The Bookseller.com

21st November 2008

Tom Tivnan

Tom Tivnan is the features editor of The Bookseller. He will be blogging about the magazine's in depth coverage.

Is all fair in books?

04.07.08

The other day I found myself in the green grocer puzzling over a Zimbabwean fairtrade passion fruit. I was trying to do the right thing – buying fairtrade – but its provenance worried me. If I bought it does it help prop up the Mugabe regime? Trying to live an ethical life is a minefield.

Despite facing up to the sharp edge of the balance sheet, publishers are being increasingly more ethical with ramped up corporate social responsibility programmes.

They, too, can come up against dicey issues from getting paper from sustainable forests, to making sure outsourcing partners use ethical labour practices.

Even when doing what seems like the blindingly obvious right thing can throw up questions. This week in our features coverage, my colleague Benedicte Page examines book donation programmes.

We are not talking about an inconsiderable number of books - perhaps as many as 10 million copies are donated from Western publishers to the developing world per year. One American charity alone, the International Book Bank, shipped over 1.6 million books in 2006/07 worth over $53m.

At first glance, what can be more worthy: publishers donating books, via charitable organisations, to be sent to book deprived developing countries. But scratch the surface and there are troubling issues. Does flooding the market of these countries with free books stifle or even eradicate any native publishing? Are publishers thinking about the markets they are sending books to, and whether the books are culturally relevant?

A cynic might suggest that some publishers are clearing out overstocks, ticking a CSR box whilst saving on pulping costs. There is the added bonus of making sure no upstart competitors emerge in countries with growing populations that may prove to be a lucrative market one day.

There is a space for these schemes – but only if they are well thought out. London-based Book Aid is by all accounts a star, extensively researching the needs of the recipient countries, and donating books with an aim to build readership and, eventually, local publishing. If more of the charities were run as well as Book Aid there would be no space for cynics.

Back to my dilemmas. I’m going to a dinner party this weekend. Should I go with the organic New Zealand pinot noir, or the non-organic French pinot? Organic v air miles. Decisions, decisions.

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