I, IVON SHAUN ASQUITH, of 21 Minster Road, Oxford OX4 1LY, MAKE OATH AND SAY as follows:-
I am the Managing Director of the Arts and Reference Division of the Oxford University Press and in that capacity I am responsible for the publication of all the firm's academic, college and general books in the humanities and social sciences, including work concerning philosophical issues such as those referred to in the Plaintiff's work entitled Making Names. I have been employed by the Oxford University Press ("the Press") since May 1977 and from October 1984 to December 1988 I was the Editorial Director for Humanities and Social Sciences for the Academic Division of the Press. I have been involved in the business of publishing for 14 years.
Form of Publication
From my experience I am able to say that
(i) some books are published first in hardback and then, if there is sufficient demand, in paperback;
(ii) some books are published simultaneously in a hardback and a paperback edition. There are three main types of paperback edition: the mass market paperback, which has the lowest price levels and the highest print runs; the trade paperback, which has higher prices and lower print runs than the mass market paperback; and the college paperback, which is aimed primarily at the student market and has to be priced in line with competing text books and with what students can afford;
(iii) some books are published in paperback only. A decision to launch a book in paperback does not necessarily demonstrate unusual confidence in its sales prospects on the part of the publisher. It may mean that the main market for the book is a low priced one, or that the book is of very contemporary relevance and needs to be immediately available at a low price.
Royalties
3. Royalties may be paid at a percentage of the UK published price or at a percentage of the publisher's net receipts, that is, UK published price less discount. The correlation between a royalty on published price and a royalty on net receipts depends upon the level of discount. Discounts can vary substantially depending upon the market; sales to most overseas markets an at a higher discount than in the home market.
4. All royalties are negotiated on a contract by contract basis, depending upon factors such as the commercial potential of the individual book, the reputation of the author, demands made by the author or agent, offers made by competitors, and how much the publisher really wants to do the book. The standard contract contains a provision for royalties on paperback editions which may be completed notwithstanding the fact that the Press has not decided whether to publish in paperback. It is unusual for such rates to be varied by negotiation at a later dates. Whether or not a royalty rate will be increased as the number of sales rises, depends on these factors and would be determined during the negotiation. In my view it is unlikely that a previously unpublished author would obtain such an agreement.
5. It is the standard practice of the Press in new contracts to pay royalties at a percentage of net receipts rather than of published price. It is not correct to say that royalties on a book's UK Sales are (and in 1985 were) virtually always calculated on a book's published price: from the early 1980s, the Press began to shift away from the calculation of royalties on published price, and I believe that the majority of royalty payments were in l985, and are now, made on the basis of net (publisher's) receipts. Now produced and shown to me marked "ISA 1" are a random sample of contracts entered into in 1981-86 demonstrating the Press' practice. these contracts have been provided to me by two editorial directors whom I had asked to obtain contracts on trade hardback and philosophy books which had been entered into in 1981, and in late 1985 and early 1986.
Paperback Royalties
6. Whilst a royalty rate of 10 percent could be an appropriate rate on net receipts of a paperback, it is much too high as a rate on the published price of a paperback. Royalties paid on paperback editions are invariably lower than the royalties paid on hardback editions. The Press had agreed to pay Malcolm a royalty of 12 percent of net receipts from UK Hardback sales and 10 percent of net receipts from Export Hardback sales. In my experience, the Press would have offered a percentage royalty of 10 percent of net receipts on UK sales and 8 percent of net receipts on export sales of any paperback edition of Making Names. Assuming that one quarter of sales would go to countries abroad, this would give an average royalty of approximately 9.5 percent.
7. In order to estimate net receipts on trade paperbacks, the Press applies an average discount in the region of 40 percent of UK published price for UK sales (last year this was 44 percent). The discount for foreign sales is much higher, and generally around 60 percent (last year it was 72 percent on sales to the USA). Assuming that one quarter of sales were made abroad, the overall discount would be no less than 45 percent, which would place average net receipts at 55 percent of the UK published price.
Hardback Royalties
8. A royalty of 10 percent of published price on a hardback may be an average base line figure used by some publishers and most literary agents. But it is not accepted by many publishers, and is certainly not used by the Press, except in special cases.
OUP Sales
9. A substantial proportion of foreign sales is needed to reach sales totals such as those achieved by books such as those referred to in the Schedule now produced to me and marked "ISA 2". That Schedule sets out those figures for the sale of certain philosophy books which I have obtained from the records maintained by the Press. Figures for discounts are only available for the year commencing 1989 to 1990 and subsequent years. The format of first publication appears after the title of the book, and the date of first publication appears in brackets.
10. The Press discontinued the hardback (cloth) editions of Moral Thinking by Hare in 1986 once sales dropped, and further publication became unprofitable.
11. With regard to Moral Philosophy by Raphael, I have not been able to locate the details of sales figures by year for the period up to l April 1985, but I am able to state that total sales from the date of publication to 1 April 1985 were 5,534 copies. In 1982, the price of a copy was £2.50. Both Raphael's Moral Philosophy and Parfit's Reasons and Persons were published as trade (general) paperbacks.
Paperback Edition
12. The Press would have published Making Names in hardback. In my opinion, the Press would not have published a paperback edition because there would not have been sufficient demand for such an edition. If the Press had published a paperback edition, I believe that Making Names would have been published as a trade paperback. I believe that an appropriate price for a trade paperback edition of Making Names as at July 1985 would probably have been in the region of £6.95 a copy in view of the size of the book and could have been £5.95. If Making Names had been published in 1986 at £6.95, then the price would have been likely to rise to say £7.95 by 1988 and would then have risen again within the next two years to about £8.95
Launching Publication
13. Once a book has been accepted for publication by the Press, and the script has been agreed, it will take about a year for the Press to complete the process required to launch publication, which includes the process of copy-editing, consideration of revisions by the author in the light of the copy--editor's queries, design and typesetting, preparation of indexes, proof-reading and corrections, printing and binding, despatch to retailers and customers.
14. It is possible for the Press in certain circumstances to publish a book more quickly: this may be done when there is a specific reason to accelerate publication when it is tied to a special event: for example, Wallis' Models of the UK Economy 1988 was published in 5 months because it needed to appear in the year to which it referred; and similarly William Miller's Media and Votes was published in 6 months in order to take into account the possibility of an election in June 1991. Malcolm's book did not fulfil any of the criteria for accelerated publication. In general, the time involved will depend in large measure upon the nature of the book and on the sort of problems which arise at the copy-editing stage. The preparation of scholarly editions, or complex books with a large number of footnotes and lengthy indexes may take from 18 months to 2 years. In my experience, a year is the average time.
Payment of Royalties
15. The Press' royalty year runs from 1 April to 31 March and royalties do not accrue until 31 March after publication. Payment of royalties is made approximately four months later, towards the end of July. Some authors or their agents reach an agreement with the Press to receive payments of royalties on a six-monthly basis, but the majority of royalties are paid on a yearly basis, as is provided for in the Press' standard form contract as used in 1985, a completed copy of which is now produced and shown to me marked "ISA 3".
Sworn by IVON ASQUITH at OUP, 21st June 1991
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.