I, GILES GORDON, of 9 St. Ann's Gardens, London NW5 MAKE OATH AND SAY as follows:-
I am an independent expert witness in this action and I make this affidavit in support of Mr. Andrew Malcolm's Claim for Damages to be assessed as ordered by the Court of Appeal on 18th December 1990. I am herein deposing as to facts within my own knowledge.
2. I have been a literary agent for 17 years. Among my clients are, and in no particular order, Sue Townsend, Peter Ackroyd, Viscount Tonypandy, HRH The Prince of Wales, Fay Weldon, Alan Watkins, Sir Bernard Ingham, Sir Michael Levey, Professor Ben Pimlott, Professor Roy Foster, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, Lord Zuckerman. I work as a literary agent with Sheil Land Associates. Before becoming an agent, I was a publisher, my last two positions being an editor at Penguin Books and then, from 1968 - 1973, editorial director of Victor Gollancz Ltd. I have edited about 20 books, including co-editing the annual Best Short Stories series and am the author of six novels and two collections of short stories. I have been theatre critic of The Spectator and of the London Daily News and have contributed widely to the press on book trade matters. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature last year, and have been a member of the Garrick Club for nearly 20 years.
3. Royalty rates differ from book to book, publisher to publisher. It is believed that some publishers still offer a starting royalty of less than 10 percent of the retail price for a hardback, but this, I trust and believe, is the exception: most publishers these days think it not unreasonable that authors should receive a fair royalty especially in opposition to booksellers who tend to receive a discount of 35 percent upwards of the retail price. Most hardback royalties, irrespective of the nature of the book and the print run, are in the scale of 10 percent to 15 percent these days. Paperback royalties range, usually, from 7.5 percent to 12.5 percent and, in some exceptional cases, to 15 percent or even 17.5 percent. Export royalties tend to be lower than royalties paid on home sales because of the greater costs incurred by the publisher in sending books abroad and selling them overseas. Traditionally, publishers pay royalties on export sales as a percentage of net receipts, never, or rarely ever, even in 1985, on home sales unless the author was being calculatingly exploited.
4. Most commercial publishers (and this includes literary imprints) publish in approximately 9 months after delivery to them of a typescript. Some publishers are tardier than others in this respect and adopt a lofty timeless view. Obviously books of urgent interest and that are newsworthy can be published in weeks, even on occasion days. Whether OUP would have published Mr Malcolm's book within 9 months of delivery to them of the typescript would no doubt have depended upon what they thought of its market potential, if OUP take that consideration into account (and if not, why not?)
5. All reputable publishers should account at least twice a year, and one or two new houses are making a point of accounting 4 times a year. Certainly no publisher, either in 1985 or in the computerised 1990's, should treat an author so disdainfully that royalty statements are rendered only annually. In my experience, if requested, OUP account twice a year.
6. On the assumption, which I believe to be the case with Mr Malcolm's book, that a manuscript is published first in hardback - principally for libraries, other institutions and to obtain proper review coverage - a subsequent paperback edition would not come out sooner than one year thereafter to allow the hardback to find as substantial a market as possible. Also, the publisher will make a greater profit (as the retail price of a hardback is likely to be twice or three times that of a paperback) by not making the paperback available for as long as possible after publication of the hardback.
7. In general, it cannot be underestimated the extent to which the publisher is responsible for the commercial success or otherwise of the books it publishes. For instance, had Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time been published by certain imprints it would not, I suspect, be the best-seller which it is under the Bantam imprint. This is not to say that had OUP published Mr Malcolm's book it wouldn't have been a best-seller but that, the Press having committed itself to publication, surely it would have used its best endeavours to disseminate the book as widely as possible; and, frankly, the sky's the limit. The book was to be published, as I understand, on the general OUP trade list, not as a recondite academic tome. Thus major sales were surely envisaged.
SWORN BY GILES GORDON, 6th September 1990.
Go to the affidavit of Fred Nolan or to Giles Gordon's first affidavit. Also go to his obituaries.
Go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1); Asquith (2); Henry Hardy; William Shaw (solicitor) (1); Sir Roger Elliott (1); Margaret Goodall; to the Witness Statements: Elliott; Hardy; Richard Charkin; Nicola Bion; Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott; Goodall; Bion; Asquith; Charkin; Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the CHANCERY COURT JUDGMENT, to the Cambridge package and the Adrasteia package, to the publishing contract affidavits: Giles Gordon (1); Mark Le Fanu, to the APPEAL COURT JUDGMENT, to the damages affidavits: Alan Ryan; Asquith (3); Jeremy Mynott; Giles Gordon (2); Fred Nolan; Roy Edgley, to McGregor on Royalties (transcript), to the DAMAGES FINDINGS, and to the Settlement agreement.
Return to the Malcolm vs. Oxford I (1984-92) Index, to the Malcolm vs. Oxford II (2001-02) Index, to the blurb for Making Names, to its reviews, to The Remedy, or to the SITE INDEX.