Chad W. Post is the director of Open Letter at the University of Rochester, a new press dedicated to publishing literature in translation. He also runs Three Percent, an online blog and review site focused on international literature. Prior to starting Open Letter, he was the associate director at Dalkey Archive Press. In addition, he co-founded Reading the World, a unique collaboration between publishers and independent bookstores to promote world literature.

I really do love book fair and publishing people and the business of publishing and the discovery of new artists. I love drinking too much, knowing that when I sip my first beer at a 5 o’clock Australian reception that I’ll be talking, mingling, and imbibing for the next eleven or so hours.

I love that despite all this- which must seem a bit decadent to outsiders - that business gets done. That I can find a Flemish author with echos of Kafka, Beckett, and Pinter. (I’m keeping this book secret for the moment . . . If you want to find out who the next hot Flemish author will be, you’ll have to read my regular blog Three Percent.) That I can learn about Bragi Olafsson’s latest novel. That I can meet a Polish editor who’s really excited about some of our translations.

Juergen Boos is absolutely right: Frankfurt is a platform. A place where everyone can come together to meet, friend each other (like in the old-school, non-Facebook sense), exchange info, do business. I’m sure this happens in other industries as well, but there’s something about a gather of tens of thousands of literary folk that makes this Fair hum with some sort of cultural import. We will all shape the future of publishing and part of that future is being designed over the course of this week.

We talked a lot about eBooks. Maybe too much - like Erin Cox said in her Publishing Perspectives editorial we don’t want to lose focus on our real business: “creating content for the reader, not content for the technology.” We talked about rights deals that did and didn’t get done. We talked about the “monkey sex” book and the graphic novel Michael Jackson “wrote.” We talked about Zombies. (We did a lot of talking about Zombies.) But most of all, we talked.

I’ve heard lots of people mention how the Frankfurt Book Fair is like a family reunion. (Caveat: they’re talking about one of those pot-o-gold rare fun family reunions.) And it sort of is. It’s hard (for me) to not get a bit emotional about the end of the fair. These are my people; this is what I love. So forgive my over-the-top sentimentality, but I’m going to miss this, and will be waiting patiently for next year, when I can come back, reconnect, tell new stories, have more drinks, and find more books. See you next year–

Guest of Honour Presentation 2009: China

Now that the Fair has transformed from a “professionals only” gathering into Cosplay Central, I found some time to swing by the official China stand. To be honest, it was pretty much the same stand that they have every year–just much much bigger. Taking up a wall of Hall 5.0, the stand is pretty impressive, but for me, it was rather difficult to figure anything out. And by “figure out” I mean find information about publishing houses I should be paying attention to to find out about modern and contemporary Chinese fiction. Yes, this is a pretty subjective approach, I admit, I admit, but really, I’m not that interested in books about Chinese texiles or the “Three Millennia of Printing in China.” And so I didn’t investigate those offerings all that closely . . .

If you are into that textile stuff, the China booth rocks! It’s flashy, it’s oversized, it is exactly what it’s supposed to be.

But. For the rest of you literary people, what you should check out instead is Paper Republic’s “The Best Chinese Fiction You’ve Never Read,” a manageable-sized brochure featuring information about specific works by six different authors: Jia Pingwa, Han Dong, Li Er, Sheng Keyi, Leung Man-Tao, and Liu Cixin.
Paper Republic (http://www.paper-republic.org) was founded a couple of years ago by a group of native English speakers (most of whom live in mainland China) dedicated to the translation of Chinese literary fic
tion into English, and the website features sample translations, information about Chinese authors (including those who may not exactly be favored by the government) and a blog about Chinese literature and translation.

In October of last year, Paper Republic received a grant from the Arts Council of England to support the promotion of Chinese literature abroad. It is thanks to this grant that both Nicky Harman and Eric Abrahamsen are able to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, and able to produce “The Best Chinese Fiction You’ve Never Read.”

“We know there are hundreds of fantastic authors out there, many of whom could never hope to get an official invite to an international bookfair-they are no friends of officialdom and work hard to maintain their independence as writers. This catalog is a chance to present them and their work to a wider audience,” said Harman.

In addition to the brochures, long (like 30-page long) samples from these books will be going up on the site over the next few weeks. A pdf version of “The Best Chinese Fiction” is also available online, and hard copies can be found in the Translators Center in Hall 5.0. For more information, please contact Nicky Harman at n.harmanic@googlemail.com.

In order to better promote works of Indian literature and independent Indian presses, a number of publishers are talking about joining forces to create their own collective stand at next year’s Book Fair. Granted, this is all still in development, but Zubaan Books, DC Books, Blaft, and Kalachuvadu Publications have all agreed in principle to working together to create a large, joint display at FBF 2010.

Let me put this into a bit of perspective and explain to anyone not actually here at the Fair why this is noteworthy. If you wander through halls 5 and 6 (again, for those not here, the FBF is made up of eight large halls filled with throusands of stands) you’ll see huge displays from the “book offices” in Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Denmark, Argentina, Iceland, Macedonia, etc., etc. These national book promotions are incredibly helpful to publishers looking for some information about what’s going on in the book scene in a particular part of the world. There are usually overview guides (e.g., “48 New Writers from Poland,” “New Korean Fiction,” “10 Books from Holland and Flanders”) booklets with data on that country’s book market, lists upon lists upon lists of publishers from that country, and all kinds of other promotional material.

