June 2009

Publishers: Independent and state-owned alike, each with their own agenda. The state owned companies are setting the agenda; the indies are trying to find room at the fringes to operate. The state-owned companies dominate the education market, which in a country like China is huge; the indies are having success catering to younger readers with pop culture titles. One company we spoke with Zito Publishing, was finding success publishing illustrated travel guides to regions of China — not for foreigners, but for the Chinese themselves (Chinese tourists are the fastest growing group of travelers on the planet).

Bookstores: State-owned stores tend to be somewhat uniform (no surprise there) with a pretty decent selection. What they lack is character. The trio of independent stores that we’ve visited, O2Sun, The Bookworm (an English-language mini-chain) and one near Peking University (name to come) all saw themselves as mavericks, in so far as they provided a social-gathering spot for readers and book lovers. They resembled true indie stores — just like the ones in the US or Europe. The state owned stores had the same feeling a crummy unversity bookstore in the US might have.

Writers: Well, this is more problematic, since not being someone who reads Chinese, I cannot comment with any authority on the quality of the work. Generally speaking, the big divide is between the generations: There are those born in the 80s and 90s — the so called Bailing Ho generations — who have only lived during China’s economic reforms, and there are those born before, who remember or even participated in the events of 1989. The older generation criticized the younger generation for being unconcerned or even aloof to political concerns, the younger generation, doesn’t say much of anything and appears to be cranking out millions upon millions of characters each day in the form of new novels — often posted on the internet (one online company told us they get 8,000 “novels” submitted to their online self-publishing ebooks site per day).

…if you were Guo Jingming. The 26 year old is the richest author in China, with multi-millions of copies of his books sold (and a past winner of voting for the country’s most hated celebrity).

On Sunday night, our group met with four Chinese writers discusses the Chinese concept of culture. While the conversation ranged over a wide variety of topics, from Mao and communism, to the capitalist economic explosion that’s embracing China and diverting young people away from literature, the panelists unselfconsciously referred to themselves as “intellectuals.”

Here in China, the word intellectual isn’t quite as much a pejorative, as it is at home. Instead, it’s a word freighted with a specific, if nuanced, meaning — one that I’ll try to explain as it was explained to me (in translation, so bear with me if I get this wrong).

Historically speaking, Chinese intellectuals were advisors to the royal family — bureaucrats –who if their advice wasn’t taken, they took their own life (as a sign of their honor and honesty — so, yes, intellectuals were still viewed with suspicion even then). Later, during the Cultural Revolution, intellectuals were deemed undesirables, persecuted as a group, and all but wiped out. Later, in 1989, it was the students — intellectuals — who led the protests in Tiananmen Square, again placing them under suspicion from the state.

nlike the United States, it’s not just liberals who can be considered intellectuals (ask yourself how frequently you hear Republicans describe themselves as intellectuals before you send me hate mail). In China, both those who oppose the government and government officials, who are themselves often highly educated (frequently abroad) can be considered intellectuals.

The magazine Foreign Affairs understands this concept – in April last year it put out a list of the top 100 Public Intellectuals. They included five Chinese on their list. Among them was Wang Hui, who was one of our speakers on Sunday night. Wang is professor of Chinese language and literature at Tsinghua University. He participated in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and was sent for reeducation. He’s often associated with China’s “New Left” movement which, rather than try to explain, I refer you to this article by Pankaj Mishra from the New York Times.

As for “miracles” – well that’s the word people use to describe any kind of amazing success. As in, “that we have 150 billion clicks on our Web site each month, it’s some kind of miracle,” “That my novels have sold more than 6 million copies is kind of a miracle.”

More on both of those stories later in the week…

Two of China’s bestselling books. Which is not like the other?

If you said Samuel Beckett’s “Taste Economics as Champagne…you WIN! The subtitle is “22 Nobel Laureats on the economic crisis” — why Beckett, who died in 1989, is on the cover is anyone’s guess. It certainly is attention getting.

When talking about Chinese publishing there is one question that needs immediate attention: The Question of Censorship. Asked directly about censorship, our entourage has heard a variety of responses, ranging from a very official “there is no censorship in China,” delivered by the deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP, the Chinese government body that oversees book publishing) to more nuanced acknowledgement that censorship is part of the daily reality of publishing.

