflict of interests.
Great stuff from Will!
And here is Fergal Toibin of Gill & Macmillan
Fergal is talking leisure patterns in the US, the Parthaneon report for the AAP, between 1984 and 2004 reading declined by 50%
Fergal Toibin
- 40-45% of people never buy a book in a given year.
- The % that buy ten books or more is in single figures!
- Books are dangerously close to being an elite consumer good.
– doesn’t want to talk about Google, but the implications of the Google Book Settlement for international copyright law are pretty profound.
- Across Europe books sold 24 Billion in value in 2008. Bigger than America!
– STM, Education and chunks of the Trade will certainly migrate towards digital. Nobody knows for sure what % will shift!
- Think of a book as a piece of technology that has advantages over digital just as digital has advantages over it!
And It’s lunch-time, sponsored by Hachette!
Diarmuid Gavin was the lunch time speaker. He is releasing an autobiography this year.
From now on the sessions are targeted at the Booksellers, streamlining their businesses and such like so I have stepped away. Hope you enjoyed the coverage!
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5 Comments
Thanks for sharing this, makes very interesting and informative reading, also makes the million hours a year I spend writing fiction questionable!
Great stuff as always Eoin.
Interesting figures – I take it there was a real emphasis on publishers adapting and preparing for change?
Hi Gareth,
There sure was. I think some of the bookshops wanted something a bit more bookshop oriented! Nearly every one of the publishers thought they would survive the change which I found interesting.
Eoin
Excellent coverage! Only one publisher uttered the buzz word “disintermediation” and I think this was the only talk I’ve heard nationally or internationally on the future of publishing which didn’t envisage booksellers being at the forefront of the casualty list. That said, I’ve only seen one publisher talk about how the publishing world is at serious risk and he was a pragmatic Dutch guy – but then, they have far superior broadband coverage. Maybe our poor infrastructure will save the publishing industry!
Thanks Samantha!
It was a great discussion.
I’m personally sceptical about the likelihood of publishers surviving in anything like their current shape!
Eoin