October 15th, 2008

Live book binding: A stitch in time or a timeless stitch?

If you’re interested in books that will never be remaindered — as well as autographs, prints, art and other literary ephemera — stop by the Antiquarian Book Fair in Hall 4.0 C1200.

Just don’t forget to surrender your bag to the nearby valet first — bags aren’t allowed, as the guard will be quick to point out).

(Anyone interested in buying me a gift? I’d gladly accept the original copy of the Futurist Manifesto I’ve been told is on sale.)

22nd International Rights Directors Meeting. Left to right: Morgan Entrekin, Diane Spivey, Hans-Jürgen Balmes, Janice Potter, Margaret Halton and Jordi Nadal.

Agents and rights managers made a beeline Tuesday afternoon for the 22nd International Rights Directors Meeting, an essential professional development event held each year on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

After several years focusing on particular rights markets, this year’s meeting was themed ‘Getting to Yes: The Successful Rights Negotiation and Deal.’ No matter how experienced you are at selling rights, having seasoned professionals share their tips with you is an opportunity not to be missed.

Janice Potter of Simon & Schuster USA started off the event by reviewing some of the recent development sin the rights contract, which is of course, the document that enables the entire publishing process to occur. One piece of advice stayed with me in particular: ‘don’t buy more rights that you can exploit’: a simple dictum that would solve many squabbles if more people followed it. Other issues that probably didn’t have to be considered even a decade ago included digital concerns such as how much content should an author be allowed to use on their website, and how to handle ebook rights and print-on-demand (POD).

‘A basic misunderstanding of the notion of POD is that it is a right, rather than a method of manufacture. POD is simply a means to reproduce your book’, Potter observed.

Potter was followed by Margaret Halton, rights director at Pan Macmillan UK, who dispensed some excellent advice on best-practice for rights managers, include what to include in a pitch, and how to come to a book fair properly prepared.

‘I cannot stress enough the need to maintain a cool head [in negotiations]‘, she said in summary. ‘Don’t let the excitement of the moment make your forget to clarify the finer points of the deal.’

Excellent and thoughtful contributions followed from Hans-Jürgen Balmes (S Fischer Verlag, Germany) and Jordi Nadal (Plataforma Editorial, Spain), who provided a European perspective to selling and buying rights into and out of English.

Grove/Atlantic’s Morgan Entrekin was the last speaker, and spoke of the requirements when selling to English language publishers. He listed 13 suggestions, the most earnestly put being:

• Be extremely selective about which books you pitch
• Make as much material as possible available in English (including about the author)
• Arm yourself with endorsements from authors, publishers and booksellers who have read the book
• Make sure you help the English-language publisher as much as possible once the book has been sold.

Publishers who attend the 2009 Abu Dhabi international Book Fair (ADIBF) and enter into a rights agreement – either to translate to or from Arabic – will be able to take advantage of a $1,000 subsidy. The money needs to be used to pay for rights or royalties; $250 is payable on agreement, while the remaining $750 will be withheld until a finished copy of the book is delivered to the organization.

The scheme is the latest edition to the ADBIF, which now enters its third year in partnership with the FBF. Earlier today, at a “Tea Time” presentation, director Jumaa Al Qubaisi, explained that the ADIBF was “Trying to create a circle of culture, which includes the book fair and KALIMA, the translation project, Sheik Zaid Book Awards. the distribution system is very critical and important. We’re working on a project to open libraries around the UAE and reach out to remote areas to promote culture and reading,” adding, “People will say it is very difficult to accomplish what you want to there, but we reply that we’ve done ten years of work in two years.”

Among other new initiatives at next year’s Fair is an expanded slate of author events. Among those already confirmed are Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell and Amitav Ghosh.

Seth Russo, Middle East sales director for Scholastic, attended to the ADIBF for the first time in 2007 and came away impressed.

“It’s perhaps the most beautiful book fair you’ll ever see,””he said, making particular reference to its location in a new state-of-the-art conference center.

Statistically speaking, it makes sense for a publisher to take an interest in the region: “The population of the Middle East is 275 million and is fast growing, the birthrate is twice the average of the developed world and 63 per cent are under the age of 29. There 750 schools in the region with the concentration in the UAE, over 450K students enrolled. ministries of education”, he said.

