October 16th, 2009

In the aftermath (or some would argue the midst of) the economic recession, the industry has focused its attention more closely on the developing phenomenon of digital publishing. But while larger names such as Open Road Media are generating a buzz at this fair with their innovations, smaller independent houses have been merging print and digital media for many years now.

One such house is Chin Music Press, a visual and non-fiction house with offices in Seattle, Washington and Tokyo. Chin Music Press (whose name derives from baseball slang) is a publisher of fiction and visual titles specializing in Japanese and Japanese-American themes. In Frankfurt for the first time this year, Chin Music is nimble in both ink and internet formats.

With their first title, Kuhaku & Other Accounts From Japan, the book’s author and designer created a companion website that explores and expands upon the book’s already dynamic content. Kuhaku’s sixteen stories and essays, along with full-colour panoramic art, are sampled on the website. Interested readers can learn more about contributing authors and artists (visit their personal websites, learn about their creative process, etc). In addition, certain sections of Kuhaku (including “Canned Coffee” in which the beverages are reviewed with a flourish by various international writers), inspire entire websites of their own (www.cannedcoffee.com). In this way, readers can lose themselves in the textual universes of the books, and then emerge from the printed page to have their post-media feast. And we surfers, with just a few curious clicks of the mouse, can stumble upon Chin Music Press – thus a new book lover is born. Fans discover the publishing house through any number of means, and the digital experience serves to support rather than undermine the printed word.

This year, as Chin Music Press shops their latest title, they are once again innovators in their field. Big in Japan: A Ghost Story is a debut novel by M. Thomas Gammarino and follows one anxious, variously haunted American young man in his first encounter with the Land of the Rising Sun. Big in Japan is a riotously funny novel that explodes the sexual stereotypes between east and west. The novel’s protagonist, Brain Tedesco, is a member of a flailing progressive rock band, Agenbite that mistakenly thinks itself famous in Japan. Readers can visit the book’s website and immerse themselves in Agenbite’s imaginary world. By click on backstage passes to the band’s tour (author readings and events), fake music reviews (press) and a soon-to-be-launched MySpace page, complete with songs `composed’ by the band (in fact written and performed by author Gammarino).

So while the big names and the deep pockets may be getting the most attention, smaller independent houses are also reinventing the publishing industry to accommodate digital formats. And with seemingly no end to their innovative potential, this is one writer who’s going to keep his eyes on the small guys for the next wave of digital publishing ventures.

Over the past few years, the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair has grown substantially, taking on a more professional focus and serving as the platform for visitors and publishing folks within the region to meet and start doing business. One of the driving forces behind the expansion of ADIBF is the belief among foreign publishers that the Middle East represents a relatively untapped market (pun unintended) with enormous potential.

Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2008

 Today’s “teatime” event offered a chance for English-language publishers to get a better understanding of the opportunities in the region, and to demonstrate how valuable it is to attend the ADIBF (and as a publisher myself, I can confirm this).

 This may well have been the most well-organized, comprehensive, and useful panel that I’ve attended so far at the Fair. (Not that the others were bad, but damn, this was like consultant-level knowledge.) Each of the presenters were very clear, very engaging, and very practical in their advice.

The difficulties for English-language publishers wanting to enter into the Arabic market are fairly evident, but worth repeating: reading isn’t a fundamental activity in the Arab world, most print runs are very small, and books are considered to be a luxury purchase. Not to mention, the “Arab Book Market” is by no means homogenous, with each country functioning in a slightly different way and applying different censorship criteria. And the Western idea of “distributors/wholesalers” is totally different in the Arab World.

That said, opportunities exist both for trade publishers and educational publishers. On the trade front, the fact that bookstores are becoming more professional—through the opening of Borders, Virgin Megastores, etc., in the UAE—offers sudden opportunities for publishers to get their books in front of readers. Plus, there are a lot of programs in place to promote literacy and encourage children to become readers.

On the educational side of things, there’s even more going on. Every year more and more International Schools are opening in the UAE (and elsewhere). At the present time, more than 450,000 students are being taught in English. Parallel to overall education initiatives, a lot of money is going into expanding and improving library collections. Ministries of Education are spending a lot of money on educational resources and teacher training, and are looking for appropriate materials to use and companies to partner with.

