1. 12 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 11 August 2015
BUSINESS LIFE
Netflix’s new family leave policy —
unlimited paid time off for parents in
the first year after a child’s birth or
adoption — is great. But it would be
even better if the video streaming
company could now ensure its founder
and chief executive Reed Hastings has
a child and spends 12 months out of the
office caring for his newborn.
If nobody takes advantage of a new
progressive policy, it is worse than
useless. In the case of maternity and
paternity leave, whatever the brand
and recruitment value of its
announcement, Netflix will not
advance gender equity, or reap the full
business benefits, unless men also take
part. The question is how to encourage
staff to use their new rights.
All-you-can-eat holiday policies,
such as those already operated by
Netflix, offer a partial lesson in
unintended consequences.
The need to have enough people
available for vital work puts a natural
limit on the ability of everyone to bunk
off at once. But, without guidance, it
may also lash them more firmly to
their desks. Sir Richard Branson was
rightly lampooned for making
unlimited leave at Virgin conditional
on staff being “a hundred per cent
comfortable that they and their team
are up to date on every project”. Some
companies with unlimited-leave
policies have had to offer monetary
bait to prompt hard-pressed employees
to take any holiday at all. For instance,
Triggertrap, a UK photographic start-
up, had to start paying a £300 bonus to
staff members who take at least 10
days in a six-month period;
unsurprisingly, everyone now books at
least the minimum time off.
Family leave differs, of course, in one
rather important way: at least one
person cannot stay at her desk
throughout (though stories of hard-
charging female executives
BlackBerrying or conference-calling
through labour abound). But some
malign incentives are in play to
persuade mothers, particularly, to
return to work as soon as possible.
For a study about how maternity
leave affects women’s careers, due to be
presented to the Academy of
Management’s annual meeting this
week, researchers asked students to
examine imaginary job applications for
management positions. They tested the
perception of women who take leave of
just one month, against those who take
leave of a year (the norm in Canada,
where this paper originated).
“Women with a one-month leave
were perceived as more masculine and,
in turn, as more committed to their
jobs and were recommended a higher
salary,” the academics concluded.
Parents should be able to choose how
much or little time they take off to bear
and care for their newborn children.
That is one reason why it was wrong to
attack Marissa Mayer for saying, when
appointed as Yahoo’s chief executive in
2012, that she would take only a few
weeks’ maternity leave and work
throughout. But she should also have
had support if, for instance, she had
decided to change her mind and stay
away for longer, whatever the reason.
A good family leave programme will
allow all parents on leave to stay in
touch with work (if they want to), and
reassure them that they can reintegrate
successfully afterwards, without fear of
career penalty. A bring-baby-to-work
plan could also smooth the return.
Men’s participation is crucial, as it is
for many gender-friendly corporate
policies. If Netflix’s male employees
decide they prefer not to compromise
their “masculinity” by taking leave,
they could undermine the whole plan.
In fact, if the Canadian study is right,
men should probably spend longer on
paternity leave to allow their partners
to return to work sooner.
Norway has a “fathers’ quota”, which
gives men the right to take six weeks of
the 54 available for family leave. The
majority of men now take the time off.
Norwegian researchers say the quota
has been particularly useful in setting
boundaries to what they call “limitless
jobs”, as at Netflix, where it is left up to
staff to organise their working hours.
Forcing its staff to take a minimum
amount of time off to care for their
babies would “not be culturally
relevant”, Netflix says. But it and other
progressive companies should still
nudge their employees, particularly the
men and the senior staff, to exercise
their new rights — and to brag about
doing so. As norms change, new role
models will emerge and the hidden
stigma of asking for leave will diminish.
But new practices need nurturing. As
every parent knows, if you fail to
encourage and support your children,
they are more likely to grow up wrong.
andrew.hill@ft.com
Twitter: @andrewtghill
I
t is a tradition that persists: the
summer beach pilgrimage to catch
up on the books that you meant to
readallyear.Behindthepage,how-
ever,revolutionisunderway.
