Frankfurt
Wednesday 19 October 2016
visit pW and Bookbrunch at HALL 6.0, Stand D42
RichDad.com
Frankfurt Book Fair 2016: Change–and politics–loom large Exactly what is going on with the book business? A week after a folk singer was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, a painter gave the opening keynote at the Frankfurt Book Fair, writes Andrew Albanese. In a charming (although quiet) opening keynote, legendary British artist David Hockney let his iPad do most of the talking–the 79-year-old painter narrated as his device played back his drawings, allowing him to show and tell reporters how the iPad rekindled his love of the form. “The marvellous thing about it, I could wake up in the morning and straight away start drawing,” Hockney noted. “Everything is there at my fingertips, including the colours.” While he noted some disadvantages to digital drawing, such as the lack of resistance from the glass surface, he praised the device for its ease of use. “I’ve always liked to draw,” he said. “Who would have thought the telephone would bring back drawing? Well, it did.”
Hockney is on hand as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s THE ARTS+ conference, a programme dedicated to the future of art and other creative content as digital continues to change the media landscape. It is the latest addition in Frankfurt’s quest to converge all media within the Fair. “More intensively than ever before, we’ll be addressing the question of how creative people, the originators of intellectual property, can live from their work,” Frankfurt Director Juergen Boos explained. “What business models are needed, what regulations and laws? And what networks exist to facilitate exchanges internationally?” But as the 2016 Book Fair opened, it was also clear that bigger challenges were on the minds of the organisers. In his talk, Boos spoke of the urgent political and social questions of today, including the humanitarian disaster in Syria, migration and integration challenges
facing Western Europe, and threats to freedoms of speech and opinion in many countries, including Turkey, where a crackdown has seen upwards of 30 publishers shut down following an abortive coup attempt. Boos said that handling today’s global political challenges required “a culture of open discussion, and of robust civility”, and stressed that literature could help. Heinrich Riethmüller, President of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association, agreed. “In our times of division, dissent and confrontation, it is important for the book and media industry to perform its role,” he said. “Books underpin the spread of knowledge, stories and experiences. Never have book people and cultural professionals been more important than they are today.”
inside: Buzz Books US Pre-Fair deals
3
buzz books UK Pre-Fair deals
4
Briefcase Agents’ hot Titles
6
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt show daily
Buzz books at the Fair–Mallory, Phillips, Tudor A number of books began gaining buzz in the weeks before Frankfurt this year, with one, a Girl on the Train-esque psychological thriller that sold for a rumoured seven figures in the US, getting particular attention, writes Rachel Deahl. The book, The Woman in the Window, is written by William Morrow AJ Finn (HarperCollins) V-P and Executive Editor Dan Mallory under the pseudonym AJ Finn. It was acquired by Mallory’s own imprint–Jennifer Brehl won North American rights after an eight-house auction–and film rights have sold to Fox 2000. HarperCollins also signed the novel in the UK. Jennifer Joel at ICM Partners, who sold the book, called it a “taut and twisty Hitchcockian thriller”. Woman in the Window’s heroine, like the laid-up former detective Jimmy Stewart plays in Hitchcock’s film, has become something of a voyeur. A divorcee and agoraphobic shut-in, she spends her days watching old movies, drinking too much, and occasionally spying on her neighbours. When she starts spying on the new family that moves in next door, and witnesses a crime, questions surface. Two other books hyped in the pre-fair period are Gin Phillips’ Fierce Kingdom (initially called Beautiful Things) and Caz Tudor’s The Chalk Man. Fierce Kingdom was sold for a sum rumoured to be upwards of $850,000 to Laura Tisdel at Viking (Transworld bought in the UK), while The Chalk Man went to Crown for what we hear is a high six figures (Michael Joseph UK). Phillips is a former B&N Discover winner (in 2008), and her novel is set over the course of three hours as a mother finds herself trapped in a zoo with her young son and an on-the-loose gunman.