All of this sounds great, and looks good on paper, but to really take advantage of these opportunities and the rapidly expanding Arabic book market, the best thing to do is to learn more about the Arab world and how business is done there, and to start making connections with people in the area. For that reason, attending the ADIBF next March makes a lot of sense.

It’s day three at the fair and time for business breakfast number three. This one is about the Argentinean publishing industry. I don’t want to sound jaded, but I’m growing tired of statistical overviews. I know this is a trade fair and that it’s only right that business comes first, but somehow the objectivity of numbers doesn’t satisfy me. Maybe because I hold some romantic notion that books and literature ought to amount to something more than commerce. I really hope they do. 

Constanza Brunet, Octavio Kulesz and Trini Vergara

I get that culture and commerce are intricately and inextricably linked. Conditions in Argentina are ripe for publishing, the country boasts a literacy rate of 93 percent and books are free of VAT and import duties. As Trini Vergara, director and co-founder of V & R Editoras, says, it’s a good place to be selling “cultural goods”. It’s also a good place to create them. The Argentinean publishing industry has a strong tradition and is self-sufficient – the entire chain of production from paper manufacture, writing, illustration, design, and printing can be taken care of domestically.

After Brazil, Argentina is the second largest producer of books in Latin America. It’s publishing industry produced 22 thousand new titles last year, and prints an average of 70 million copies a year (excluding books published by the government). A normal print run would be 3 to 4 thousand (the standard range in most developed countries) and a best seller would sell about 15 thousand copies. As of now the industry earns about 49 million USD from foreign trade.The top five countries exported to are Mexico, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Spain.

There is, at once, a concentration and diversity in Argentina’s publishing industry. The two largest publishing houses, Planeta (36 percent) and Grup Santilana (24 percent), control 60 percent of the market. Yet, 83 percent of the publishing houses are micro-houses that produce less than 10 titles a year.

The Spanish language book market is currently the fourth largest in the world and in about 15 years it’s expected to become the largest. How come? Well, all indications are that there are likely to be more native Spanish speakers by then than there will be native English speakers. Good for Argentinean publishers, who operate, as Trini puts it, “In a market, within a market, with a future.”

Argentinean publishing’s connection with the Iberian Peninsula can be traced back to the publishing houses that were founded following the Spanish Civil war. The 1940s, 50s and 60s was a golden period, with world renowned authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares coming to the fore. It didn’t hurt, either, that during this time many publishers in Spain faced censorship and were exiled by the authoritarian regime of General Franco. In the 70s the tables turned, Argentina’s has it’s own military dictatorship and several publishers and writers are either silenced or forced to flee.

Fast forward to the late 1990s and the first two years of this century. Severe recession has paved the way for a flood of imported titles from Mexico and Spain. During this time Argentina’s GDP fell by 10 percent, liquidity dried up, and many publishing houses were compelled to downsize or went bankrupt. It was a period of acute economic and political instability in which the number of titles published fell by 23 percent. To top things off, a public uprising overthrew the government in 2002 and series of presidents followed each other in and out of office.

In 2003, however, things began to turn around. Octavio Kulesz of Editorial Teseo, the biggest digital academic publisher in Argentina, marks this as the moment when there was a “re-birth” of publishing in the country. Due to a much calmer social and political climate and a stablisation of foreign exchange rates, which caused an increase in exports and a decrease in imports. “At this point many new publishing houses were founded and traditional ones started expanding again,” says Octavio.

The picture hasn’t been all rosy for the industry in the last five years. A sharp increase in operating and production costs - the cost of paper, for example, is 5 times higher today than in 2001 while book prices haven’t gone up much – and the global economic crisis have hampered growth. Octavio says, “Paradoxically, the crisis represents an opportunity, because the decline in publishing in Spain will create more access to markets for us.” Talk about cashing in on others’ misery! Where Spain has a head start, though, is in the digital arena. Octavio hopes that Argentina’s strong entrepreneurial culture will give rise to a new and dynamic generation of digital publishers who will revitalize the publishing scene.

