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The post foot and mouth slowdown is reflected in Cordee's own business
where book and map sales in March were down by 40% on the previous
year. Since then the figures have recovered to normal but October
and November, traditionally good months as specialist retailers
stock up for Christmas, were down on previous years.
As if to emphasise the point, Doune based Clan Books, one of Scotland's
longest established wholesalers of outdoor books to the tourist
industry went bust last month.
"I feel that the outdoor trade has lost a lot of money and are
undercapitalised and consequently they are now not stocking," says
Vickers. "Some shops will go bankrupt if they do not have a very
successful winter and spring season.
"For the shops that survive things will come back to normal but
I think its going to take a few years. There are now a lot of retailers
out there who are short of money and to a lot of them selling books
and maps are secondary to their core product - clothing and hardware.
The money will be put into where they think they are going to get
the best returns, their normal lines and not books."
But, Vickers feels this approach is short sighted. "For the more
successful outdoor retailers books and maps can be 20% of their
turnover and the capital tied up in stock is minimum. Books can
be next day delivery, there's no forward ordering and there's no
sizing or fashion or colour to deal with. However many shops don't
seem to look at the full picture of what they are doing, so I think
books will be a casualty over the next few years."
In the relatively stable world of climbing guides where the market
has a voracious appetite for both the latest guide to an established
areas and new guides to new areas, the commercial pressures are
growing, from the long term effect of foot and mouth to the steady
cherry-picking by commercial publishers of areas traditionally covered
by guides put together by volunteers and published by "clubs" like
the BMC, Climbers' Club and Scottish Mountaineering Club.
In England things came to a head with the Rockfax guide to Pembroke,
traditionally CC territory. More recently Cicerone Press caused
a furore with plans for a selected guide to Stanage, already long
overdue a new comprehensive guide from the BMC. Cicerone stepped
down but Alan James and Rockfax stepped up. Once again, talk of
seeking legal advice and suing for breach of copyright were in the
air. But no one knows for sure who owns copyright in the contents
of climbing guides, because it has never been tested.
The BMC took the issue seriously enough to appoint Niall Grimes
as their new £17,000 per year guidebook production co-ordinator,
the first person in the UK appointed to a fulltime guidebook post
in the UK's otherwise voluntary climbing guide sector. If production
can be streamlined and speeded up, the BMC rationalise, there should
be fewer openings for others to step in.
Vickers, himself a member of the CC, is clear where he stands.
"I feel strongly that the guidebook producing agencies have done
a remarkable job in Britain in gathering all this information together,
keeping it in one place and publishing the definitive record for
climbing route information," he said. "Anybody who wants to make
use of this, whether it's to produce a book in a more graphic form,
or wants to produce a selected guide needs to acknowledge this and
needs to pay for it.
"Ownership has never been proven in law but there are a number
of parallel cases that one could make comparisons with. I think
there's a strong case that the clubs do have copyright in the compilation
of guidebook route information which they have gathered together,
maybe for 100 years. The definitive guidebook agencies have to take
a very firm stand. They can say you can't have the information,
or they can say you can have the information but you have to pay
us a royalty for it."
As for room in the market, Vickers says there wasn't a noticeable
reduction in sales on comprehensive guides following the publication
of the two selected guides to the Peak District, On Peak Rock from
the BMC and Paul Nunn's earlier guide published by Constable. But,
maybe are paper guidebooks are finished anyway, now that the digital
age is upon us.
Vickers doesn't think so, although as a bookseller he would say
that. "I'm absolutely confident the outdoor book trade has a healthy
future. There will be a place for digital media and the internet,
but there's nothing like having a book in your hand, in your rucksack,
in the tent, in the back of the car, or in the toilet for that matter,"
he said.
Tom Prentice
14/12/2001
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