To contact Frankfurt Show Daily at the Fair, please visit us at the Publishers Weekly stand in Hall 6.0, D42 Publisher: Joseph Murray BookBrunch Publisher: Tobias Steed Editors: Andrew Albanese, Nicholas Clee, Neill Denny Reporters: Jasmin Kirkbride, Ed Nawotka Project Coordinator: Bryan Kinney Layout and Production: Heather McIntyre Editorial Coordinator (UK): Marian Sheil Tankard
For a FREE digital trial to Publishers Weekly go to publishersweekly.com/freetrial Subscribe to BookBrunch via www.bookbrunch.co.uk or email editor@bookbrunch.co.uk
The Chalk Man follows a young boy named Eddie who begins drawing chalk figures as a way to communicate with his friends. The drawings lead to a grim discovery when the group of friends stumble on a dead body. The book alternates between 1986 and the present day, when an adult Eddie is unnerved by the arrival of an ominous package containing a piece of chalk and a drawing of a stick figure. Tudor is a freelance copywriter based in Nottingham, and was one of the winners of a Bonnier-sponsored contest that offers professional feedback to writers who submit unpublished manuscripts. Sold by British agent Madeleine Millburn, The Chalk Man has been acquired in over 25 territories, mostly in pre-empts. The big UK deals–page 4
Dystel & Goderich new partner
Dystel & Goderich Literary Management has added a new partner to the firm. With the promotion of Michael Bourret, who has been with the agency since 2000, the firm has changed its name to Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. Bourret first joined Dystel & Goderich as an intern. In 2009, he opened the agency’s West Coast office in Los Angeles, where he strengthened D&G’s ties to the film business while developing his own list of authors. “It’s been my pleasure to watch Michael become the savvy, dedicated agent he is and I am proud to announce him as a new partner in our thriving agency,” Jane Dystel said.
Sourcebooks distribution In an effort to increase its international sales, Sourcebooks has signed agreements with four distribution partners. The independent publisher is one of four houses to sign on with Baker & Taylor’s new Global Publishers Services. GPS will be representing Sourcebooks in all territories outside North America and the UK. Commenting on the deal, Chris Bauerle, Sourcebooks Director of Sales and Marketing, said: “The programme will deliver our books to customers anywhere in the world within just a few days, allow for simultaneous pub dates in international markets, and bring a highly experienced sales force that will represent our books in all major markets.” Taking over Sourcebooks’ distribution in the UK from December is Melia Publishing Services. Melia provides specialist distribution through Grantham Book Services. Sourcebooks has signed deals with Copia to distribute its ebooks in Australia and with Vearsa to provide its titles to e-tailers in South Africa (Snapplify), Germany (Libri), and Poland (Legimi). Commenting on the new agreements, Sourcebooks CEO Dominique Raccah said: “What I find incredibly exciting is that we are only at the beginning of this expansion. These new relationships will open up a world of opportunity around the globe to better serve our authors and their readers.”
3
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Buzz books at the Fair–the UK deals The AJ Finn (Dan Mallory), Gin Phillips, and Caz Tudor novels that have energised US and international publishers in the run-up to the Fair (see page 3) have been big news in the UK as well, writes Nicholas Clee. But there is no reported UK deal as yet for another book that has created headlines on this side of the Atlantic: the memoirs of Luke Allnutt David Cameron. The former Prime Minister is being represented by Ed Victor, aiming, according to reports that are not guaranteed to be reliable, to top the £4.6m advance that fellow former PM Tony Blair secured. We shall hear about Cameron’s deal, if not about his advance, “soon”, the Show Daily hears. Transworld, which signed the Gin Phillips novel, has been particularly busy in the rights market, perhaps reinvesting some of its vast proceeds from The Girl on the Train. James Buckler’s Last Stop Tokyo (signed at auction by Frankie Gray, who also bought Phillips’ Fierce Kingdom, and agented by Jane Finigan at Lutyens & Rubinstein) is the story of a man fleeing the shame and hurt of his past in London, only to find himself embroiled in something much worse when a meeting with an enigmatic woman catapults him into Tokyo’s underworld. Transworld has also paid six figures for two books by media mathematician Dr Hannah Fry (agent Claire Paterson Conrad at Janklow & Nesbit); and has bought journalist Sophy Roberts’ story of her search for pianos imported to Siberia (agent Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh; NA rights with Morgan Entrekin at Grove Atlantic). Another publisher with bestseller cash to spend is Pan Macmillan, which with sister US company Henry Holt has paid a reported “up to £6m” for Elton John’s autobiography, due in 2019.
