Brian Murray, CEO of HarperCollins, will open Tuesday’s programming at the London Book Fair with a talk titled “Shaping the Business and the Art of the Book Industry.” Ahead of his address, we asked Murray about some of the important issues facing publishing.
What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in the calendar year in your biggest markets?
In many markets we are seeing downward pressure on consumer spending on books due to widespread inflationary cost increases following peak spending in 2021. In addition, there are continued challenges in the costs related to the production of books and the supply chain. On the opportunities side, embedding the efficiencies and automation that were developed during the pandemic into our business practices, and improving collaboration and creative output as our teams return to working together in offices.
What can publishers do to combat the still-growing problem of book banning?
We need to ensure that our books are widely available in every retailer, and in as many library systems as possible so that readers can access all our books in some format in every zip code or post code. Each publisher should strongly support their authors whose books are banned by speaking up and promoting those books in general markets and bookstores.
Does Harper see ChatGPT as a threat or opportunity to book publishers?
AI is both an opportunity and a risk. There are AI tools that may become major contributors to parts of book publishing. For example, audio production and language translation tools may enable far more books to be created in audio formats and in multiple languages than can be produced today due to higher costs. And there are new AI marketing tools to help automate existing tasks in the areas of metadata and social media that didn't exist a year ago. What is really surprising is how these tools are getting more powerful every week. We draw a distinction between tools and storytelling. Creation and storytelling are going to remain human centered. But tools can help assist with efficiencies on certain types of products and processes.
AI is cutting edge technically but also legally – who owns the output of machines? And there is a risk already that human centered storytelling can be crowded out with low quality machine generated storytelling. This is leading to a risk of provenance and trust of all content if we don’t find a way to authenticate authors, illustrators, and creators. Copyright is the legal and business foundation and it must remain that way. Copyright only applies to human creation. With AI generated storytelling, we are already entering some uncharted waters.
Industry sales in 2022 fell from the highs of the pandemic years. In your view, what does a “new normal” look like?
The growth rates in consumer spending during 2021 and 2022 were unprecedented compared to pre-pandemic years. The U.S. experienced 20%+ levels of growth, and many other global markets experienced 10% or more growth. Normally, our industry grows 2%-3% per year. The new normal is still settling down, but it will be far larger than it would have been without the sizable industry growth from the pandemic reading renaissance.
In 2023, I expect consumer spending on books globally will be down slightly compared to 2022, and this will be our “new normal” where we will return to 2-3% growth rates again. But the overall spending remains significantly higher than where it would have been so we shouldn’t be too worried about a modest decline.