Claudia Kaiser, general manager of KITAB, said that the biggest challenge for KITAB and the ADIBF is not so much logistic – such as helping to establish a distribution system for books, something that is sorely needed in the region, as it is cultural.

“There just isn’t a culture of reading in Middle East”, she said. “That’s what we’re working hard to change.”

This past spring I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a Editors’ Week in Buenos Aires. It was an amazing experience, solidifying my lifelong interest in Argentine literature, and giving me a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit the place where many of my favorite books are set. I also met a lot great people, and found out about a lot great authors. So personally, I’m very excited to see what Argentina does when it’s the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2010, which, in a way, the events taking place this year are building up to.

Fundacion TyPA (the same organization that sponsors the editorial trips) are putting on two key events this week, both entitled “Argentinean Publishing Inside-Out.” The first took place this afternoon, featuring European publishers talking about Argentinean books. And on Friday, the counterpart panel takes place with Argentinean publishers talking about the contemporary scene.

Geoff Mulligan, Dominique Bourgois, and Michi Strausfeld, were there today to talk about Argentinean translations they’d published. Geoff emphasized the need to find a great translator (editing a bad translation consumes more time than any of us have), while Dominique had a fantastic quote about how “publishing is a network of writers and a network of friends”.

She said that in relation to a question about how to find Argentinean authors, a question that allowed Gabriela Adamo from TyPA to present their new (first?) catalog of “30 Great Authors from Argentina.” This booklet - actually, it’s a set of 30 envelope-sized cards with info about each author in Spanish and English collected into a cardboard slipcover - is incredibly appealing and very informative. Rather than highlight the Cortazars and Borges and Macedonios of Argentine lit, none of the 30 authors included have been translated into English. Some of the authors are very young, some more established, all very interesting. You can pick up a copy of this catalog at Hall 5.1 E 955.

Walking to the Press Centre in Hall 6.2 for the first time during set-up on Monday, two things struck me. First, the capacious Press Centre was slightly smaller than last year and second, the adjacent LIterary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) area for literary agents appeared to be larger.

My first impression was correct. This year’s LitAg centre is 5 per cent larger than last year, with over 500 agents from 300 companies situated there this year. And the journalists are having to make way.

One agent new to LitAg this year was experienced Australian agent Sheila Drummond of The Drummond Agency, who had received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to have a table this year. Drummond was grateful for the assistance:

‘Being an agent in Australia can be quite tough unless you have some big-name authors,’ she told me, as she prepared for the first of 50 scheduled appointments. That sounds like a lot, but many agents and rights managers have many more. Drummond says the number is deliberate: ‘if you leave some gaps in the schedule you can make room for the unexpected opportunities that may occur during the week.’

Drummond’s big hope for the week is a gentle, character-based mystery novel set in a newspaper office in 1950s Scotland. It’s a book aimed directly at heart of the 50+ female reader and Drummond has already had interest from the US.

I should add one thing: in the Centre’s 30th year, two things haven’t changed about LitAg: it’s still tough to talk your way in (’I have an appointment with Andrew Wylie - honestly!’), and leaving its sedate and perfumed avenues of tables for Frankfurt’s noisy, frenetic exhibition halls is always a moment marked with a slight regret.

This year’s Guest of Honour at Frankfurt is, of course, Turkey. With the exception of the Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, Turkey may not be on your radar, but the country is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and has a vibrant publishing culture on display at the fair this year.

The best way to receive a discover more about this already significant book market is to visit the Turkish Collective Stand in Hall 5.1. C 976 (and the exhibit in the Forum Level 1). Here you’ll find a lot of helpful material, including a directory of Turkish publishers, a CD-ROM about Turkish writers and information on the TEDA Project. 

Established in 2005, TEDA is designed to encourage the translation and publication of Turkish writing around the world through the provision of generous subsidies.

By far the largest number of TEDA-funded projects - 110 so far - have come from Germany, followed by Bulgaria (44), Iran (33) and the USA (23).

