Preparing for the EU: Publishing Training Needs

What training would publishers in the EU pre-accession countries like to be offered? Are they afraid of an electronic future? What do they think of the forthcoming EU membership? How do book sectors in these countries compare? These were the questions that drove an EU-sponsored study in 1999 into the publishing industries of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia entitled European Publishing Training Needs in the Information Society II (EPTNIS II).

The research showed that 80% of publishers currently publish in print, 1% electronically, and 18% do both. In total, therefore, almost 20% of publishers in the region are involved in electronic publishing.

The most commonly published genres are social science, where 49% of publishers are active and other academic material where 43% of publishers are active. Literature and textbooks are also commonly published by 39% and 38% of publishers, respectively. Science, technical and medical (STM) publications closely follow with 37% of publishers involved. Publishing for the consumer market is noticeably less common with sectors such as fiction at 29% and biographies at 26%. Thirteen percent of publishers publish cartographic products.

The areas where publishers want to increase their output are computer books, cinema and television, sports, maps and atlases, travel guides and business and management titles. Such preferences suggest that publishers mainly serve a broadly understood educational market with possibly substantial institutional buying.

Publishers are generally confident about their future with 53% of respondents convinced that they will grow next year.

Given the hypothetical question of how they would spend a budget of 25,000 Euro, the publishers’ first choice was “new products” (a mean of 2.54 on a scale of 1 to 3), which indicates that they have a potential for growth. Expenditure on marketing was next (2.33) followed by staff training (2.3), advertising (2.29), capital goods (2.18), market research (2.04), acquisitions (1.81) and finally management consultancy (1.71).

Very small publishers with an annual turnover of less than10,000 Euro constituted 13% of all respondents, 37% fell into a range between 10,000 and 100,000 Euro, and a further 32% between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Euro. Twelve percent have a turnover above, 1,000,000 Euro of which 9%, the majority, fell between 1-5, 000,000.

Twenty eight percent of publishers publish fewer than 10 titles a year and only 8% publish more than 100 titles a year. Sixty-two percent of respondents employed fewer than 10 people, 28% had between 11 and 50 of staff and 4% had between 51 and 100 employees. Only 4% employ more than 100 people.

The first, not very surprising finding is that little is being spent on publishing training. Thirty percent of respondents spent nothing on training in 1998, whilst 23% spent less than 250 Euro. Only 8% spent over 5,000 Euro. Understandably, larger publishers and those who prioritise electronic publishing are slightly more likely to spend more.

Currently, 35% of publishers are acquiring new skills through on-the-job training, or by recruiting them, particularly large publishers. Staff is trained internally at 33% of publishers, while 24% of them train their employees externally. However, 41% of respondents said that this was going to change in the next two years, while only 20% did not expect any change. Overall, 81% of publishers said that they need training while only 8% think that they do not need to learn anything new.

Exactly two-thirds of all respondents did not spend anything on training outside their own country, although it has to be said that this figure includes those publishers who did not spend anything at all. For 17% less than a half of their expenditure was incurred abroad, while 7% spent more than 75% of their training budgets outside their countries. Again, larger publishers and those who prioritise electronic publishing spend more abroad. There are no substantial differences between using training resources located within and outside the EU.

The vast majority of responding publishers, 76%, agreed that it was important that their companies had access to training resources abroad and 35% said it was important “to a great extent”.

Publishers participating in the research indicated which training areas should be catered for locally and which internationally. Comparing the usefulness of international vs. local training showed the following proved most suitable for international training: sales and marketing 41%/35%; financial 36%/14%, management 36%/29%; customer service and distribution 35%/31%; design 33%/22%. Local training would be better provided in editorial 19%/ 39%; legal 20%/ 35%; and production 22%/ 26%.

The most common sector to be published electronically (through CD-ROMs, discs and the Internet) are STM at 8% of the total, followed by academic material at 7% and textbooks at 6%, which suggests an institutional market.

Publishers were asked to state their future plans concerning multimedia publishing, and 46% said that they were currently unable to get involved. A further 19% had no plans to become involved in multimedia publishing. However a full 30% said that they had plans to publish electronically within a year. Although the figures are likely to be rather optimistic, they nevertheless highlight an important intention.

This positive attitude towards new media is also reflected in the opinion of 46% of respondents that their businesses would grow faster if they were to publish through new media. Only 10% disagreed with this statement.

With 77% respondents publishing electronically in their own languages it is hard to say that English dominates this sort of publishing. Thirty nine percent of respondents said they publish in English, 15% in German, 8% in other West European languages and 6% other East European languages. Russian cannot be seen as negligible with 4% of publishers publishing in it.

By far the biggest threats encountered by publishers who become involved in electronic publishing are lack of access to finance (a mean of 2.62 on a scale of 1 to 3) and piracy (2.60). Lack of market (2.38), insufficient business (2.11) or technical skills (2.02) follow. Interestingly, fear of either EU (1.94) or local competition (1.70) comes at the bottom of the list. Elsewhere publishers also identified lack of business partners as one of them most important problems here.

Publishers understand that new media will require a change in their working methods, which is indicated by the 83% of them who say so. Publishers with experience in this field as well as large publishers are more likely to think so.

The biggest change will be needed in the field of sales and marketing according to 56% of respondents. Fifty percent of publishers say they believe that creative editorial staff need to change or improve their skills. Customer service/distribution staff need to improve in the eyes of 43% respondents. Thirty-seven percent say that management needs to change or improve. Thirty-six percent say production needs to change or improve, 35% point to design, 21% to finance and 20% to legal departments.

Over half of publishers, 54%, agree that membership of the European Union would be an advantage, whilst just 7% see it as a threat. However, a good proportion, 36%, is unsure. This may indicate a lack of knowledge as to the possible consequences of membership.

On the whole the research has provided a rather optimistic picture of publishing in pre-accession countries. Publishers view new media positively. Their main problems in this field (lack of finance and lack of business contacts) provide at the same time an opportunity for growth in the case of successful business partnerships. Piracy, however, is a problem of a different sort and requires state intervention.

In the field of training, the very low expenditure shows the potential for future initiatives in this field. The preference for international training in some areas (mainly related to the business side of publishing) that was revealed should serve here as an encouragement for international ventures.

Lack of fear of EU membership should provide a fertile ground for both business partnerships matching the potential of companies located in the pre-accession countries and the EU member states, as well as successful co-operation between the EU and pre-accession countries in questions such as piracy or joint training projects.

The survey was conducted through self-filled questionnaires. Out of 2,306 questionnaires sent out 780 were returned representing a high response rate of 34%. This means that with the exception of Estonia, where only a few questionnaires were returned, the results are conclusive. Statistics quoted above have a 4% acceptable error and are at the 95% confidence level.

EPTNIS II country reports and an executive summary can be found at
<www.osi.hu/cpd/policyresources/leonardo/index_infosoc2.html>.