“It’s the right moment for Argentina to be the Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2010,” affirms Constanza Brunet, director of Marea Editorial an independent publishing house founded five years ago. She believes that the time is nigh for Argentinean publishers to stretch their reach beyond the Spanish speaking world in a big way. “We’ve faced difficulties because of the scars of a public policy that hasn’t supported translation,” Constanza adds.

The lobbying of the two main industry associations, Camara Argentina del Libro and the Camara Argentina de Publicaciones, have been highly influential in changing this. There are now a few grants that subsidise translation costs. One such programme is SUR, which began this year and will continue for at least another year. Through this programme the government aids foreign publishers who want to publish books by Argentinean publishers. So far 124 books have been supported, each being given 3200 USD as a grant.

Between 2002 and 2008, Argentinean publishers sold foreign language rights to about 700 titles, most of them to French and German publishers. The most popular titles are works by Nobel laureates like Borges and on historical figures like Che Guevara. Trini is quick to assert that the industry has a much broader variety than the image that Argentina enjoys abroad, as a country that only produces exceptional fiction and non-fiction. Expect this to change in the wake of Argentina’s appearance in Frankfurt as Guest of Honour next year.

Stephen King, Mike Busboom and Alicia Wise

In the Clients Lounge in Hall 8 yesterday there was an interesting demonstration of how e-book publishers could reach a potential extra 20 million people in the EU by taking advantage of usability features built into the latest e-book readers from Adobe, Amazon, Sony, Apple and Dolphin. Those who attended this popular event saw how the current generation of readers deliver large print for millions of older readers with failing sight, and how the Kindle, Apple I-phone, Adobe reader and Digital editions provide very basic text to speech to help people with dyslexic conditions and blind people, and how Dolphin Easy-reader now provides a great PC based e-pub reading experience for people with print disabilities.

They also heard how legislation means a competitive edge particularly in education and how the e-pub format was well designed to deliver e-books usable by everyone.  They learned that there are still significant problems, but Adobe have promised considerable improvements in usability of the Digital Editions DRM by next March, and that Apple in the US were incorporating speech and usability features into everything in a bid to capture the education market place.

The key messages were:

• Make inclusive publishing your policy for competitive edge
• Publish e-book simultaneously with print
• There are no extra costs. Just use features in Adobe In-design.
• Put pressure on Adobe to deliver on its promised improvements in usability of digital editions.

The event was organised by the UK Publishers Association and presented by Stephen King of the Daisy consortium (www.daisy.org) and Michael Busboom from the European Blind Union.

The impact of the Google Book Settlement, in whatever form it might eventually take, promised to be one of the most controversial panels at this year’s Fair and the participants, especially Prof. Roland Reuss, author of the Heidelberg Appeal, a vehement critique of the Google scanning project, did not disappoint. He denounced as “garbage of hysterical propaganda” the claims by Google that they were enhancing access, maintain that “if you want to finance production, you have to shelter the ones who produce,” not those that consume, and that moreover any student who is completely dependent on the Internet for “must be stupid.”

It didn’t begin quite as heatedly. The panel was moderated by Jens Bammel, Secretary-General of the International Publishers Association, who introduced the event noting how the controversy surrounding the Google Book Settlement (GBS), while enormously significant in itself, also betokens a much larger shift, that of the interdependence of all the players involved, both publishers and their partners. To launch the discussion, he invited Richard Sarnoff to discuss the factors motivating the Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) and Author’s Guild lawsuit against Google’s out-of-print scanning project, Google Library, and the proposed settlement. The strategy, Sarnoff indicated, was based on the following calculation. If they lost, they would lose control, not just over Google’s scanning activities but potnetially many other entities who might choose to digitally copy in-copyright books. Even, if they won, it wouldn’t affect digital copies that Google had already given to libraries, many of which are state institutions and under some laws shielded from civil liability for copyright infringement, and it would impede a universally desired goal, viz to increase availability and access to the world’s store of knowledge.