It was 2007 when Amazon released
Kindle Direct Publishing and opened
the self-publishing floodgates and cata-
lysed a new and viable business sector.
All of a sudden anyone could publish a
bookandreachanaudience.
According to Bowker, which gathers
book data, about 460,000 titles were
self-published in the US in 2013.
AuthorEarnings, an influential website
that analyses Amazon data, estimates
that the do-it-yourself approach
accounts for 38 per cent of ebooks sold
on the site, and generated $459m of
ebooksalesin2014.
This sizeable market has caught the
eye of start-ups promising to serve the
authoratalmosteverystageoftheinde-
pendentpublishingprocess.
“Amazon . . . onlysoughttotakecon-
trol of distribution,” says Emmanuel
Nataf,chiefexecutiveandco-founderof
Londonstart-upReedsy.“Beforeagood
self-published book gets into the
reader’shandsitmustgothroughalotof
other stages. Creating value here and
bringing quality to the self-publishing
world — that’s where we think the
opportunitylies,”headds.
Under the traditional model the pub-
lisher handled developmental editing,
copyediting, cover design, formatting,
proofreading, print book design, audio-
book narration and production, mar-
ketingandadvertising.
The indie author has to handle all of
this.Itishardworkifallyouwantedwas
to write. But if you want to turn writing
into a business, as many do, it provides
transparency and control over costs,
revenueandtiming.
Gradually the process is being frac-
tured into its constituent parts by start-
ups.Hereisaguidetosomeofthemany
newventuresdoingthis.
Conversiontoebookformat
Uploading your book to an etailer such
asApple’siBooksortheAmazonKindle
store is not a trivial exercise. It requires
reformatting a manuscript of 40,000-
100,000 words and metadata (such as
the author biography and copyright
notices) into an acceptable electronic
formatforeachretailer.
It is made considerably easier by
using a service such as Smashwords or
Draft2Digital. Such services also pro-
vide a consolidated dashboard
of your sales through each store
andmakeroyaltypayments.
Forproductionanddistribution
of print books, independent
authors generally go to Amazon-
owned CreateSpace or Ingram Con-
tent.
Bookdesignandediting
Authors and readers quickly realised
thatmerelylistingabookinanetaileris
noindicatorofquality.Ebookstoresare
repletewithterriblelayouts,poorspell-
ing, missing pages, awful grammar and
unintentionallycomiccovers.Enterthe
professionals. The editors, proof read-
ers, designers and marketers who can
solve all these problems once found
their work exclusively through tradi-
tionalpublishers.Nowtheyarebuilding
relationshipsdirectlywiththeauthors.
Reedsy, backed by high-profile ven-
ture capital funds and business angels,
lists editors, designers and marketers
whomauthorscanhire.Ittakesa10per
cent commission for services bought.
New York-based Bibliocrunch offers a
similar service. For a monthly or yearly
feeauthorscanaccess1,500vettedfree-
lancersprovidingpublishingskills.
Marketingandpromotion
Without the marketing machine of a
big publishing house behind them
indie authors must work hard to be
discovered.
BookBub has been described as the
Groupon of books. Just like the coupon
discount club, it sends a daily email to
anenormousreadershipwithashortlist
of books at a deep discount. Authors
negotiate with BookBub to get their
bookpromoted.
Founded in Massachusetts in 2012,
Bookbub has raised just over $10m in
tworoundssincethebeginningof2014.
Other start-ups in the field are Book-
Sends, Kindle Books & Tips, ERead-
erNewsToday, BargainBooksy and
BookGorilla,allofwhichcangeneratea
significantsalesboostforauthors.
Comma Press, based in Manchester
in the UK, specialises in short stories
and has launched a self-publishing
platform for text and audio that en-
ables authors and readers to see
precisely where readers and lis-
teners give up on a book. Each work
isaccompaniedbyatimelinethatsome-
times reveal brutal cliff edges where
readers jump off. A valuable education
forauthors.Butonlybraveones.
