Angus & Robertson

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Angus & Robertson is a bookstore chain in Australia. Its first bookstore was opened in 110½ Market Street, Sydney by Scotsman David Angus and Arnold Robertson in 1884; it sold second-hand books.^[1] In 1886, he went into partnership with fellow Scot, George Robertson with whom he had worked earlier.

1 Bookselling history
2 Publishing history
3 Ownership
4 Demand for Payment from Smaller Publishers
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Bookselling history

In 1895 the company moved to 89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. The head office of the firm was at Castlereagh Street until the 1950s. The shop was known as the "biggest bookshop in the world".^[2] In 1907 the partnership was converted into a public company - Angus & Robertson Limited. In 1938 A&R opened a publishing office in London, and in 1951 a store was established in Australia's High Commission in London, which operated until the 1970s. In the 1950s, Angus & Robertson began the growth which led it to become Australia's first nationwide chain of bookstores. In 1977, it opened its first franchise store in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville. In 2006, the company has over 170 stores spread throughout the country, it claims that it has more than twice as many stores as Australia's next largest bookseller.^[3] The number of stores has doubled since 1982.^[4] The brand name is recognised by 96% of the Australian population.^[4] The firm has approximately 18% share in the Australian book retail market.^[5]

[edit] Publishing history

Angus and Robertson began publishing in 1888. Their first work was book of verse, A crown of wattle, written by a Sydney solicitor, H. Peden Steel.^[1] As a publisher, Angus & Robertson has played a role in shaping Australian literature by publishing works by significant Australian authors such as Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson and Norman Lindsay.

In the early years of publishing to 1900, Angus and Robertson developed a successful marketing formula and mix of products: they established a pattern of literary publishing together with educational publishing.^[6]

Angus and Robertson published the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 edited by Charles Bean.^[1]

[edit] Ownership

Since 1978, the publisher has been a completely separate company under separate ownership from the bookseller. Angus & Robertson publishers have been an imprint of HarperCollins since 1989.^[2]

Angus & Robertson is the owner of Reader's Feast, a large bookshop in the Melbourne CBD, which doesn't run under its parent company's logo.

Ownership of the company changed several times since the 1970s. In the 90's, the company was owned by Gordon & Gotch (Newsagent Supplier/Publisher) followed by the purchase by Brashs (Home Entertainment Chain) who refitted many of the stores and merged Bookworld (A Queensland Bookchain) with A&R to increase the overall size (For several years the company went by the name Angus & Robertson Bookworld before eventually dropping Bookworld as part of the name). Ownership of the company then passed on to Whitcoulls (New Zealand chain) which was itself later purchased by W H Smith (who sought to introduce the W H Smith brand into Australia), the most recent change being the 2004 sale by W H Smith, who had owned the company since 2001.^[2] The current owners are Pacific Equity Partners.

[edit] Demand for Payment from Smaller Publishers

A & R Whitcoulls Group's commercial manager, Charlie Rimmer, sent out a letter (August 2007) demanding payments ranging between $2500 and $20,000 (with claims by some reports of as much as $40,000 and $100,000 being unconfirmed at the moment) from smaller distributors and publishers to make up for reduced profitability compared to other suppliers.

The letter (Including a 5% per day interest rate as well as a requirement for a % rebate on all sales for the year should A&R do $1 over last years sales)^[7]^[8], leaked by Tower Books to the public, claimed that if the payment was not made, the books from the supplier would no longer be sold in A&R stores. This caused upset in Australia's book publishing market. Many publishers have expressed a disbelief at Angus & Robertson's decision, with Tower (Supplier of the Miles Franklin Award winning book Carpentaria and such titles as Rich Dad, Poor Dad) declaring that they will withdraw supply for Angus & Robertson as per the letter's requirement (They can keep their money, we will keep our books). How many other distributors will follow in Tower's footsteps has yet to be confirmed, with at least one distributor (Walker Books, distributor of the children's book, Where's Wally? (Australian release of Where's Waldo?)) indicating that they are in no position to walk away from 182 stores.^[9] ^[10] ^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]

