Penguin boycott announced as furor erupts over strongarm deal with W. H. Smith
On Sunday, a Bookseller story by Victoria Gallagher reported that “sources” were saying “Penguin is believed to have signed an exclusive deal with W H Smith” bookstores to be “the sole supplier of foreign travel guides in its airports, motorway, railway and hospital shops.” The reported one-year contract would begin next week and mean that in the chain’s 450 Travel stores only travel guides from Penguin’s DK and Rough Guides lines would be available — nothing from Lonely Planet, Time Out, Berlitz, Frommer’s, Fodor’s, etc.
It’s not as if the deal wasn’t going to cost Penguin — Gallagher reports the company gave WHS a whopping 72% discount. Still, it’s a devastating blow to the competition, and probably worth it as such to Penguin: WHS is the only bookstore at airports controlled by BAA, the company that controls the UK’s busiest airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, and Edinburgh.
Lonely Planet CEO Stephen Palmer immediately “urged the retailer to reconsider,” and a competing bookseller, general manager Andrew Steed of Stanfords, said “I don’t see this as a positive method at all” because the deal restricts consumer choice.
No one from Penguin or DK or Rought Guides or W.H. Smith would comment.
W.H. Smith in London's Gatwick airport
Scarcely 24 hours later, things got considerably more heated. As Philip Jones details in another Bookseller report, the British Guild of Travel Writers has called for a boycott of both W.H. Smith stores and Penguin books.
Guild chairman Melissa Shales called the deal “another body blow” to the travel publishing industry, saying, “It means that with some of the best sales outlets in the UK closed to other publishers, jobs are on the line. So do us and yourselves a favour, don’t pick up a Penguin and don’t shop at WH Smiths until they see sense.”
Penguin travel writer Hugh Taylor took things a step further: he announced he would no longer work for Penguin, and he wrote a complaint to the Scottish cultural minister. “This is an example of a large company using its financial muscle to stifle competition,” he wrote.
Penguin has still not issued a response. W.H. Smith has, however. The company announced through a spokesperson that “trials” had been conducted that showed the deal would make things “easier for the customer.”
Easier for the customer my eye. This is down to money. I go abroad three or four times a year, and will not be buying guidebooks from any WH Smith store until they see sense. Instead I will buy from Borders, Waterstones or wherever a few days before I head for the airport. And I buy several guidebooks each year.
We have so very often used WH Smith shops in UK airports, but NEVER again. Rough Guides (and the other guidebook series that are part of the Penguin family) offer a fine selection to be sure, but there are so many areas of the world for which we rely on other publishers, most particularly Bradt, Time Out, Thomas Cook and LP. This new deal is a terrible affront to consumer choice.
We have seen WH Smith deploying their restrictive shelf policies in the past. Back in the 1990s, the company did its best to push several liberal and left wing publications into deficit, by refusing to carry such publications on their shelves.
We hope that British consumers will picket every branch of WH Smith, and the house of Kate Swann (MD of WH Smith). This is an appalling case of one company’s greed for profit taking priority over readers’ legitimate wish for choice.
Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries
editors
hidden europe magazine
Berlin, Germany
Thank you for picking up this story and publicising it. Publishers, the public and authors are being shortchanged by lazy retailing - they can’t be bothered to work out which books to stock and are demanding ever higher payments to put anything on their shelves. Penguin publish some great books, but so do Lonely Planet, Michelin, Frommers, Time Out, Berlitz, the Brits Guides, Bradt etc. The UK is the world centre of guidebook publishing - we have a wonderful pool of talent and expertise here, and the sad truth is that most of us are now struggling to make a living. If major retailers refuse to stock books simply because they can’t be bothered, that expertise will be lost. As yet, few people on the internet are paying for really professional content and there is no substitute for these guides. So please ask for a proper choice. Melissa Shales - Chairman, British Guild of Travel Writers