Colorado-based FindMyAudience
identifiesthecommunitiesandinfluen-
tial individuals on social media who are
most likely to be interested in an
author’s work. Author-provided data
such as genre feeds an algorithm that
identifies where potential readers can
be found on social network sites Face-
book,TwitterandGoodreads.
The company announced it had
closed a $2.1m seed round of financing
inMarchthisyearandisabouttolaunch
itsdiscoveryservice.
‘Crowdreading’
Wattpad has shown there is a way to
build a community of young writers
andreadersthroughtheirsmartphones.
The company, founded in Toronto in
2006,raised$46mlastyear.Itboastsof
carrying 100m stories on its platform,
and estimates that 11bn minutes are
spent reading stories or commenting
everymonth.
Wattpad provides free access to sto-
riesforareadershipthatprovidesyoung
writers with feedback and encourage-
ment.Thestoriesarepublishedinserial
fashionandfeedbackisalmostinstant.
Authors do not make money directly.
But they build a following that can be
convertedintoreadersofpaid-forbooks
inthefutureorbecomepaidscriptwrit-
ers or advisers for consumer and con-
tentbrands.
Otherbusinessesencouragingcrowd-
to-author interactions include Inkitt
and Amazon’s own service called Write
On, which was launched with very little
fanfarelastyear.
AdvanceEditionshastakenthecrowd
a step further. Once it has edited, proof
read, libel-checked and fact-checked a
book,theindiepublishermakesitavail-
able to a preview readership who have
two months to critique the book after
which the author can make further
changes before publishing the final ver-
sion.AdvanceEditionshassaidthatitis
considering making this service availa-
bletoself-publishedauthors.
Crowdfunding
Inksharesisatraditionalpublisherinso
far that it edits, designs, prints, distrib-
utes, and markets books. But the deci-
siontopublishisonlymadewhenapro-
posedbooksuccessfullyhitsapre-order
thresholdfromreaders.
UK-based Unbound operates more
like the crowdfunding websites Indie-
gogoandKickstarter.Thefundstopub-
lish the book by the Unbound team are
raised from interested readers who are
enticed with rewards such as special
editions, work-in-progress information
and sometimes a character named in
their honour. Publishizer in the US fol-
lowsasimilarmodel.
Fullserviceindiepublishing
Several companies provide a range of
services similar to the full suite pro-
videdbytraditionalpublishers,butwith
the promise of letting authors take a
much bigger slice of the pie. New York-
based Pronoun, which is launching
imminently, promises to provide the
entireebookpublishingserviceforfree.
Other full service providers include
BookBabyandTablo.
Author-to-publishermatchmaking
For the author who, despite all the help
available to indies, still wants to go to a
traditional publisher then a start-up in
Austin, Texas, called Authors.me sim-
plifies the arduous process of research-
ing the right publishers and agents and
wowing them with a proposal. Their
service has been described as
match.comforauthorsandpublishers.
Atomisationofpublishing
allowsstart-upstostepup
The process of creating
and distributing a book is
being broken down into
its constituent parts,
writes Richard Newton
Direct from
writer to
beachside
customer.
Below, Paul
Kingsnorth’s
‘The Wake’,
published by
Unbound and
longlisted for
the 2014 Man
Booker Prize.
Tetra Images/Getty
Companies
must nudge
women —
and men —
to take up
rights to
‘unlimited’
family leave
Netflixneedsto
devotetimeto
nurturingits
newbaby
Located in Birmingham’s city
centre on the lively Broad
Street, Pushkar serves a
combination of Punjabi and
north Indian cuisine infused
with a subtle western
influence.
In recent years Broad
Street has been regenerated
and it is now thriving as one
of the city’s business
improvement districts. The
area is synonymous with
nightlife and entertainment.
Just moments away are the
International Convention
Centre, Symphony Hall and
Brindleyplace, the canalside
development that is home to
Deutsche Bank, RBS and
radio group Orion Media.
