Few would deny the need for books at reasonable prices in the poorer coun-tries of the world, particularly when such books are required for educational, academic and professional purposes. But it should be borne in mind that licensing may not always be the best way of meeting this requirement. The resulting editions are frequently of poor production quality; the financial terms offered are low and sometimes limited by local legislation or banking restric-tions; the remittance of payment is slow, heavily taxed at source and sometimes may not be made at all. Worse still, licensed editions may leak out into other markets, further damaging sales of the original publisher’s edition or those of another licensee.
There may be alternative ways of providing low-price editions of the required books which do not require licensing, and these should certainly be investigated first on a case-by-case basis. For many years, British academic text-book publishers benefited from ELBS, the Educational Low-Priced Books Scheme funded by the Overseas Development Agency (ODA) of the British government, now the Department for International Development (DFID).
The scheme entitled publishers to produce special low-price English language editions of books accepted for the scheme in a special livery for sale to desig-nated developing countries, at a price of about one third of the original edition.
Availability of an ELBS edition was normally a valid reason for refusing a licence application from a country included in the scheme, and for fighting off the possibility of a compulsory licence. Unfortunately, a change in policy resulted in the termination of the scheme in 1997, although at the time of 156 Low-price reprint rights
writing there is a possibility that the present government may be persuaded to support a similar scheme entitled Access Books, but for sub-Saharan African countries only.
The Low-Priced British Books Scheme (LPBB), initiated by the British government Know-How Fund in 1992 as a means of enabling publishers to supply selected titles in the areas of economics, management and business English to the countries of central and eastern Europe, terminated in 1998.
This was followed by the British Books for Managers translation subsidy scheme (BBM) funded by DFID and administered by Education for Change (17A Christopher Street, London EC2A 2BS; tel. 0207 247 3370; www.efc.
co.uk), which facilitated the licensing of translations of business titles to Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); see also Chapter 16. This terminated in 2001.
There are, however, some other possibilities:
1 British academic textbook publishers set up a trust in the form of a regis-tered charity in December 1996, initially under the name of Educational Low-Priced Sponsored Texts (ELST) . This has now been succeeded by BookPower (120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN; tel. 0207 843 1938;
www.BookPower.org). Intended as a partial replacement for the ELBS, it is dependent on adequate funding and to date only a small range of titles have been offered.
2 International Student Editions (ISEs). These are low-price editions produced by the publisher without the benefit of an outside subsidy. Again, they are often produced in a recognizable livery. They are priced at approx-imately half the price of the original edition, and are sold in developing and newly emerging countries. They may be printed on slightly lower-grade paper and in a different binding from that of the original edition.
Both author and publisher take a lower return on such copies.
3 In recent years, the use of India as a print location by a number of western publishers led to the possibility of supplying low-cost editions to that market by printing in the Export Processing Zone (EPZ). The western publisher could print a designated quantity and could either deliver the whole run to an approved Indian wholesaler for sale at a low price to service that market (usually using a separate ISBN from the original edition) or supply an agreed quantity to the wholesaler as part of a larger run undertaken in the EPZ. A change to India’s Foreign Trade Policy in May 2006 was aimed at precluding such details and is being contested.
4 Sheet or book block deals. A further alternative would be the sale of sheets or book blocks printed by the original publisher to a local associate company or distributor in the country concerned, for local binding. This can be suitable for a title where the quality of illustration is crucial.
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These possibilities have the advantage of keeping the printing of the book under the control of the original publisher rather than a licensee, thus main-taining a reasonable standard of production. The return per copy will also be higher than a royalty paid on a licensed edition. It should also be remembered that granting a local reprint licence may affect the interests not only of the original publisher by immediately terminating sales of the original edition to the market; it may also affect the interests of other licensees. Some paperback publishers specify that the original publisher should not grant a low-price reprint licence to India without first obtaining clearance from the paperback publisher.
It is vital to recognize that when dealing with these countries no licence should simply be granted automatically, because of the possible consequences.
These are markets where it is extremely inadvisable for rights staff in a publishing house to operate in isolation.
Whenever licence applications are received from such sources, it is vital to consult export sales colleagues handling the markets concerned, and also to check if there are already low-price editions available under a scheme such as BookPower, or if an ISE is available or planned. Equally, staff responsible for submitting books for inclusion in such schemes (usually export sales staff) should consult rights staff beforehand to check if any licences have been granted or are under negotiation that might affect inclusion of a title in the scheme.
There should be further liaison if titles are withdrawn from the schemes or if new editions are submitted.
In markets where there are subsidiary companies or local distributors, these representatives may be able to assist, perhaps by importing copies of the original edition to sell at a special low price in the market, or by themselves acquiring local reprint rights. Certainly, it would be disastrous to license rights to a third party without consulting them, as their sales will be affected.
If it can be shown that a low-price edition is already available in the market or that one is planned, a compulsory licence application can usually be fore-stalled. However, if there is no alternative but to license, care must be exercised in choosing a suitable licensee, who may well be someone other than the applicant seeking the licence. A number of considerations should be taken into account: the ability of the licensee to produce the book to as high a standard as local circumstances will permit (the purchase of duplicate production material is often too expensive for these markets; if electronic files can be supplied at a low cost, it is essential that the licensee is reliable); the ability to promote and distribute the book effectively; reliability in remitting pay-ment; and the ability to control the edition within the designated market (a clear market restriction notice should be required both on the cover and inside the book, for example ‘Licensed for sale in India only. Not for export’). Despite this, local editions may leak outside the licensed market: editions from the Indian subcontinent frequently appear in East Africa, the Middle East, Malaysia 158 Low-price reprint rights
and Russia, but at least if they carry a restriction notice, they can be recog-nized and action taken against the importer and the exporter, if they can be identified.
Trade or bank references should always be sought when dealing with new applicants. If there is a good reason to believe that the original applicant cannot fulfil the required conditions, it is preferable to seek an alternative licensee, perhaps a subsidiary or associate company or a regular distributor of the original publisher. Publication under a joint imprint should only be permitted with a reliable licensee.
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