Nothing may have chilled British blood this fall as much as a comment made at Frankfurt Book Fair by Simon & Schuster chief Carolyn Reidy, who said that Brexit will mean “an end to Britain trying to grab Europe as an exclusive market.”
The concern ratcheted up just before the holidays when Bloomsbury chief Nigel Newton told the Guardian, “When Britain isn’t part of Europe, it is possible that it will become more of a shared market with American publishers, an ‘open market,’ as it is called,” in which UK publishers and authors would lose protected sales status in the eurozone.
In case you need some background: Because the UK is a member of the EU, UK publishers have locked in exclusive rights in Europe for their UK authors, meaning that only British-produced copies can be sold in the EU. And even when UK publishers are working with US authors, they generally have imposed a holdback of at least eight weeks in Europe—meaning that American publishers couldn’t sell those titles in Europe until the British copies had enjoyed a two-month head start. Similar exclusivity arrangements have also been extended in Commonwealth markets, such as India.
This is important to the UK publishing industry, because more than a third of the UK’s £1.2 billion (US$1.6 billion) in book sales reportedly are made in the European marketplace. The UK’s Publishers Association has made no secret of its plan to seek what its chief, Stephen Lotinga, calls “a deal [for] the fullest possible access to our largest single market.”
Some players in the US industry now say they can envisage a post-Brexit court challenge in Europe that, if successful, could erode the UK’s contractual exclusivity. In terms of the financial heft and incentive required, could Amazon be the most logical party to mount such a challenge?
New York–based agent Donald Maass tells The Hot Sheet, “If European sales are aggressively pursued by Amazon, and if European courts override author contracts with UK publishers, then the ultimate effect of Brexit for US authors may be that they’ll have to choose between having a US or a UK publisher, but not both. Regardless, US authors and agents are bound to feel even greater pressure than now to grant world English rights in book contracts.”
What we hear from UK agents is thoughtful caution on all fronts. Juliet Mushens at London’s Caskie Mushens says, “I suspect, in the short term, that Europe will continue to be claimed by the UK where it’s a UK-originated author, and as open market where it’s the US deal done first and a US author. As British agents, the idea of selling world English rights to the US is anathema. The US—and UK—constantly make territory grabs in contracts anyway, whether it’s arguing that South Africa shouldn’t be considered British Commonwealth, or that Canada is part of the traditional UK grant of rights. It’s down to the agent to make a judgment call.”
Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander sees the “pragmatic argument” prevailing for authors, who know that “UK publishers pay higher export royalties [called the home rate] than American publishers.” As the UK joined the EU, she says, “There was a valid legal argument … that if American editions were available anywhere else in the European market then the UK would become indefensible.” Even as things shift, she says, “I myself doubt that Amazon would challenge territorial rights in European courts—and they would be unwise to do so, as I don’t see European courts overturning existing, perfectly valid contracts.”
Agent Andrew Lownie has an interesting concept to offer: “Clearly the neatest solution,” he says, “is for US publishers to have Canada in return for UK publishers having exclusive Europe. The naïve hope is that post-Brexit we can simply go back to the territorial situation and acquisition policies that existed before” the advent of the European Free Trade / Economic Area. Over time, however, as Lownie says, a “territorial creep by US publishers” and the UK’s traditional view of Europe as its market have hardened the lines.
Curtis Brown’s Gordon Wise is eloquent in his defense of the British stance: “As Brexit itself seeks to demonstrate, it is a fallacy to think that the European political union is analogous with Europe as a market. Even without a formal Union [membership for the UK], the publisher best placed to service a market is going to be the one that succeeds in trading there—and that includes best compensation for its suppliers, in this case the author.” Wise uses the UK’s Commonwealth contracts to strengthen his case. “The Commonwealth is not a formal political union in the sense of the EU, but is a network of countries and markets where longstanding supply chains have shown that British publishers have effective distribution that is also profitable for authors.”
Bottom line: As the intricate headaches of the Brexit negotiations between the EU and UK grind onward—and with Europe’s Central Bank claiming a fourth year of growth for the eurozone in 2017—Europe’s markets look only more attractive. So we expect to see our British colleagues hold on tightly—and our US colleagues just as energetically try to pry some daylight between the UK and Europe. As Lownie in London puts it, “Going back to how things were would require the clock to be turned back over far more than the UK’s membership in the European Economic Area. Additionally, far more publishers are ‘global’ now than was the case in the early 1990s, and there are clear commercial benefits in a ‘group’ acquisition of world rights—or rather cheaper to do so both in terms of advance and royalties.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