“This is an outrageous insult to Australian authors,” Executive Director Dr Jeremy Fisher said. “Only yesterday the Australia Council highlighted the parlous state of Australian literature in education. Now, the private-equity owners of Angus & Robertson, Pacific Equity Partners, are trying to bully their smaller suppliers into paying for the ‘privilege' of shelf space in Angus & Robertson-owned stores. They are hurting not only these publishers but also their authors. Angus & Robertson is stealing money from Australian authors, whose average income is only $11,000. Why, that's an amount which is probably even less than the daily income of the directors of Pacific Equity Partners.” - Dr Jeremy Fisher (Executive Director) The Australian Society of Authors

As well as the public outcry (With pronouncements by individuals that they would no longer be shopping at A&R), this situation has resulted in Chris Burgess, the general manager of Leading Edge Books (Leading Edge is the country's largest buying group of independent booksellers, with more than 180 members) sending out a parody (that is currently circulating) of the original A&R letter sent to publishers^[16]

Dear (INSERT NAME),

I am writing to inform you of some changes to the way we manage our business.

We have recently realised what a piece of work we are and are ranking our suppliers in terms of their gullibility, desperation and dependence on our business. We have concluded that far too many of our suppliers and over 40% of those with whom we have supplier agreements fall below our requirements in terms of how much profit they make. At a time when our own incompetence continues to rise, I'm sure you can understand that this is an unpalatable set of circumstances for us, and as such we have no option but to act quickly to remedy the situation.

Accordingly, we will be rationing our supplier numbers and setting a maximum earning ratio of income to trade purchases that we expect our suppliers to achieve.

I am writing to you because (INSERT GULLIBLE, DESPERATE OR DEPENDENT PUBLISHER'S NAME HERE) falls into the category of making an unacceptable level of profit.

As a consequence we would invite you to pay the attached invoice (or more if you like) by Aug 17th 2007. The payment represents the gap for your business, and moves it from an unacceptable level of profitability, to below our minimum threshold (of zero).

If we fail to receive your payment by this time we will have no option but to remove you from our list of authorised suppliers, and our customers will be unable to purchase a decent range of books from us until such time as a payment is made or we decide to start taking our pills again.

I have also attached a 'proforma' for you to complete and return to me, with your proposed terms of trade for our financial year commencing Sept 1st 2007 (and running until the Year of the Donkey). We have the following expectations:

- All agreements contain a standard rebate, a growth rebate and a minimum co-op commitment to enable participation in our marketing activity.

- All rebates will be payable irrespective of whether we meet the conditions agreed.

- All rebates are paid on a daily basis for ever and ever amen. You must ensure that the needle (provided) is inserted into your vein and a quart of your blood is received by us by the 7th of the month following the preceding month (which also follows the preceding month) . Any blood not received by this date will attract a daily 5% interest charge, payable in flesh.

I am also including a copy of our ratecard, and our marketing calendar (although this is subject to change without notice, in fact why don't we set up a website where you can check our marketing calendar on a daily basis?), to enable you to begin planning your promotional participation now (although as previously stated, any planning will be pretty much a waste of time as we'll probably change our minds and may or may not tell our buyers).

If you would like to discuss this with me in more detail, I am delighted (in fact, I can't stop laughing, see above note re medication) to confirm and appointment with you at 1.00pm on Friday 17th August (just in time for you to deliver your blood in person) for 30 seconds at my offices (yes, plural, one of them can be hosed out) at Level 1, 3 Fitzsimons Lane, Gordon (although I might keep you waiting for an hour).

Best Regards, Chris Burgess Leading Edge Books General Manager of Publisher Margins (or LEBGMPM for short)

Enc: LEB Ratecard LEB Marketing Calendar (see provisos above) Trading Terms ProForma Invoice

It is not clear if Angus & Robertson Booksellers have made the same demands on Angus & Robertson Publishing (Angus & Robertson Publishing is owned by Harper Entertainment, a major distributor within Australia).

In response to the situation, Dave Fenlon, Chief Operating Officer at Angus & Robertson, responded by claiming that the whole situation is blown up out of proportion and that A&R is simply negotiating a new business agreement with selected suppliers deemed to not be meeting their obligations to the company and that Angus & Robertson is committed to selling Australian published books from a large range of Australian publishers, large and small.^[17]