LBF celebrates rights The London Book Fair (LBF) and the Publishers Association are calling for entries to the first Rights Professional of the Year Award. The Award, open to rights people working outside the UK, is part of the LBF International Excellence Awards 2017, to be presented at the Fair in March. The Awards are sponsored by Hytex, and now include 16 categories, among them Bookstore of the Year, Literary Agent and Brand Licensing. The closing date for entries, via the LBF website, is 15 December. Jacks Thomas, LBF Director, said: “It is brilliant that this year we are introducing the Rights Professional Award and we are looking forward to receiving the nominees from all corners of the globe.” Entry for all the Awards is via the LBF website.
4
Vying with Finn, Phillips and Mallory as the novelist causing most pre-Fair excitement is Luke Allnutt, whose We Own the Sky is about a father whose son has been diagnosed with cancer (Trapeze UK; Park Row Books NA; agent Juliet Mushens at LTA). Faber has high hopes for Italian-set saga The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida (agent Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander). Picador won a seven-way auction for Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce, about an agony aunt in the Second World War (agent Jo Unwin). Alison Hennessey at Bloomsbury won an auction for Stuart Turton’s debut, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, a high-concept murder mystery (agent Harry Illingworth at the DHH Literary Agency). In non-fiction, Norwegian adventurer and publisher Erling Kagge’s Silence... In the Age of Noise has won numerous international deals (Viking UK; agent Annabel Merullo at PFD). Another Viking acquisition is The Inland Empire: Travels in Multiple Sclerosis by journalist Christian Donlan, who began showing symptoms of multiple sclerosis shortly after the birth of his daughter (Viking has world rights from Sam Copeland at RCW).
Rights in brief Marcus Gipps at Gollancz has signed Rhyming Rings, a previously unpublished novel by the late fantasy author David Gemmell. Gollancz has UK and Commonwealth rights including audio from Howard Morhaim of the Morhaim Literary Agency through Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein. Rhyming Rings (May 2017) is a crime novel that lay undiscovered until Gemmell’s widow, Stella, came across the manuscript. It is about an ambidextrous killer who is murdering women in London and leaving virtually no evidence behind, and about the struggling journalist who finds himself involved, dangerously, in the story. PFD reports a flurry of international deals and bids for Speeches of Note by Shaun Usher, the follow up to his bestselling Letters of Note. Julie Bennett at Ten Speed Press pre-empted North American rights from Nelle Andrew on behalf of Caroline Michel at PFD and Unbound. German rights have gone to Heyne and Polish to SQN, with negotiations ongoing in a dozen further territories. The book is due out next autumn. Peter Joseph at Thomas Dunne/St Martin’s Press (US, Canada, Philippines) and Judith Kendra at Rider Books (Penguin Random House–UK and Commonwealth) have signed Michael Breen’s The New Koreans: The Story of a Nation, for publication in spring 2017. The agent is Kelly Falconer of the Asia Literary Agency. Breen is a Seoul-based journalist and consultant who has reported on Korea for the Guardian, Times, and Washington Times. Andrei Lankov, author of The Dawn of Modern Korea, said that Breen’s book “gives (an) informative and deep introduction to this fascinating (and not well-known) country”. Clara Farmer at Chatto has signed Naoke Abe’s Wild Cherries, the story of how Collingwood (“Cherry”) Ingram collected wild cherry species in Japan in the early years of the 20th century. Chatto has rights through Patrick Walsh at PEW Literary, and will publish in spring 2018. Bollati Boringhieri has bought Italian rights. Abe is a Japanese writer and journalist based in London. Earlier this year she published a version of Wild Cherries in Japanese with Iwanami publishers; it won the Nihon Prize, Japan’s equivalent of the Baillie Gifford for non fiction.
