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Audio News — 15th February 2010
APA TO DISBAND
Announcement to all members
As some of you may know, in all large publishers, audiobooks come under the auspices of their digital publishing arm. Several years ago the Publishers Association, which has represented the interests of book publishers in the UK since 1896, established a Digital Publishing Forum, and although physical product is still 85 per cent or so of audiobooks' total sales (by volume), within three or four years it is likely that download will constitute the majority of sales. Acknowledging the importance of audio, the PA decided to establish an Audiobook Publishing Committee, which would be part of the Trade Books Council of the PA.
As a consequence, every major audiobook publisher still remaining within the APA, whose parent company belongs to the PA, has given notice that they will not be renewing their membership because they will have the activities most valuable to them and, indeed, to anyone associated with audiobooks – promotion, lobbying, anti-piracy action, etc. – carried out by a powerful organisation whose members pay very substantial membership fees. Therefore, their substantial financial contributions to the APA can no longer be justified.
This precipitates a financial problem for the APA because the reality is that about half the APA income in recent years has come from the large publishers. The APA, therefore, will not, as currently organised and funded, be able to continue.
At an APA Executive Committee meeting last week the following motion was proposed:
“Without publisher members, the APA cannot fulfil the purposes for which it is constituted and in its present form cannot remain viable. It should therefore be wound up or reconstituted.”
This was carried five votes to two; two large publishers abstained, since it would scarcely be appropriate for them to vote on the continuance or otherwise of an organisation of which they will not be members.
It was subsequently agreed that membership fees should be refunded (pro-rata for each month left to run from February 2010) and that the Directory would be left up on the website until the hosting contract comes up for renewal in November 2010. Though there can be no printed directory this year (unless a new organisation undertakes it) any updates sent in by Friday, 12 February (the deadline for the now-hypothetical printed directory), will be uploaded to the site.
We hope there will be practical and viable suggestions from members of the APA about what might happen to preserve the opportunities and services currently offered to APA members but since the first PA meeting is shortly to happen, your Executive Committee wants to inform you of all this before you hear the rumours.
The APA Executive Committee