Large Print Publishing as a Sausage Machine

All the specialist large print publishers in the UK are only interested in selling to the public library market, and they all have some incentive scheme to make ordering easy.

For example if you commit to buy one copy of each WF Howes title for a year (19 titles a month) you will make a saving of 20%; Ulverscroft offer a similar scheme whereby you can save 10% or 15%. AudioGo offer something similar.

The consequence of such schemes might be good for the publisher, and might make the librarian’s job easier, but they also have a number of adverse consequences.

Libraries have different demographics just as bookshops do, and family sagas might sell better in one part of the country than another.

The element of choice is taken out of the librarian’s hands. They just take what is offered.

With budget restrictions, a commitment to such an incentive plan might mean that the whole budget is placed with, say, Ulverscroft, rather than spread amongst the publishers. For example under one of the Ulverscroft schemes you can purchase £9,807 worth of large print books for £8,336 (624 books).  I am certain you could make a more interesting and appealing selection by picking and choosing amongst other publishers.

With a guaranteed sale, there is no incentive for the publisher to publish at the most appropriate time. For example when Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol was eagerly awaited in 2009 it was published on both sides of the Atlantic on the same day in September 2009, in time for Christmas. In America, the large print edition was published on the same day, and in the UK the unabridged audiobook version was published on that day. However, the UK large print edition was published the following February, long after the reviews had appeared and interest had subsided.

It would be good to see librarians fight back and opt to use their expertise and training to select the most appropriate titles for their library.

About one third of the 25,000 titles on our website are POD (print on demand) titles which means that they are published by someone other than the main large print publishers. This number is growing and comprises books published in large print by literary agents doing the best for the literary estates that they represent; backlist titles for which there is enduring interest – eg ReadHowYouWant issued two PD James backlist titles late last year as a test with a view to bringing the rest of her output into print (A Certain Justice and The Murder Room); the enduring out of copyright classics, such as Dickens, Hardy and Austen and, just out of copyright, The Great Gatsby, a book which regularly features in lists of favourites, and for which a major film is about to be released.

Less than 1.5% of new titles are published in large print. One day mainstream publishers will realise that they can do their own large print editions (using POD technology) for some of the 98.5% of books that are not currently published in large print and that these titles could sell just as well as any for which they sell rights.

For example, for the past few years we check books shortlisted for prestigious prizes, be they the Man Booker, the Orange, the Daggers, etc and the vast majority of titles shortlisted are never published in large print.

There could be worthwhile pickings for the mainstream publishers and great benefits for the 5% of the reading public who cannot read conventional print.