István Bart
The Establishment, Operation and Function of Trade Organisations in the Advancement of the Publishing Industry

Publishers’ associations are a form of trade organisation, which can be defined as apolitical and comprehensive bodies (with the largest possible membership), protecting only the common interests of the trade they represent with every authority, whose actions influence the conditions under which their members operate. By necessity they represent not only their members, but always speak for the whole (and in this case, book) trade.

Only legal bodies such as companies signing and accepting the statutes of the association can become members; individuals do not have the capacity for membership of a trade organisation. The companies’ managers, rather than their owners, constitute the general assembly, the highest decision making body of the association. Each member has one vote; the assembly elects a president and the members of the board. Various committees may be set up to deal with specific issues, the most important of which is a “trading ethics committee” aimed at safeguarding fair practices. It is advisable to employ a secretary equipped perhaps with a small staff, whose role would mostly be administrative, but who can also be designated professional lobbyist.

Adequate membership fees should be collected in order to ensure the unconditional independence of the association (see Finances). Membership fees are usually calculated according to the turnover of each member, but in cases where its evaluation causes difficulties, there are various alternatives available. In any case, the equality of members should be protected.

In most countries publishers and booksellers form different associations, as their business interests clearly differ. Yet they can obviously only function properly in close co–operation with each other: the establishment and enforcement of fair trading practices is the common interest of both publishers and booksellers. Acknowledging this, in some countries (notably Germany) publishers and booksellers form a joint trade association (with two semi–independent branches for publishers and booksellers). In countries with a relatively short tradition of trade associations, it may be advisable to follow this model. This is also due to the fact that in most cases they are also countries endowed with a tradition of strong government involvement in the book–business. Therefore only a unified association can be representative enough to offer credible co–operation to the authorities.

In some countries, where publishing and printing tend to intermingle (particularly in countries where printing is scarce) both structurally and on the personal or ownership level, printing companies may also become members on the strength of their publishing interests. In the long run, however, printers will necessarily have to set up their own trade association, just as printing and publishing will ultimately have to part ways, due to their fundamentally different, even conflicting business interests and different authorities for their partners.

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Apart from describing the association’s structure and its projected roles, the most important part of the statutes is a “Code of Business Conduct”, usually a relatively long, separate document to be adopted by the Assembly. This text details what is understood by a book, a bookseller (wholease or retail), the price, various trade–discounts, the ownership of copies in the shops, and so forth. Most importantly, it also describes the making of recommendations under fair trading practices for trade terms and even supplying model–contracts.

The “Code” should be based upon the relevant laws of the state, while simultaneously going beyond them – without becoming contradictory to them – according to the needs of the book–trade. Thus, as a quasi–legal document, it should be countersigned as part of the bylaws of the association by a judge registering the organisation, or by the “Office of Fair Practices” in the Ministry of Trade.

As the publishers’ association’s quasi–constitution, the “Code” is a summary of the common commercial and trading interests of the whole book–trade as understood by the members. It follows to say that the signature and adoption of the “Code” is the most important pre–requisite of membership.

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The publishers’ association’s decisions are binding only to its members, which provides another reason to recruit the largest possible membership, while not compromising any of the principles it is based upon. The only sanction it can apply to enforce them is ostracism, and even this should only be used with the greatest caution; in other words, the effectiveness of a trade–organisation is essentially based upon the mutual solidarity of its members, as dictated by their common interests.

The more comprehensive -- and thus strong and unified -- the association is, and the more functions (marketing, trade–magazine, trade–fair, mediator with the government) it undertakes, the more weight its decisions will carry, even if based only on a semi–legal document.

Infringements of the “Code” are handled by the “Ethics Committee”, which is to be elected by a large majority in the Assembly. Selection should derive from a pool of managers of universally respected, powerful and independent companies – publishers and booksellers alike – whose reputations can give weight to their decisions. This Committee functions as a kind of “Law Court” within the association, and publishes its rulings in the trade–magazine.