Well, although India was a huge success as Guest of Honor just a few short years ago, the National Book Trust stand is completely empty and covered with a white sheet. Not to salt a wound or anything like that, but the Pakistan stand right around the corner is hoppin’ . . .

So for anyone interested in finding out what’s going on in Indian lit, you have the more difficult task of having to troll the aisles and talk (or try to talk) to all the individual publishers. This possible alternative–a vibrant stand with X number of innovative, indie presses–would be a frickin’ godsend. India is booming in all ways. And it’s a market that a lot of people are interested in. To provide a bigger, more attractive, more active platform for these presses to share their knowledge and info would be spectacular.

Seems like every year the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature (NLPVF) comes to the Frankfurt Book Fair with some very cool new idea or project. Last year it was “Great Translation by the Way” publication that set forth a series of directives for how to improve the situation for translations in the European Union. This year it’s Schwob.nl.

Schwob.nl was unveiled at a special reception at Fleming’s Hotel last night, and hinges on the idea that translations should be a two-way cultural exchange. Oftentimes, when the NLPVF people go to say, Turkey, and implore Turkish publishers to do more Dutch books, the Turkish publishers start asking questions back about how many Turkish writers are actually available in Dutch. And to no one’s surprise, “Well, um, you know, Orhan Pamuk?” doesn’t go over so well.

But beyond the role economics and corporate publishing houses play in this imbalance, there’s also the problem of information. How much information about Turkish authors is available to Dutch readers and publishers? Just guessing here, but probably not a lot. (And probably a hell of a lot more than what’s available to American readers and publishers. Anyway . . .)

So to offer a digital corrective to this problem (I don’t mean that to sound so horrifyingly medicinal), the NLPVF created schwob.nl as a site to bring info about quality literature to the attention of Dutch readers, editors, and publishers through newsletters, features on the site, etc. (And to all you Americans and Brits - I’ll let you in on a little secret: the site is entirely in English, so you can actually take advantage of this as well.)

Right now there’s only one article available on the site (click here to download the pdf: http://www.schwob.nl/about/), but it’s a very interesting piece about Chinese author Shi Tiesheng that’s written by Chinese-to-Dutch translator Mark Leenhouts and touches on some bigger issues about contemporary Chinese literature.

This site is meant to be an open forum for exchanging recommendations, so if there are any “forgotten classics, cult books, or must-reads” from your country that you want to share with Dutch readers the rest of the world, e-mail the info to write@schwob.nl. And be sure to sign up for the Schwob.nl newsletter . . .

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.

 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.

Prior to the start of the Book Fair there was a lot of speculation about what might happen: would attendance fall down thanks to economically collapsed budgets and exorbitant hotel prices? would the Fair be overrun with protests from Chinese dissidents angered by the selection of China as Guest of Honor?

Based on the first day and a half, things are clicking along as they should be. Juergen Boos, the Fair’s director, started off his special roundtable meeting by addressing the attendance question. Contrary to some people’s opinion that it “seems” less busy this year, the number of visitors to the fair dropped by a mere 0.8%, or 353 people, to 45,753. And in terms of the Rights Center, traffic is actually up by 5.8% to 3,850 visits yesterday. Obviously there’s no way to track the number of deals being done, but based on this level of traffic, it seems like business as usual. (I haven’t spent much time tracking down big book deals, but I did hear about an absolutely mental Michael Jackson graphic novel that’s coming out in the near future . . .)

A lot of questions at the “Meet the Director” lunch were directed at China being the Guest of Honor, and although he admitted that China could’ve done more in terms of freedom of speech and human rights, Boos was supportive of what China has done with this opportunity, pointing out that this was “a first step,” and the first time that China was presenting itself on foreign territory. Boos emphasized that this is the mission of the Frankfurt Book Fair: not to force the Chinese government to listen to dissidents, but to provide a platform where different people can interact with one another. A place where there are over 300 readings and presentations by dissident Chinese writers right alongside the thousands of official Chinese literary events.

The impact being Guest of Honor has on getting a country’s literature and culture out the rest of the world can not be understated. Last year only 8 works of Chinese literature (fiction and poetry) were translated into German. This year the total exceeded 160, including 60 titles that were subsidized by the Guest of Honor translation fund. And these figures are just for translations from Chinese to German—it’s virtually guaranteed that there will also be increases in the number of Chinese books published in English, Spanish, etc.

Another topic Boos touched on at the meeting was the future of the industry, shying away from making any definitive proclamations (no one can really predict the future), but drawing attention to the rise in mobile content, and his belief that this will dramatically increase over the next 3-5 years, especially in terms of STM and educational publishing.

The expansion of eBooks, mobile content, and the like, leads to the creation of a lot of new companies, and continues to provide a reason for people to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair even though more and more business is being done over e-mail and the Internet in general. As Boos said, you need to trust people to do business with them, and the best way to develop that trust is by meeting them in person. That’s what the Frankfurt Book Fair provides, and why the Book Fair continues to go strong despite the overall downturn in the economy.