Publishers: The Midwives of Literature

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What does th e digital revolution me an to the publishing in dustry? Richa rd

Charkin, E xecutive Dir ector of Bloom sbury Pub lishing, the home of Har ry

Potter books an d countless other b estsellers, bel ieves it is the greatest o p-

portuni ty for a generation to t ransform the busin ess. Mr. Charkin recentl y

sat down with W IPO Magazine and sh ared his views about t he opportunit ies

and challenges confronting the industry today.

What is the rol e of a publisher?

We try to spot talented writers and he lp them make their books better. We encourage

writing and then we tell the world ab out it. We collect money on the author’s behalf

and try to make a prot on the way.

Part of our role is to put readers i n touch with authors and vice vers a but it’s more

sophisticated than that, partic ularly in the digital worl d. We must now facilitate

platform creation and navi gation. For instance, today, metadata - the information

that describes what’s in a book so peo ple can nd it - are vital as a se rvice both to

readers, bookseller s and writers.

What is the re al value of a publisher to an author?

Of course it varies. Di fferent publishers add diffe rent value. Different authors demand

different suppor t. Sometimes we help fund the writing of books with advance s against

future royalties. That’s clearly a value. Th e editing process itself is a lso hugely im-

portant although i t is largely invisible to the outside world. While many author s think

their book is absolutely wond erful from day one, most recognize that they do need

a bit of help. We also have a role in terms of designing a b ook and turning it into a

desirable object. What I p ersonally nd most interestin g is how you tell people the

book exists. I’ve never worked out what that magic is, but i t’s all to do with originality,

creativity and brain p ower, and rarely about marketing money.

What mak es a best seller?

It’s easy enough to spot a good author from a bad one, and it ’s easy enough to

spot something that is potentially sal eable from something that cle arly is not. But

within those parameters, what tur ns a story about an Afghanistani boy from a book

selling one thousand co pies into one selling four million in the case of The Kite Run-

ner. Who knows?

How would you characterize t he impact of Harry Potter?

It was just a marvelous thi ng, and we are enormously grateful to J.K. Rowling for

everything she h as done for literacy, for publishing, for bookselling and for creativit y.

People say that Harry Potter on ly happens once in a blue mo on. Actually I think it

has only happened on ce in the 500 years since the inventi on of the printing press.

Here’s one statistic which I treasure. We sold over 1 million hardb ack English lan-

guage copies of the last volum e of Harry Potter in Germany. That means that there

Publishers –

the Midwives of Literature