Image – 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlisted books. Photography by James Darling.

Publishing

Publishing is one of the most successful of the UK’s creative industries, with UK publishers successfully adapting and applying their core skills in a time of unprecedented and accelerating commercial and technological change.

The UK’s publishing industry is one of the largest in the world, and is renowned for the breadth, depth and quality of the content that it creates, as well as the multiple ways in which that content is brought to market. The sector has a combined turnover of some £19 billion, with its 10,460-plus companies employing around 171,000 people. London is considered one of the world’s leading publishing centres.

UK book publishers produce well over 150,000 new titles a year, while the country is also a leading publisher of newspaper and periodicals titles. The UK customer publishing industry is the most developed in the world.

The UK’s many strengths include educational publishing; academic publishing; and children’s fiction, picture book and information publishing. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, for example, is arguably the world’s greatest children’s publishing success story of recent years.

The UK publishing industry, which leads the way in the fight against piracy, is one of the most culturally and commercially diverse in the world. It comprises a number of highly successful independent companies, as well as thousands of very small publishing operations, which publish in specialist areas such as poetry, art and regional/local-interest subjects.

Moreover, it has spawned successful niche publishers for minority groups, including feminist, gay and lesbian writing, writing from ethnic minorities and literature in the UK’s indigenous Celtic languages. UK publishers are also developing strategies for publishing book translations from other languages, as well as playing a leading part in the development of the international market for work in English from other cultures.

Another area in which the UK publishing industry excels is technical and commercial innovation. UK publishing companies are at the forefront of the knowledge economy and a driving force in the creation of digital business models and environmentally friendly strategies for their businesses. The UK is also a world leader in the development of international standards for the electronic access and delivery of content, bibliographic information and publishing e-commerce.

The success of the UK publishing industry, which gave the world many of the basics of modern publishing practice, has had a global impact, driven by its well-established network of overseas partners and the dominance of the English language. The UK is the world’s largest exporter and re-exporter of books by value, with almost a half of the UK book publishing industry’s revenue generated by export sales, which are worth over £1.25 billion a year.

Key export markets for UK publishers include the US, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada. Exports are also growing strongly in the Middle East.

Useful publications

• UKTI UK Publishing Creative Industries export guide

Publishing events

• Events in the creative and media sectors

• www.culture.info/tradefair