Pushkar is an ideal spot
for meeting business
contacts for drinks and
traditional desserts — or as
a destination for a boost of
productivity during a lunch
or dinner meeting. The
restaurant’s ambience and
its spirited hospitality
attract both local customers
and visitors to the city.
Pushkar is richly
decorated — white, cream
and gold colours add a
touch of opulence to the fine
dining served. Diners are
presented with menus
encased in a lavish crocodile
effect box; each lampshade
that dangles above the bar
is a sleek geometric fold of
metal.
Fresh ingredients and
natural produce are part of
each dish. A perfect choice
for those who are
accustomed to Indian
cuisine and also suitable for
those trying it for the first
time. The mildly-spiced lamb
rogan josh is recommended.
Maggie Ibiam
Great place to meet
Pushkar, Birmingham
Where 245 Broad street Privacy AAEEE
Plug sockets No Espresso £2.50
Open Daily 12-2.30pm 5-11.30pm; Sat-Sun 5-11pm WiFi Yes
When the European
Medicines Agency last
month issued what it called
a positive scientific opinion
for a vaccine for malaria,
there was considerable relief
in the medical community
that decades of research
and more than $500m of
investment were beginning
to produce tangible returns.
The disease killed an
estimated 584,000 people in
2013, most of them African
children, according to the
World Health Organisation.
I asked Chris Drakeley,
director of the Malaria
Centre at the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, whether this
vaccine would be a
breakthrough, and, on a
secondary note, whether it
would remove the need to
take daily medicines when
visiting affected areas on
business or holiday.
He said there are three
vaccines undergoing trials,
one from GlaxoSmithKline
called Mosquirix, which
received the support from
the EMA for use on children,
and a second developed at
Oxford university, which has
been tried on adults, but
may also be used on young
people. The third comes
from an American company,
Sanaria.
Prof Drakeley said the
EMA’s endorsement was a
“huge fillip to the vaccine
community” because failure
would have been a
disincentive to take research
to the next stage and
eventual commercialisation.
But he said the fact that the
vaccines are only effective
30 per cent to 50 per cent of
the time means they are not
practical for travellers.
So what is the best advice
to those planning trips to
affected countries? It turns
out that the UK and
European countries are
taking a slightly different
approach from the US
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
Ron Behrens, a senior
lecturer at the London
School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, says
advice in the UK and several
other European countries is
being changed to remove
the need for malaria
medicines for most visitors
to Southeast Asia. The CDC,
on the other hand, still
recommends that visitors
use malaria drugs for parts
of that region, especially
Cambodia.
“In Southeast Asia, the
risk of malaria has declined
significantly for most
countries,” Dr Behrens says,
adding that it has been
years since a traveller
returned to the UK with
malaria from a visit there. Dr
Behrens, who sits on the
official UK advisory
committee, says the
recommendations to
travellers will be changed
this year to reflect this
improvement, suggesting
only mosquito bite
prevention such as insect
repellents and bed nets.
Dr Behrens says travellers
to most of Africa are still
advised to take one of three
prescription drugs still
considered effective against
malaria. They must be taken
before travelling, during the
visit and after returning.
The recommended drugs
are doxycycline, mefloquine
and a drug combining
atovaquone and proguanil,
which is sold under the
brand name Malarone, but is
now available as a less
expensive generic in the UK.
All three drugs are
considered effective, but
they have distinct side
effects, which travellers
should consider in
consultation with their
doctors. Doxycycline can
upset stomachs and causes
severe sensitivity to the sun.
Mefloquine is known to have
effects on nerve tissue, and
the US Food and Drug
Administration has added a
warning about nerve
damage. Malarone can cause
diarrhoea in some people.
“It’s really about choosing
which side effects you want
to avoid the most,” Dr
Behrens says.
fitexecutive@ft.com
The fit executive
Malaria vaccines and changing
advice for business travellers
CHARLES WALLACE
Dreamstime
‘
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Andrew Hill
Onmanagement
Images of Birmingham Premium/Alamy