Top boss at publisher WSOY wants authors to be more visible

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Last week the publishing house WSOY made the exceptional decision to drop its most successful author of recent years, Sofi Oksanen. More staff cuts are expected later this week.
      According to Jaques Eijkens, the director of the Sanoma Corporation’s Learning & Literature business group, WSOY is at a turning point, and the whole book publishing business is undergoing big changes.
      In an interview with Helsingin Sanomat, Eijkens says that WSOY has been postponing changes for too long. He feels that in the future it is not possible to succeed with structures and working methods that were created in a different time for different needs.
     
The most visible trends for change, in Eijkens’s view, are digitalised communications and the change in the image of an author.
      Previously, an author was someone who would sit at a desk, churning out copy that a publisher would package into book form and sell to readers. In the future, book publishing is expected to focus more on the writer’s persona and brand. An author needs to be present in the media, the internet, on mobile phones, and live in person.
     
“It is important for there to be an interesting persona behind the publishing concept. People do not want just a book, they want an author”, Eijkens says.
      “There are excellent authors in Finland, probably better ones than in The Netherlands, for instance, but Finland lags behind in the commercialisation of the business.”
     
Eijkens feels that authors must learn to think of their work more “professionally” and more “commercially”. There is a certain irony that Sofi Oksanen represents the very type of author that Eijkens is dreaming of.
      Oksanen refused to sign a publishing contract that did not include a marketing contract. Oksanen also criticised WSOY for handling matters such as marketing and translation of her works in an unprofessional manner.
      “It is a bit ironic”, Eijkens concedes.
     
“I do not claim that we would know everything already, or that everything would be crystal clear to us. We are in a state of change, and change always brings resistance. Change hurts.”
      Jacques Eijkens refers to the fact that while Oksanen herself fits in well with the company’s new thinking, in public she set herself up as the spokesperson for those who are against change. Such voices can be found both among authors and within WSOY itself.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  WSOY expected to drop more personnel next week (17.6.2010)
  WSOY and star author Sofi Oksanen part ways (16.6.2010)

Helsingin Sanomat