Last year, we wrote about the widespread interest in the book “Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife” by American Sam Savage. The book, about a rat that lives in a Boston bookstore reading, eating and quite literally digesting classic books, was purchased by ten publishers at last year’s FBF (after 30 offers). Today, some of those publishers told their own tales of their role in publishing the book, to explain details about the deal and brag a little about their success – all featured in a lunch time panel entitled “The Ins and Outs of International Rights and Licenses: A Case Study.”

Christopher Fischbach, senior editor of Coffee House Press in Minneapolis took credit for the discovery, arrived at the publisher unagented. That made it, in the parlance of the book biz, a “slush pile discovery.” It’s one of four or five books the publisher discovers that way each year, out of more than 3,000 manuscripts which cover over the transom. (Another 500 come in from agents).

Coffee House published in 2007, but garnered only mild interest – that is until sub-rights agent Sandra Bruna brought the copy to publisher Elena Ramirez RicoRico of Seix Barral (part of the Planeta group).

What she read immediately impressed her: “I knew we had something very universal and important in my hands”, she said. “I sent Sandra an offer at 5 p.m. on a Friday from my Blackberry.”

Questioned by moderator Thomas Minkus of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Ramirez Ricoindicated that her first offer was for 5,000 euros for Spanish rights. Bruna indicated her fee as agent would be 8 per cent of the retail sales price of the book of the first printing up to 5,000 copies, then jumps to 10 per cent thereafter.

But then something interesting happened. Ramirez, encouraged by her friend, mystery novelist Donna Leon, she decided to make an offer for world rights – one Fischbach said was “the most money Coffee House had ever been offered for anything.” He jumped, in part because the money will help finance further publications, possibly of books he hopes to discover here at Frankfurt (it is his first visit to the Fair.)

Subsequently, Ramirez Ricobrought the book to the 2007 FBF and there was so much buzz, Orion in the UK, Columna in the Catalan language, Don Quixote in Portugal all made plans to publish. Ulrika Ostermeyer with the German publisher Ullstein said that when she heard the three/four line pitch, it struck her as something “different.” Ramirez Ricoput a finer point on it, describing the book as the “anti-pitch”.

“You come to Frankfurt and show you a very handsome writer, a good historical novel that will sell like crazy,” she explained, “but here you have a very unfashionable novel by an old, first time writer – and you think, this must be original or the person trying to sell it are crazy.”

Ostermeyer was intrigued enough that she made an offer for the book, in part based on the encouragement of her marketing director who felt they had clever methods of selling the book. After winning a German auction, she published it this August. Already in its third printing, it has sold 17,000 copies (though Ostermeyer believes it should hit 25,000 by the end of the year). “It will do even better in paperback”, she added.

Part of the marketing of the book was the use of a cartoon rat to illustrate the cover, an image which was subsequently retained by many of the publishers. The Spanish edition is embellished even further and the design of the physical book makes it look as if the edge had already been chewed by a rat. It has lived up to expectation, selling 100,000 copies thus far.

“The rat is really part of the appeal of the book”, said Italian publisher, Paolo Repetti of Einaudi, who added that the fact it could be explained in a one line pitch really helped. “When you can understand the story so quickly, you know readers will too.”

He elicited blurbs from well known writers, including Niccolo Ammaniti and Allessandro Baricco, and launched the Italian edition at the Turin Book Fair earlier this year. It has been an unqualified success.

“We started with a 30,000 copy first printing and are now up to 300,000 copies”, said Repetti, who added “It’s not a bad business.”

“In all, we’ve sold rights into 17 territories,” said Ramirez. While that may sound like the end of the story, it isn’t. “Only this morning I received an offer from Serbia,” she said, a big smile on her face.

UK-based Bloomsbury Publishing has announced a joint venture with the Qatar Foundation that will involve the creation of a new publishing house, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing. The venture house will be located in oil-rich Qatar’s capital Doha, and will make use of Bloomsbury’s global distribution channels.

The venture will publish books in both English and Arabic across a wide range of subject areas, including fiction and nonfiction for adults and children, educational and academic books, classics of Arabic literature and reference books.

‘Our aim is not simply to publish in the region, but also internationally, to identify and nurture literary talent and to help to bring new skills and knowledge to Qatar,’ said Nigel Newton, Bloomsbury’s founder and chief executive. ‘We also want to work in partnership with other publishers in the region.’

A managing director and publishing director for the venture will now be sought.

