xenobooks.
federated
publishers

by
Laurent de Sutter
& Ilan Manouach

The publishing industry in Europe, especially in the field of theory and human sciences, is facing an unprecedented crisis. This crisis is not only a crisis in readership, or a crisis linked to the current decline in academic research, but mostly an infrastructural crisis. Confronted to rising printing, distribution, translation and communication costs as well as asymmetrical funding and audiences, European publishers are more and more relying upon tried-and-tested solutions, with commercially safe Anglo-Saxon voices occupying the totality of the map, which are leading to a standardized impoverishment of discussions and debates— and a general weakening of the European public sphere. We believe that it is high time for this situation to be addressed. And we want to address it with a series of proposals aimed at building a new confederated publishing network at the level of Europe— a network that would foster the circulation and translation of texts through the different markets of the continent, privileging native languages over English (though we acknowledge the irony of making this case in English). Such a network would allow participants to alleviate some of the charges weighing on their shoulders as well as securing a larger audience and media coverage for books published within its framework— thus contributing to the re-building of a European public space for ideas defined according to European concerns, visions and interests. It would also provide authors with a platform that would guarantee their ideas to circulate in a much more efficient way than the usual trade circuit would ensure (with, again, English as the crucial ordeal in order to secure other translations)— and at a much lower cost.

in

touch

the context

We live in an age where ideas, although available as they never were before, are struggling to survive. The totality of their ecology is in jeopardy, due to the common action of a series of trends. • From the point of view of the economy of ideas, it is now a fact that the book form, which was its media of choice, is now facing huge changes in the very structure of its market (more and more centralized into the hands of huge international groups), in the habits of reading of consumers (more and more inclined to focus on shorter formats and interactive, user-centered modes of communication), and in the globalization of contents (more and more reduced to a handful of hot topics). • From the point of view of the geopolitics of ideas, these market changes illustrate a general shift of what was a more generalized and balance exchange into a global copy-pasting of Anglo-American concepts, themes, topics and even names— all other idioms and visions being either dragged behind, or simply ignored. • Finally, from the point of view of the logistics of ideas, academia, whose traditional contacts with the press and the political world helped in the circulation of ideas, has been more and more engulfed into a process of self-defense against neoliberal management, that has led to a return of scholasticism and the severance of its link to the general public sphere. Confronted to the shrinking of its market, the global domination of English and the reclining of academia, the European world of ideas, in particular, has reached a state of preoccupying infrastructural weakness, which needs to be considered in all its dimensions.

the costs

These infrastructural weaknesses translate into the more specific problem of costs. Compared to the means of international consortiums, focusing on the unlimited appeal of Anglo-American authors, the ones of smaller imprints, trying to express the ideas and visions of a local scene, are at the same time fragile, and confronted to rising prices. • This is especially true when it comes to printing. For smaller presses, whose business models typically involve print runs of only a few hundred copies, offset printing—being a technology reliant on economies of scale—makes the production of these books prohibitively expensive. This often results in small print runs with low profit margins and high break-even points, making them either outright unaffordable or forcing reliance on print-on-demand services, staple bound xerox zines, or risograph printing. These alternatives, however, come with their own challenges, such as restricted print quantities and higher selling point, hence alienating potential buyers. • But these difficulties in printing only add up to rising costs in distribution, at the same time bound to national actors limited to national markets (only huge publishers are their own distributor) and themselves dependent upon energy and real-estate (warehouses) pricing. • The same goes with translation costs (whether it is about translating texts from other markets, or trying and selling texts to other markets), and • communication costs, ubiquitous in the digital age. All this, again, favors the circulation of texts whose return on investment would be insured— namely the ones authored by Anglo-American global names.

the funding

Within this tense book market, marked by globalization, centralization and price constraints, inequalities are steep. But they are rendered even steeper due to the unbalanced support that the publishing industry received from local and national authorities, even within Europe. In countries where cultural spending is high, book publication is heavily subsidized, up to a level where the question of actual economic viability can be literally forgotten— it is for instance the case of Slovenia, where books are not considered as goods, but as cultural events. Whereas in countries relying upon either neoliberal ideas about the market or low levels of resources, publishing books, especially in the niche market of ideas, requires a higher level of compromise with commerce— or the acceptance of a life of economic peril (see the cases of Greece, Italy, Poland, etc.). On the one hand, such unbalance puts a higher pressure on more fragile markets and actors, forced to either defend mainstream ideas or to rely upon famous international authors. But on the other hand, it also creates a boulevard for more subsidized industries, which is in a privileged position for the soft colonization of others— a good example here is the French system, relying heavily on an international cultural network, national subsidies for translations, and whose general book economy’s entire food chain receives some form of government support. These inequalities end up creating a fragmented market, favoring the most powerful actors, be them the most subsidized, or simply, as is the case with the Anglo-American conglomerates, those that have access to the largest audience share, due to the prominence of their own language.

the public

These diverse phenomena are threatening the European ecosystem of ideas, as a diverse, unequal, fragmented book market. Beyond the market, it even constitutes a menace for the survival of the European public sphere— or the European idea. • First, infrastructural and financial inequalities inevitably lead to the silencing of voices emerging from national contexts with a smaller access to the international book market. • Second, the domination of certain industries (Anglo-American, German, French) implies that a smaller number of titles and authors actually circulate— in what economists have described as the verticalization of offer: only a handful of books captures the majority of the readership, whereas a growing majority of books only reach a growing minority of readers. • The inevitable consequence of the silencing of voices and the verticalization of offer is the shrinking of intellectual diversity at the international level, more and more leading to what should be called a monoculture of ideas, the same books being quoted all over the globe, without consideration for other options. • The becoming invisible of entire intellectual cultures is the natural conclusion to this general process— a conclusion that is at odds with the European ideal of a dialogue between those who are a part of it. In a globalized, inequal, market, marked by intellectual monoculture, the diversity of languages, visions, values, perceptions and ideas is annihilated— and, with it, the possibilities that these languages, visions, etc., entailed. It is the fostering of those possibilities that a confederate publishing system would want to support.

