Publishing / Marketing

International Organization Information / Research: 1995 (Part #12)

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Contractual relationships with SAUR: Work continues under long-standing contracts. Both parties continue to express satisfaction with the
arrangements, despite the many threats to the publishing industry and booksales in a time of recession and general uncertainty.

New contracts currently under discussion are:

• for the World Guide to Religious Organizations
• for the future CD-ROM publication

Marketing: Sales continue at a satisfactory level despite the general recession. SAUR remains very satisfied with UIA products. Receipts under SAUR contracts increased by 5 percent in 1993 as a result of the adjustment of the contract as previously reported to the General Assembly. These receipts from SAUR are in general higher (13.8 million BF) compared to those from sales through UIA itself (7.6 million BF), although this last figure is more than twice the 1993 result.

Receipts from sale of publications by UIA itself (through Brussels) remain satisfactory. Results for all publications gave more than 2.1 million FB more than in 1993. The issue of UIA marketing from Brussels remains unresolved (if it is a real issue). It continues at a
very modest level.

A regrettable issue raised each year by SAUR is the lack of appropriate financial arrangements through which to dispose of unsold copies of UIA publications. The problem is that the cost of shipping them from Germany is quite significant and the lack of guarantee that they can be sold at any price makes it awkward for the UIA to take any position on the matter. Such publications are therefore regularly pulped. Occasionally arrangements have been made with UNESCO, the difficulty being that such arrangements are easily abused resulting in loss of income. A more creative approach to this may result from the contacts with the head of UNESCO's General Programme of Information and the ACCT.

As noted above, the marketing challenge has been considerably modified by Internet access. This calls for a careful balancing act, in consultation with SAUR, concerning:

• simple use of a "home-page" explaining UIA (and its publications) on Internet
• addition of a more or less extensive sample of data on Internet
• placing a complete functional database on Internet, excluding text or other significant portions, at no charge to users. This might be successfully done for Encyclopedia information (eg relationships only)
• providing some information free and charging for access to other information

It is important to recognize that much information on organizations and meetings is already available on Internet free of charge. Increasing amounts will be made available in this way, notably by the United Nations. The UIA may be forced to recognize that its main asset lies not in the information itself but in the capacity to manage and update it.

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