The director of WSOY responds to the authors’ criticism: “Audio books have not been the will of the publishers”

Finland CEO of the largest book publishing house WSOY Timo Julkunen considers the discussion opening of the open letter published by the authors to be necessary in many places.

Already more than a thousand Finnish writers and literary professionals in the signed open letter publishing houses and the government were required to act to improve the status of writers and to secure the continuity of Finnish literature.

Julkunen says that authors and publishers agree that the increase in VAT on books was a bad decision and that there should be more forms of support for quality literature that is not widely distributed.

Disagreements are mainly related to the impact of the digitization of the book industry, i.e. audiobook services in practice. In Julkunen’s opinion, generalizations have been made in the discussion.

“The indisputable fact is, however, that these services have brought more sales, and thus money and income, especially to fiction. It has been a bit forgotten in the headline-level battle, and especially on social media,” says Julkunen

According to the authors, the income diverted to the authors from the sale of audiobooks is unreasonably small, and in an open letter they demand a fairer compensation for the author and appeal to the regulation according to the current copyright law.

Authors also say that they do not receive enough information about the price at which their works are licensed to streaming services.

Julkunen calls for courage from writers in contract negotiations.

“At WSOY, it has also been our principle to show the terms and conditions used in the sale of books to the outside as much as the law allows.”

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Publishing houses are also giving up the idea that all books must be published as audiobooks.

Writers the fixed retail price of the book demanded is not a completely impossible idea for Julkus, but setting such a thing would be against EU competition legislation and would require lengthy civil service negotiations.

Fixed pricing determined by book law is valid in Norway and a few EU countries. However, in Julkunen’s opinion, it is an exaggeration to consider Finland an exceptional country in terms of the book market.

The only notable exception is that, in contrast to most other European countries, the sales of translated fiction in Finland have been greater than domestic sales.

Writers in the open letter, Finland is characterized as a “low-cost production country for Swedish audiobook platforms”.

WSOY is owned by the Swedish media group Bonnier, which also owns the audio book service Bookbeat.

“Sometimes you hear that audiobooks would have been the will of publishers or Swedish streaming services, according to which it would have been forced. It was nothing like that. The market has dictated it,” says Julkunen, referring to the rapid change in consumer behavior.

He reminds that as recently as 2018, it was estimated that the share of audiobooks in book sales would remain at around ten percent.

“No one would have believed that it would be 40 percent and more.”

Now the growth of audiobook sales seems to have stopped. In Julkunen’s opinion, the reason is partly the general decrease in consumption, but also the saturation of the audiobook market in a small language area.

Publishing houses are also giving up the idea that all books must be published as audio books.

“When an author has a highly literary work that is more challenging to read, it is made into a text, and one can ask whether it is even worth making it into an audio book,” says Julkunen.