So their conclusion was to settle, in order to achieve two key objectives—choice and control. But is choice and control also what the Borsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (comprising both publishers and retailers) want, inquired Bammel of the Borsenverein’s Christian Sprang? They want opt-in, Sprang explained, rather than opt-out, for out-of-print books. In the original GBS, he estimates that 75% of books listed in the German equivalent of the Books-in-Print database would have been characterized as out-of-print and not commercially available (a problem that has since been corrected by the parties in the GBS). The German publishers are also concerned about monopoly—they would like to see a landscape similar to the physical retail environment with thousands of retailers and publishers, rather than only two or three large players. They do recognize the access deficit that Google seeks to correct and have been moving to try to address that themselves, through Libreka, a German eBook platform that has 120,000 books in print available for search, and 13,000 available for download. Notwithstanding the practical issues, though, he re-emphasized that they were fighting for the principle that copyright be opt-in.

Santiago de la Mora, Google’s representative on the panel, explained that the Partner program is opt-in and that the Library program focuses only on out-of-print so that a great deal of what they’re doing is not at all controversial and meets the Borsenverein’s concerns. Google is “part of the solution,” he offered, and Google in fact “wants more people to get involved,” and not be the only player.

Reuss was largely unmoved. “It has always been possible for scholars to get the information,” he said, “since the 5th century.” He believes that the focus on access is inappropriate, “fetishistic,” and that the true issue with scholarship is to produce, not to access.

(He added that since the Berne Convention on intellectual property explicitly prohibits affirmative registration for copyright, he believes that the Book Rights Registry contemplated by the GBS.)

Access does matter, Sarnoff maintained. There’s been a “market failure” in Sarnoff’s opinion.  An entire tranche of scholarship, almost all out-of-print works created in the entire 20th century were foreclosed from the public. IN response to Reuss’s objection that the GBS will ”cripple the publishing industry” Sarnoff noted that no publisher “is making a dime from out-of-print works.” In fact, the GBS creates revenue, for publishers and authors, where there was none before.

The Borsenverein sees truth on both positions, said Sprang, supporting the demand for accessibility, while feelings that it has to be the rightsholder’s decision. Otherwise the author will fear “if I write a book, Google will take it away from me.” Borsenverein also emphasizes the moral rights dimension—the right of an author to prohibit reproduction for expressive reasons. This is clearly one of the clearest sticking points as it is not a factor in American copyright jurisprudence. Sarnoff recognizes that it is possible that they cannot adequately represent the moral rights of all authors in the world, in this settlement.

A very robust audience discussion ensued—a particularly pertinent question from the audience concerned the problem of competition. Qualifying Sarnoff’s earlier assert that the problem of access to out-of-print works is a market failure, Sprang suggested it was as much a social failure, the refusal by society, by politicians, to make money available to accomplish the scanning activity Google is undertaking.

This clearly was not a panel in which the controversy would be resolved—Ruess’s position is quite categorical on the core question of whether what Google is doing is illegal (adding, for good measure, than an advertising-driven business model is itself “disgusting”), though there were clear signs that in additional to the ongoing discussions in the US on revising the GBS, Google and the various European publishing trade associations intend to engage in future discussions about Google’s book-related projects. So, perhaps in deference to the name of the conference room in which the panel occurred (”Entente”), some measure of detente could be seen, if not outright entente.

The event this morning in the Forum Dialog in Hall 6.1, billed as ‘Chinese Women in Publishing’ and organised by Women in Publishing Germany, was one that I was particularly looking forward to.  As a woman working in UK publishing, and one who supports the UK equivalent organisation, I was keen to find out what was happening out in China and how women are faring in the workplace there.

The event was pretty-well attended to begin with.  Standing-room only at the back.  When the event began I soon realised that I was at an immediate disadvantage.  As an english-speaker who understands only a few words and phrases in German (my failing, no one else’s problem after all) I was soon aware that the event was going to be conducted in German, with no english translation.  It seemed strange to me when the words written on the screen behind the panellists were written in english…  After taking some photos and listening in vain to the first speaker answer some questions in German, I began to pack my things in readiness to leave.  Lucky I didn’t in a way because it soon became clear that the other speaker was going to conduct all her answers in english.  Wonderful!  At least I could understand part of the event.  But then I thought - what about those in the audience who can’t speak English? 

At the time I was confused… Did the organisers expect that everyone there spoke both languages? I had to presume so.  What a shame because I wasn’t the only one having problems.  And they definitely lost some other people who, realising they were missing half the debate, also left.