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Every effort should be made by each publishers’ association to establish an organ responsible for a trade magazine, published at regular intervals to facilitate regular communication among all the actors of the book–trade. The magazine will assist in co-ordinating and documenting public opinion within the association, hence providing the leadership with an agenda for its work. It will also serve to supply members with useful information, publish (paid!) advertisements for the trade, yet serve at the same time as a marketing tool directed towards the public.

Another role for the trade–magazine may be to become a current “bibliographical registry” (to be supported by the government), collecting and supplying much needed data not only for booksellers and the public, but also for statistical and bibliographical purposes. This is of particular importance during the transformation period as in most countries the book–trade is much better informed of what is being published than any official organisation.

The magazine can also function as a continuous, quasi-“books–in–print” list, until a proper registry of available books can be published. Thus it serves as another indispensable marketing tool for booksellers to be edited and published by the publishers’ association.

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No publishers’ association can function without an office to run its affairs both administratively and intellectually, that is to say, actively working on the preparation and formulation of decisions and propositions). Such an office will have to be financed by the organisation’s financial means.

Apart from collected membership fees (the summation of which is probably inadequate for the task), other sources of support will have to be discovered, for example:

• the office may have to earn money independently by selling its services to the trade (at a reduced rate to members). This could include, for example, the organisation of joint marketing efforts (e.g. publishing free sheets for the public), of trade–fairs (the most effective marketing tool of all), the publication of a trade–magazine (for the trade itself and probably the public as well);
• the possibilities of gaining financial support from the government should also be explored, although such help will in many cases carry threats to the independence of the organisation. To waylay such dangers, it is advisable to avoid direct subsidies in favour of support for specific purposes (e.g. organisational costs of trade–fairs, or data–collection for statistical and bibliographical purposes).

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In short, the most important function of the association is to define the common interests of the trade, which it will endeavour to represent both within and without the association, even against individual members’ particular interests. This function should stand as the general aim of the organisation, manifest in several other objectives to be kept as high priority on the agenda. For example, the most important task of any book–trade organisation is to protect the freedom to publish. Incidentally, this is best achieved by a unified and representative organisation, which is able to enlist the support of public opinion (another reason for an organ to be published by the trade), and to join forces with writers’ and journalists’ associations.

In addition, the greatest common issue for the whole trade is the promotion of reading. Moreover, this is an area in which all interests within and outside the trade converge; it is therefore singularly suited for co-operation among the trade, libraries, schools and government agencies. Promoting reading also builds between the various participants in the trade a mutual confidence, on the basis of which further propositions can be made. While a reading campaign can only be funded by the government, the initiative should be taken by the book–trade itself, as this will make it possible for the publishers’ association to shape the forms of the campaign in order that they strengthen business.

In most ex–socialist countries, where the government plays a decisive role in the life of the book–trade (to mention only the issue of text–book provision), it is very important for the publishers’ association to offer its services as a consultative body, to formulate alternative solutions to problems, and also to raise issues for legislation (copyright, book–policies, subsidies, etc.). To be able to do so, it must build an organisation representative of the entire trade, with clear policies of its own; in other words, it has to transform itself into a lobbying organisation.

Another important role the association has to play within the trade is the development of the bookmarket. This is done most effectively by:

1. the establishment, adoption and enforcement of the Code of fair commercial practices;
2. the creation of various marketing tools for the industry:

• the concentration of joint marketing efforts (the publication of free–sheets to inform the public of book–campaigns, the organisation of reading–campaigns, negotiating the creation of book–programs on national TV, etc.);
• the organisation of a „National Book–Week” (jointly with the writers’ organisation, but essentially a trade–fair), when a large concentration of new titles will attract the attention of the media; the organisation of short but intensive „cut–price campaigns”, so that such marketing efforts do not interfere with normal trading;
• the publication of a trade–journal (see above);

the creation of bibliographical services (probably with government help) and a books–in–print list (listing available titles), or other means of providing information on books being published (notably the introduction of the ISBN service).

1. the safeguarding of quality in publishing, thereby protecting the interests of the general reading public as well. This is best achieved by the organisation of professional training of editors and booksellers, marketing experts, and also by the provision of training in the finances of a company for managers, where needed.