The Qatar Foundation is a non-profit organisation set up in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar to invest in education, technology, research and community welfare projects.

Launched four months ago, Ediciona.com is a new web portal catering to the Spanish-language publishing community. It offers agent and publisher profiles, job and event listings, a blog aggregator, and daily news updates and has some 3,000 users so far.

Based in Barcelona, the site covers Spanish-speaking countries across the globe, from Latin America to Europe.

Maricarmen Chirinos Cuadros, content manager for the site, says that there are already plans in place to develop a similar site in Portuguese, with English-language features to follow.

“Since publishing accounts for 6% of the economy of Spain alone,” said Cuadros, “we expect that the community of people using the site will grow substantially.”

Today’s EPP (Educational Publishing Pavilion) panel on “Global Innovations and Market Opportunites,” blended together two of the primary focuses running throughout this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair events: educational publishing and digital initiatives. (I’ll be writing about a number of e-publishing panels later this week . . .) This particular panel featured three CEOs who are utilizing emerging technologies to improve the educational content they’re producing.
 
The event opened with an intro by Dr. Hugh Roome from Scholastic International in which he pointed to four key markets that will become more and more important to educational publishers over the next five years: 1) developing online courses and materials for a variety of students, both in traditional schools and those being home-schooled, 2) English language training for the world, 3) school-to-work programs to teach immediately relevant skills, and 4) working with Ministries of Education in developing countries to incorporate solid, inexpensive educational programs into their poorer schools.
 
Each of the panelists presented a new technology (or new way to use technology) that would assist in the creation of educational materials designed to reach one of the markets/opportunities Dr. Roome mentioned.
 
Sudhir Singh Dungarpur from Q2A Media (Hall 8.0 J 954) presented information about the “Interactive Whiteboard,” a multimedia enhanced whiteboard that can be used in classrooms to better engage and interact with students. Although he didn’t have a whiteboard there (it is on display at their stand, which is (Hall 8.0 J 954), it sounded pretty cool. Teachers can edit and load lessons that contain a variety of flash media, learning quizzes, and other interactive activities, encouraging students to “do” things in class. (This “doing” was very important to Sudhir–according to a study he cited, we remember 10% of what we read, 30 per cent of what we say, and 90 per cent of what we see, say, and do. It was interesting, although scary to me, how visual-heavy these new teaching technologies are. Books are being replaced in schools by podcasts and flash animation . . . though if it helps kids learn, it’s definitely a good thing.) The first phase of this project is ready to be deployed, and over 300 schools in Europe will be using these in the near future. And apparently, American schools are receiving large grants to purchase these as well. Of all three presentations, this seemed like the most game-changing technology, altering the way classes can be taught.
 
The DNL e-book format was the focus of Adam Schmidt’s (DNAML Pty. Ltd., 8.0 L 977) presentation. DNL is a particular e-book format that works on PCs and will soon be Mac-compatible. At this time, it wouldn’t really work with an e-reader because it too is very media/flash heavy. (Maybe in the future . . . It would seem to make most sense to have these books available on iPhones. . . .) The format was pretty nice, contained all the bells and whistles you might expect, and was DRM protected on their server. (This was a huge selling point of his, something that helped his pitch with HarperCollins, but something that I’m personally not keen on. Kids illegally download math books is the least of our problems . . . Kidding of course.) You can also buy the book within the book, which is a very cool function. There wasn’t much info about how easy/difficult it is to create these books, which would’ve been interesting to find out about, especially in contrast to Sophie, a free, very usuable e-book programme.
 
Finally, Rachelle Cracchiolo from Teacher Created Materials in California (Hall 8.0 O 907) talked about the immense popularity of the podcasts they’ve made available on their website. Although they’ve mainly used these as a marketing tool, she saw a huge growth possibility in providing English as a Second Language content and materials for staff development and teacher training. The basic message: people dig iPods and are willing to listen to things they normally wouldn’t find the time to read and study. Sort of co-opting the Apple cool for educational purposes–not a new idea, but one that could be implemented more widely and in more situations.
 
Although I’m a trade publisher who loves fiction, this panel was interesting to me in the way it demonstrated how different types of publishers are preparing for the future of publishing and learning.