Bookselling Ireland chairman fears for Irish small presses after Brexit

The chairman of Bookselling Ireland says he fears for the future of the country’s small presses after Brexit.

At a buzzing Irish trade conference on Friday (8th March) in Dublin, publishers and booksellers struck a bullish tone and were upbeat about their industry’s growth. But, with a Commons vote looming this week on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, there were doubts about what would happen unless “sense prevails” in Westminster.

John Keane, chairman of the Irish branch of the Booksellers Association, said afterwards: “I fear for small publishers, I really do. They don’t have the infrastructure to hold back-up stock. I’d be very concerned for the small publishers definitely because they’re really going into an area where it will be very challenging.”

He added: “We have to be concerned about it. A hard Brexit would not be good for our industry. We have to hope sense will prevail in the next three weeks. I don’t think any sector will not be affected by it.”

The number one concern expressed at the conference was logistics and the extra hurdles to trade books into Europe through the UK. 

Ivan O’Brien, Publishing Ireland president and The O’Brien Press m.d, warned any delays would impact badly on what can be a low margin business.

He told The Bookseller: “I think the main issue the book world is going to face is logistical, getting the books from place to place. Priority is going to be given to food and medicine, as it should be, but we’re right down the bottom of the list.”

He added: “There’s still complete uncertainty over not knowing what the terms of trade are going to be in three weeks’ time. Hopefully it won’t be too serious but anything can happen and, given our countries have been so close together for so long, its unconscionable that all that’s going to change.”

He warned that, even if MPs vote for a delay to the process this week, it would just create more uncertainty. “The complete lack of political leadership in Britain is just getting worse and worse,” he said.

“We’re very collaborative as publishers we’ll make the best of it but its still going to be messy.”

But other figures were more optimistic about the industry’s prospects once Britain splits from the EU - despite confusion over what border arrangements would be in place between the UK and Ireland.

Gill Books’ distribution arm has been holding talks with UK publishers about warehousing stock and distribution from its Ireland base. Director Nicki Howard said: “In terms of the industry the thing we’re most concerned about is timings so stock control, border crossings. This is where we see the biggest challenge on publishing. 

“Our publishing is, hopefully, on trend, but you never know so what we want to do is react quickly if something’s been taking off and reprint.

She said: “We print a lot of our stuff in the EU if it comes across through the UK and into Ireland there could be border crossings. That’s the biggest challenge. But nobody knows what’s going to happen at this point so we’re just doing what we can.”

Economist Jim Power spoke to the hall about the current political and financial climate, with Brexit looming large. Although he saw a hard Brexit as a “nightmare scenario”, he told The Bookseller publishers would still survive.

He predicted: “The small ones may have supply chain problems. It’s going to make life more awkward, ok, but they will adapt.”