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Book–subsidies constitute the most delicate issue that publishers’ associations in ex–socialist countries are faced with. Associations must demand a decisive role for themselves in the shaping of the state’s book–policies, based upon their unique expertise in the publishing and bookselling process. They must also convince the government (or any independent body) that, due to governmental responsibilities for building a country’s intellectual life via the provision of books, it cannot bypass the book–trade itself. Rather, the government should use the services the associations are able to provide, and the association should emphasise that only the strengthening of the business–side carries the promise for a future in which subsidies can ultimately be removed. To be able to play a meaningful role, publishers’ associations will have to cast their own policies for book–support, which serve also the interests of the whole book–trade.

It is important to make (government) agencies understand that the ultimate aim of supporting publishing (and bookselling) is the creation of an economically strong industry in the long run, which will be capable of functioning without subsidies. In other words, book–support is not an end in itself, but is to be structured so as to serve as part of the process toward the above goal. For the time being in most ex–socialist, small–market countries subsidies remain indispensable for quality publishing. Their removal would result in the scarcity of books (either in the hands of students or on the market) for higher-level education and for the further development of certain academic fields. As fachbuch and teaching material intermix, this will be increasingly apparent at higher levels of the field.

Furthermore, it is not the size of the population speaking the language, but the number of students in a particular academic field that defines the need for subsidies and the purchasing power of the public, the student population and the academic community. Therefore, the first decision for the body deciding about subsidies to make, is to define the areas where they want to be active. The selection of academic fields (and in the cases of certain internationally active bodies, the selection of languages and countries as well) is clearly a political act, subject to a list of priorities drawn up by policy makers and made under auspices entirely outside publishing.

When it comes to spending the money, the committees are faced with a very simple, but crucial dilemma: which point in the system is more suitable than any other for the money to be invested in? This can be best decided by assessing the effects that subsidies have on different points of entry. Where there is very little or no intellectual, scholarly or publishing and bookselling infrastructure, the main aim of such intervention will have to be the building of this infrastructure (manifest in publishers and bookstores) through support given directly to the actual production of the books. This will cast the supporting body in a particularly authoritative role, as it will be making decisions on everything from subject to author, publisher to recipient.

Where the necessary infrastructure exists but the general public’s, the students’ or institutions’ purchasing power is too low to upkeep the academic book industry, the supporting agencies’ decision will center around the selection of the recipients (consumers) and around the introduction of possible restrictions on the use of the money provided. This is typically the case in most ex–socialist countries, where publishers would be perfectly able to provide higher education with everything it needs in the way of books.

In most ex–socialist countries there are however some other aspects to be contemplated as well:

• the pre–existence of a wide and uniform state support system of subsidies which, though subject to political control (of which it was one of the means at the same time), was certainly able to provide very cheap books en masse. After its demolition it left behind unrealistic expectations in the whole population for affordable books;
• the demise of socialism and the subsidies’ system, together with privatization, brought about the collapse of the old publishing industry (bookselling included) and cleared the way for new publishers (and booksellers). The new generation had, however, one thing in common with surviving old companies: they all lacked the necessary capital for normal, business–like functioning, albeit for different reasons.
• In addition, the gradually impoverished (academic) community’s universal clamor for affordable books could not be ignored by the bodies charged with the task of supporting books (which meant supporting also an intellectual community playing an important role in the changing of the system). This state of affairs led to simple answers: in essence the previous system of book–subsidies was continued with little modification, merely under different auspices (e.g. foundations).

Direct support for production did serve a historic role, and was able to answer the most pressing problems in a very short period of time; it created a great number of new companies and started new traditions in publishing. It remains, however, a crude, centralized and exclusive system of the distribution of subsidies, becoming more and more counter–effective under the new conditions, unable even to recognize new challenges. One recommendation is for direct support to be replaced by a versatile and flexible system of consumer support, capable of fine–tuning the use of the money at disposal. Indeed, ten years after the political changes, with practically every condition – economic, structural and intellectual – altered in the book trade and at a time of thorough transformation in higher education, it is high time to rethink the support system.

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