Since this morning, spurred on by my frustration at not having been able to understand half the event earlier, I have done a little investigation.  I looked back at the catalogue of events to see whether I had misunderstood what had been written.  It clearly said the event was in English and German.  I also looked at today’s edition of ‘Publishing Perspectives’, who helpfully print up a listings guide in their daily bulletin.  Again it stated the event would be in both languages…

So I guess it’s a question of interpretation.  For us lazy English, we automatically assume that if a discussion is going to be conducted in a language foreign to us, then there will automatically be an English translation.  After speaking to some colleagues today, it seems that the ‘norm’ in Germany is that an event can be conducted in both languages and that the majority of the audience will understand both.  Which of course they probably will.  It’s us English who have the problem, not the continentals.  I do, however, raise the question of whether, as an ‘international’ Book Fair, the organisers at Frankfurt next year might consider looking at this particular language barrier?  I, for one, will certainly not fall into that trap again!

 After a while, all of the various “book market” presentations from the various countries start to sound the same . . . I know that’s a jaded, semi-ignorant thing to say, but there are only so many times one can here about the average number of books printed per inhabitant, or the total number of copies sold in a given year before all the numbers blur together into some meaningless mess of abstract geometry. (Was it Estonia that produced 27million books in 1991? Or was that 27 thousand? Or . . . )

I’m not trying to imply this info isn’t useful, and it is great when people hand out brochures afterward with all these stats in black-and-white, but what really sticks out to me are the activities various countries are undertaking to get the info about their books out to other editors and publishers. Like the Lithuanian/Latvian/Estonian 300 Baltic Authors presentation, or all the materials from Fundacion TyPA, or, in the case of the Czech Republic, the Czech Literature Portal (http://www.czechlit.cz), which is loaded with all the information a prospective foreign publisher might want.

The site hosts tons of profiles and excerpts from Czech authors, longer essays on Czech literature (such as this one http://czechlit.cz/main.php?pageid=79 about Czech lit since 1945), author interviews, info on literary periodicals, and, well, information about the Czech book market.

I truly believe that face-to-face meetings are still the best way for publishers to find out about books they should translate, but in the other 300-and-some-odd days in which an international book fair isn’t taking place, sites like these can be extremely useful in promoting a country’s literature and presenting their book scene to the rest of the world.

Now if only all the eBook proponents and new digital media people would hook up with these various foreign agencies . . . Although most of these sites are filled with great content, they tend to be pretty static and traditional. And there are a lot of techies out there who aren’t just interested in the production of e-content, but are looking at ways of using new technologies to engage with readers in exciting ways. I may be typing out of turn here, but it seems like these two groups (foreign literary agencies and new tech people) could benefit from each other . . .

While I’m crushing on India, I thought I’d take a post to introduce Blaft, a very young, very hip, very successful Indian press that’s worth checking out. I mean, putting aside their books (whicha are pretty wild), their logo is a purple alien. How awesome is that? And how awesome is it that they have stuffed, squeaky versions of this purple alien at their booth? And semi-racy bookmarks that say “Reading is Sexy”? . . . This really is a press after my heart.

Anyway, about that whole book thing: the first title that Blaft did was an anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction. Originally conceived of a one-off, the book was a wild sucess, attracting other books, and eventually convincing the husband-wife couple behind this–Rakesh Khanna and Rashmi Ruth Devadasan–and their friend–Kaveri Lalchand–to become publishers. Up till that point none of them had any experience in publishing, so the whole experience has been quite an adventure.

In addition to more pulp fiction-y titles, Blaft is also doing some literary fiction–Charu Nivedita’s Zero Degree is a very experimental, daring book–graphic novels, and even a “pictoral survey of typography and design found on signboards, taxis, buildings, tiffin dabbas, and in other public spaces of Bombay.”

I don’t think I’ve met anyone else here at the fair with as much energy and enthusiasm for publishing. Blaft is here as part of the “Invitation Program,” which helps small, independent presses from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe to attend the fair, make connections, and display their works. This section of Hall 5.0 is one of the most fun to visit, and great for finding about about books and presses that generally don’t get a lot of attention.

And in terms of Blaft, they will be giving a public presentation about their program on Sunday morning at 10:30am in Hall 6.0 E905.

