It may come as a surprise to learn that over recent years publishing is one of the most successful of the UK’s media & creative industries. The UK’s publishing industry is also one of the largest in the world, and is well known for the quality of the content that it creates and the broad range of subject matter. Figures that I found from UK Trade & Investment suggest that the UK publishing industry has a combined turnover of at least £20 billion earned by around 8,500 companies that employs over 160,000 people.

It’s unsurprising that the UK  publishing industry is considered to be the most developed. UK book publishers print in excess of 100,000 new titles a year, while we also publish more newspaper and periodicals than anywhere else in the world.

The UK publishing industry is one of the most culturally and commercially diverse in the world producing titles from the popular Harry Potter novels to obscure magazines like Teddy Bear Times. The UK is also reknown for its serious titles too

The success of the UK publishing industry, which has given the world many of the advancements in modern publishing, has had a worldwide  impact. This is, in part, down to the quality of content but also down to a well-developed network of overseas partners and the undoubted dominance of the English language.

As a consequence the UK has become the world’s largest exporter and re-exporter of books by value, with almost a half of the UK book publishers’  revenue generated by export sales, which are thought to be worth in excess of £1 billion a year. In recent years industry figures sugest that 13% of UK consumer magazines have an international distribution and an estimated 94 million magazines were exported.This considerable revenue is further increased by the global licensing of publishing rights, subscriptions to electronically delivered content and the profits from overseas subsidiaries.

The UK’s media & creative industries continue to be strong and Sussex publishers are a serious contributor to the UK’s output. In response to this market development Mayo Wynne Baxter created a sector team of specialist media & creative industry lawyers to develop a deep understanding of the creative industry and the solutions to the unique legal problems that it faces.

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