Coronavirus shutdown hits UK publishing schedules

UK publishers with print operations in China are facing delays owing to the coronavirus outbreak that has seen parts of the country shut down.

Although suppliers are beginning to re-open this week, closures ran through the Lunar New Year holiday week in late January into February, putting a strain on schedules, exacerbated by port congestion with fewer shipments permitted out of the country.

Garry Lewis, Usborne's production director, said there is "definitely" an impact on schedules, but owing to delayed re-opening it was hard to know the full extent.

Michael O'Mara's production director Joanne Rooke said it had needed to move two of its printings out of the country that were urgent, but otherwise it was keen to stick with its Chinese printers despite the impediments faced. Some publication dates "may" need to be "slightly altered", she said, as a result of the situation, although the bulk of its forthcoming titles were on track.

"At Michael O’Mara we have kept abreast of the Covid-19 virus developments daily," said Rooke. "Our Chinese printer colleagues have done their very best to keep in touch with us regularly (by working from home) and we know that they will do all they can to meet our deadlines, particularly on time-sensitive titles.

"This week Chinese printers are beginning to reopen now that they have strict medical controls in place and have passed all the relevant local inspections. It has been necessary to move a couple of urgent printings out of China but we are trying to keep this to a minimum because we would like to stay loyal to our Chinese printers at this difficult time.

"We also have daily contact with our freight forwarder to try to minimise the impact of port congestion and reduced vessel sailings in the coming weeks. There may need to be some slight adjustments to a few publication dates but at the moment we are managing to hold the majority of our schedules."

DK chief operating officer Shaun Hodgkinson, who described the situation as "fast-moving", is encouraged by the re-openings of some of its key suppliers but conceded "pressure" had been put on schedules, necessitating "contingency plans".

"It is a fast-moving situation and our primary concern is the wellbeing of our colleagues, foremost our teams in China, who are all safe and well," said Hodgkinson. "The extended Lunar New Year Holiday and travel restrictions have impacted the mobility of our colleagues and our suppliers and put pressure on our schedules.

"We have important strategic commercial and manufacturing partnerships in China and have been working closely with them to minimise the impact on our business. It is very encouraging that a number of our key suppliers have opened this week.

"We will continue to work with those partners to prioritise our schedules and limit any impact on our deliveries. DK also has strong partnerships across the globe, to support us with any contingency plans if necessary, but our focus is to work at the moment with our Chinese partners."

Catherine Bell, co-m.d. of Scholastic UK, said: "We are in daily contact with all of our print partners to ensure a continuation of supply while prioritising the health and wellbeing of staff and colleagues. Obviously we want to support our Chinese print partners as they work with local and national governments to contain the virus; but as we work with suppliers across the globe, we have the ability to move work between printers whenever there is a disruption to the supply chain."

One publisher, who preferred not to be named, said it could be months until supply problems are ironed out. They explained the factories a lot of publishers use in the Southern China Guangdong province have had their return to work delayed – and even those that have been given permission to reopen will be doing so "without anywhere near a full workforce".

As well as shortages of workers to load printed books, there are shortages of drivers to get the stock to the port, it was explained, on top of which, in any event, shipping line offices are shut until 17th February. More complicated book products will also have slower manufacture times, due to the reduced availability of labour, other ongoing delays in the supply chain and reduced shipping capacity, with shipping lines cancelling sailings.

Already contending with tariffs, which has made using Chinese printers more costly, David Graham, m.d. of Pavillion, said the situation has made its scramble to find printers outside of the country even more pressing.

"Since the imposition of import tariffs by the US we have been seeking new places to print anyway," he said. "The spread of the coronavirus and the impact this has had on book production has accelerated this activity."

Last week academic publishers with operations in China revealed they are curtailing some activities in the country in wake of the coronavirus. Springer Nature said it had postponed some planned conferences in affected regions "until the situation is better understood" while Pearson said it is providing free online learning resources to customers in China and Hong Kong for the duration of the school suspension period as its exam delivery operations were temporarily suspended. A large number, including Taylor & Francis, CUP, Elsevier, Emerald Publishing, The Lancet, OUP, Springer Nature and Wiley, pledged all research findings on the virus would be made freely available for at least the duration of the outbreak.

The World Health Organization upgraded the coronavirus’ status to a public health emergency on 30th January, and it is only the sixth such emergency since 2009. Worldwide there have been 60,387 cases to date (as of 13th Feburary); there have been 1,369 deaths while so far 6,079 people have been discharged or have recovered.