Translation

A federalized publishing model would try and answer the problems outlined above by fostering multilateral translation. From the point of view of authors confronted to a highly competitive market dominated by English-speaking structures, this would constitute a way to better, more precisely disseminate ideas, while deepening connections with diverse linguistic communities across Europe. Embracing a federalized model could empower authors in leveraging collaborative networks to disseminate their work across different regions, reinforcing the demand for unique, localized content that resonates deeply with readers in a multitude of cultural settings— so participating in the reconstruction of a public sphere from the bottom. In such a model, the role of machine learning technologies shouldn’t be underestimated, as they are poised to have an important impact in the translation of books, making the federalized model of publishing even more attainable. Advanced algorithms and natural language processing capabilities facilitate the translation process by accurately interpreting context, idioms, and cultural nuances. While some languages are much less represented in language corpuses and will have a clear disadvantage compared to English or French, this would eventually allow for the translation of non-fiction works without the prohibitive costs and time traditionally associated with human translators. For the publishing industry, this could also mean that books can be tailored to fit the linguistic and cultural contexts of various European regions, fostering cross-cultural exchange and understanding.

Printing

The concentration of large printing facilities in Eastern Europe, such as in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Latvia, has created a competitive advantage in book production. These facilities, renowned for their advanced technology and economies of scale, can offer high-quality printing at reduced costs. This geographical advantage makes it feasible to print books affordably and efficiently distribute them across the entire European continent. The strategic location of these facilities further lowers shipping costs, allowing publishers to reach diverse markets with minimal logistical expenses and transactional frictions. As the demand for regional publishing models grows, the role of these Eastern European printing hubs will become pivotal. By leveraging these facilities, a federalized model of publishing can thrive, enabling small and medium-sized publishers to collaborate on book projects and compete on a more level playing field with larger publishing houses across Europe. Rather than printing books on their own, printing would become a collective affair, a co-production, whose costs would then be shared by all the participants to the network. It would also allow publishing shareholders to benefit from government support from countries they don’t have access to— for instance, if a French publisher is the primary partner in the co-production. By pooling resources, every publisher involved in the confederation invests on the base of its capacity, according to its risk tolerance or expected return and not because of economic demands that are hardwired in technical processes or offset reproduction.

Communication

By developing a common catalogue of titles, discussed in common, publishers that are part of the confederation will also reinforce the presence of the authors that have been chosen across the whole European territory. Whereas, traditionally, the circulation of texts depends upon negotiation typically held at book fairs, decisions taken in common about books that would circulate within the network would lead to a relatively simultaneous publication of books in multiple languages. This could have a decisive impact in re-shifting the way the dominant corpus of authors and texts, defining the debates of the contemporary, would be structured. Rather than a few voices, typically from the US or UK, multiple voices, working with different, sometimes minority, languages, could have access to the whole European market. Ideally, the common communication about books and ideas should be accompanied by common public initiatives— namely events and promo tours that would cover a maximum of the European countries and territories. Books themselves only exist within a space of conversation and discussion— and the re-conceptualization and operationalization of this space must be an integral part of the communication program of the confederation. Talks, debates, readings, happenings, performances, parties: the content of a book has to translate into many modes of existence, ensuring the metabolization and circulation of ideas as broadly as possible. Here also, a commonalization of resources would at the same time facilitate the organization of such events and reduce its costs for all actors involved.

re:Europe

The broader editorial landscape in Europe is a dynamic entity due to the smaller publishers experimenting with different ideas, formats, and modes of addressing their audience. These publishers act as incubators for innovation, frequently taking risks on unconventional or niche content, challenging the homogenization of narratives often dictated by market-driven priorities. For the moment, however, this landscape is overshadowed by massive international actors disintegrating the European public sphere into a global public sphere where scarcity is the rule: scarcity of places, of resources and of voices. The idea of a confederated publishing network would be to restore pluralism into the global framework— and to displace its axis of power through a re-equilibrium of its organization. Internally, at the level of Europe, allowing for a greater circulation of texts and ideas coming from other cultural areas than Anglo-American, could lead to the definition of other orders of priorities, the formulation of other visions and the nurturing of other desires. But also, externally, by re-creating a European public space for ideas operating according to its own multi-lingual, de-localized, federated logic, it would also foster a new sense of unity, so putting the European market in a stronger position of negotiation with other markets (Anglo-American, Chinese, etc.). Authors, books and ideas promoted simultaneously in multiple languages within Europe could become major actors outside Europe— because of their delocalized, but multiplied, public reach. If a strong European public sphere is to be reborn, a federalized publishing consortium would play a key role in this rebirth.

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