There have been a lot of comments about why the Kindle and the Sony Reader are not making more inroads into Europe. Well, I just came across two articles in The Bookseller that indicate that it may not be so easy for a US bookseller to do business in Europe. Perhaps one of our European readers can leave a comment and give us some background about just what is going on here.
First article is “Turf Wars: 2 years on“. The arguments between US and UK publishers over European rights could be reignated after the UK Publishers Association revealed that it was actively pursuing “several” cases where US books had been sold in the UK, while Simon & Schuster president and chief executive Carolyn Reidy dismissed the claims used by British publishers to gain exclusive rights in Europe as “specious”.
Second article is “Publishers to challenge rights hegemony“. Publishers from Canada, Australia and New Zealand have voted to pursue closer cooperation between the three English-language markets at a special summit held in Frankfurt, with one aim to challenge the dominance of the two largest English-language markets, the United Kingdom and United States.
Clearly there is a lot going on here that we in the US don’t understand, and I suspect it must be having an impact on getting the Kindle and Sony Reader introduced into Europe.
I am not sure about all the background on the way the book empire is carved up, but I do know that pre internet and the ability to order things on-line we seemed to be very restricted about books being released in Australia. There were also some changes to laws in the early 90’s to allow retailers to source from alternate suppliers if books were not being released etc, but, as I said I am certainly no expert.
Of course, with the advent on on-line ordering the public voted with its credit card and now order what they want from anywhere. Consequently book shops are now disappearing. As we were charged outrageous prices, made to wait months and given a choice of rubbish or more rubbish, I might say most of them deserved it. However I am a nice person so I won’t (Ha!)
The whole concept of national rights does become increasingly difficult to enforce in the world of eBooks. In general, I request global rights for all books I publish because I offer eBooks without regard for the buyer’s location. With the relatively weak dollar, many of my sales have come from outside the US. Of course, a number of my authors also come from outside the US.
I understand where the publishers are coming from, and I can certainly understand why a UK publisher who paid some large advance for UK rights would want the whole European market to attempt to recover that advance (just as the US publisher would want the Europe market to help recover their own advance). Increasingly, I think the concept of regional publishers has to go away, though. (Except where translation is required).
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
Just to say that the Sony Reader is available in Europe, but with limited stock. Waterstones bookshop sells it in the UK bu there is now a waiting list. I bought one so know the box is printed in French and German as well as English. No date for Germany though. I
The biggest challenge in the European advancement of e-readers is the geographical diversity of the mobile wireless access networks. In the US, there is a single carrier signed up, which enables country-wide access. In Europe with as many countries as the US has states and different carriers operating in each, it’s a challenge. If you buy a Kindle in Germany and want it to work across borders, the networks need to work together. At the moment that’s not the case, but I’ve heard it should be early 2009.