If there’s a general consensus on the topic, which has been addressed time and time again (the German foreign press corps here in Beijing is obsessed with it), it’s that the government is primarily concerned with steering the masses than policing the fringes. How this translates to the publishing industry is that objectionable books might make it into bookstores, but if they become popular, that turns them into targets for the censors. “What happens most often,” explained one independent publisher, “is that a reader will object to something in a book and then report it to the government. That’s when someone might look at it and censor it.”

If the Chinese delegation that’s going to attend Frankfurt is smart, they will host at least one panel that addresses the topic head on. “Is there Censorship in China?” sounds perfect.  If they don’t, they risk making it the only topic that gets written about their stint as Guest of Honor at the Fair.

The O2Sun bookstore chain may not make a list of China’s top seven biggest bookstores — in China, size definitely matters — but it’s impressive nevertheless. The chain has 30 stores in four cities throughout the country. The branch we visited opened in 2003 and is in the Central Business District of the city, not far from the (in)famous Rem Koolhas  CCTV tower.

It was modest sized — I would guess 2,000 sq. ft. — with books spread over two floors. A small cafe was on the top floor, overlooking the street and it wouldn’t be out of place in Europe. The clean lines and signage remind me of a mini Japanese Kinokuniya store.

The manager who gave us a tour explained that the store attracts some 2000 people a day (5% foreigners). He continued to emphasize that the store’s philosophy is to emphasize the “joy of reading” — and on this Sunday afternoon, there were plenty of people, mostly women it seemed, standing in front of the racks of books reading.

As you might expect, business books were top sellers and there were plenty in evidence. Literature rated pretty low on the sales list, though it appeared that Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight was selling well, as was Tom Friedman’s Hot Flat and Crowded. Both were among the store’s top ten sellers.

The first thing I notice while when boarding the 13 hour flight from Newark Liberty

International airport to Beijing is the surprising number of Kindles I see sitting in people’s laps: least three in addition to the Kindle 2 I’ve got in my own bag. It’s almost shocking! And just like the Kindle

watchers have stated, it’s not young hipsters with the devices, but middle aged men, all of who appear to be leading tours for high school students or groups of Christian missionaries.

I am traveling with a Kindle 2 that Amazon has generously loaned me to try. I own a Kindle 1, but gave that to my arthritic 72-year-old mother. She loves that she doesn’t have to drive to a bookstore to buy books, as well as that she can make the font bigger. The Kindle 1 as opposed the 2 is also much easier for her to use, with its child-sized buttons.

What surprised me is for all of Amazon’s touting of the number of titles available for the Kindle, I wasn’t able to find a single guidebook I wanted to buy, nor many of the nonfiction books I was hoping to take with me.

I did end up buying Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost, which is very entertaining, but wasn’t able to buy Jung Chang’s controversial biography Mao, which is what I really wanted. There’s a double blow to the book: It’s both banned in China and not available for the Kindle.

So, what am I using for a guide? The always reliable Lonely Planet Beijing and DK’s Top Ten Beijing. My favorite guidebooks, Wallpaper’s City Guides, didn’t have an updated edition to the city. The latest available for Beijing was dated from 2007. What gives? I suppose this may have somethign to do with the global economic downturn — what’s the point of updating guidebooks to far-flung destinations when “staycations” are still all the rage.

A joke: Why did the Beijing chicken cross the road? He didn’t. He got run over by a taxi and then turned into dinner.

Hi, my name is Edward Nawotka and I’m Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, a new news site for the global publishing industry, as well as a staff writer for Publishers Weekly in the US.

I’m blogging this week from Beijing, where I’m participating in a trip for journalists sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair in preparation for China’s participation as Guest of Honor at this year’s Fair. All week we’ll be meeting with publishers, authors, literary critics, agents and others in China’s burgeoning literary scene.

Follow each day as I and my colleagues battle jet lag, manage the language gap, quaff exotic foodstuffs, and try to cope with Beijing driver’s total disregard for pedestrian life.

(I Love Beijing Logo, courtesy, Nod Young via Flickr)