Back in February, a publishers’ roundtable took place in New Delhi to talk about opportunities of new markets, new models, new collaborations, that could develop amid the global financial crisis. Entitled “GlobalLocal: New Directions in Publishing,” this conference included the likes of Juergen Boos, Frankfurt Book Fair director; Ajay Shukla, managing director of McGraw-Hill India; Stella Chou, managing director of China business development, HarperCollins China; and Richard Charkin, executive director, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Personally, I wish I could’ve attended this (or at least have a chance to visit New Delhi–there must be some book related festival or organization that would like to fly a poor journalist over to write up some events . . . right? hello?), but thanksfully the German Book Office New Delhi has now produced a volume collecting the transcripts of the roundtable, afterthoughts on the conference, and essays from a variety of important thinkers and publishers.

Obviously I haven’t had time to read this volume, but anyone interested in the future of publishing will definitely want to hunt down GBO New Delhi director Akshay Pathak and get a copy. It’s totally nerdy, but just reading the titles of the panels and essays has me all excited: “Independent Publishing: Challenges and Advantages,” “The Way Ahead: The Global Financial Crisis and its Impact,” “An Independent Future: Indian Publishing, Global and Local,” and several other subtitled and nonsubtitled pieces.

Just for the tango alone, Argentina would rank as one of my favorite countries in the world. And when you throw in their literary history—Jorge Luis Borges, Macedonio Fernandez, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Julio Cortazar, Juan Jose Saer—there’s a lot of reasons why I’m excited about next year’s Fair, when Argentina will be the official Guest of Honor.

This morning’s “Business Breakfast” provided a great introduction to the Argentine Book Market. Most of the presentations were stat-focused with information about the number of titles produced (20,000/year), overall number of copies (70,000,000/year), value of imports and exports (Argentina imports a lot more books than they export), and the overall size of the Argentine book market (the country accounts for 27% of all Spanish-language books published in Latin America).

But these numbers just scratch the surface. . . . For a variety of political and economic reasons, Argentina’s publishing scene is as incredibly fascinating and complex as the country’s recent history.

The prevalence of “micropresses” is one intriguing aspect of the Argentine book scene. As Octavio Kulesz of Teseo touched on this in his presentation, these micropresses came into existence in the wake of the financial collapse of 2002. And there sure are a lot of them: according to Trini Vergara of V&R Editoras, more than 80% of the publishing houses operating in Argentina fall into this category, whereas only 3% are “big” publishers, 2% are “mid-sized,” and 12% are “small.” Granted, when you look at overall production, this breakdown shifts considerably (micropresses account for 5% of all titles published, whereas big houses do 42%), but this diversity of voices and editorial vision make up what Constanza Brunet of Marea Editorial termed “bibliodiversity.”

One of the things I’ve always been fascinated/concerned with is the relationship between Argentina and the Spanish-language market as a whole. Although Argentina produces some of the most fascinating authors, most Spanish-language books are published in Spain and then exported to Argentina, and sold at a somewhat prohibitive price. The idea of splitting Spanish-language territories will hopefully be discussed at length next year, along with the opportunities eBooks offer for overcoming some of these distribution issues.

All that’s pretty fascinating, but getting back to the actual literature—Argentina is totally loaded with amazing writers. There are the classic authors like those mentioned above, but also including Manuel Puig, Ernesto Sabato, Silvia Ocampo. And there are any number of contemporary writers worth reading, such as Andres Neuman, Alberto Manguel, Ricardo Piglia, and Elsa Osorio. And the world is really catching on. Over the past decade, there’s been a significant rise in the number of Argentine titles translated into other languages. According to Fundacion TyPA, in 2001, 20 different titles were translated and published outside of Argentina. In 2007 that number had shot up to 120. (And to clarify, this is just number of titles—many of these books were translated into multiple languages.)

And speaking of TyPA, for this year’s Fair, they put together a beautiful booklet of 25 Great Essays which is available for free online in both Spanish (http://issuu.com/fundacion.typa/docs/_typa_espa_ol_09) and English (http://issuu.com/fundacion.typa/docs/_typa_ingl_s_09).

Copies—and more information about Argentina in general—can be found at Hall 5.1 D975.