Book fairs are fun. Today, was the Wolvercote Book Fair in north Oxford. A small local event, but I sold enough of my book to cover costs and have some enjoyable chats with other publishers, authors and booksellers. See does your library | Search Results | John Howson for details of my book of posts from this bog, available either from Amazon or direct from me by ordering through the comments section.
What struck me today, for the first time, while talking to authors, is that the current drop in the birth rate is going to make life harder for the book trade, and especially those selling into the markets for pre-readers and early readers. I guess that the big publishers will manage, but smaller publishers, and the growing market of self-publishers might notice fewer customers for their writing. However, I suspect that many authors in this market aren’t publishing to earn a living, but either as a side line or even, just because one can these days.
Between 2025 and 2030, the nursery and primary school population in England is expected to shrink by around 300,000, from 4.5 million to 4.3 million. When the latest estimates appear next month, this number may have grown even larger. Release home – National pupil projections – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK
Eventually, this downturn in pupil numbers will affect textbook sales and purchases by secondary school libraries, as the secondary school sector is also affected by falling student numbers. If, at the same time, school budgets come under pressure, and in order to support staffing costs, then anything related to pupil numbers, such as books and other resources, may well be high on the agenda for cuts in spending.
I wonder whether there is now a space for competition to Amazon as a publisher for the self-publishing market that is both easy to use and cost effective. Any scheme would need to cover both ebooks and physical books, and to allow for the downloading a copy at home by purchasers. This latter opportunity offsetting the postage and packing costs of a physical copy of a book with the cost of the paper and ink. Would it work, even if it is on paper and doesn’t look like a traditional book. Afterall, articles have been available on-line for years.
I have often wondered why schools, and especially MATs and local authorities, don’t do more to sell resources to each other. I know that some schools and colleges do so, but I wonder whether there is scope for more initiatives of this kind now that publishing is so easy. How about a publisher in residence, to sit alongside the artist and musicians in residence to encourage teachers and pupils to generate material for publication and use by others.
Finally, I was asked if I would produce a 100 best posts from the 13 years of the blog. Now there’s a though. No 1 most read post is the one about how much holiday do teachers really have? This was first published on May 30th 2002, and is still available to read.
John Howson 