The Quarto Group
Creatively Independent
Come and visit us at Hall 6.1 Stand A 30
www.QuartoKnows.com
Quarto_Frankfurt_ShowDaily_Ad.indd 1
22/09/2016 16:00
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt Book Fair Briefcase 2016 By Nicholas Clee and Neill Denny in London and Rachel Deahl and John Maher in New York
US
Foundry Literary + Media
Elyse Cheney Literary Associates
Angels (Flatiron, no pub date yet). The book, the agency says, spans from
A big non-fiction title for the agency is Maria Konnikova’s Lady, Cowboy,
the Depression, through World War II, to 1952, chronicling “the unlikely
Joker, Knave (not yet submitted), a memoir in which the author chronicles
story of the Black Angels, a group of 300 black nurses who changed the
the year she spent training with some of the world’s best poker players.
course of history”. From Trevor Noah is Born a Crime (Random/Spiegel
From Monica Potts, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is a currently
& Grau, Nov), a collection of personal essays from the Daily Show host
untitled narrative non-fiction work expanded from an article the author
that, Foundry says, “tells the story of a mischievous young boy who
wrote for American Prospect called “What’s Killing Poor White Women?”.
grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world
One of Foundry’s big Frankfurt books is Maria Smilios’s The Black
where he was never supposed to exist”.
The Clegg Agency One of the hot non-fiction titles for Bill Clegg’s shingle is Matt Young’s
The Gernert Company
Eat the Apple (Bloomsbury, spring 2018), which “uses a kaleidoscopic
On the fiction side, the agency has Rachel Kadish’s The Weight of Ink
array of immersive narrative angles to tell the story of [the author’s] three
(HMH, June 2017), a historical novel about, the firm says, “the choices
hard tours in Iraq during the surge and IED road wars”. From Eileen
women have always made in their attempts to reconcile the life of the
author Ottessa Moshfegh, recently shortlisted for the Man Booker, is the
heart and mind”. From Mindy Mejia is Everything You Want Me To Be
short story collection Homesick for Another World (Penguin Press, Jan
(Atria/Bestler, Jan 2017); the author’s adult fiction debut follows, the
2017), which the agency says explores “the varieties of self-deception
agency says, the death of a high schooler in a small Midwestern town
across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition”.
“that tests the lines between guilt and innocence”.
ICM Partners and ICM/Sagalyn (handled by UK-based Curtis Brown) Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan (Doubleday, summer 2017) is one
The Dance of the Moon
of the hot titles Curtis Brown will be playing up, on behalf of ICM, in Germany. The book is the final installment in the author’s Rich Asian trilogy. The other big novel for ICM is Michael Crichton’s Dragon Teeth
Pari Spolter
(HarperCollins, May 2017), a recently discovered work by the deceased author that follows the rivalry between two real-life paleontologists in the American west during the late 19th century.
Inkwell Management A big novel for Inkwell this year is Rene Denfeld’s The Child Finder (HarperCollins, winter 2018): a work of suspense from the author of The Enchanted, Inkwell says the book flip-flops between the vantage point of two characters, “an investigator known for her unique ability to find missing children and a young girl with a rich imagination who vanished
http://parispolter.com/the-dance-of-themoon/ Available at Amazon.com, Baker and Taylor, IngramSpark
from a snowy, remote mountain community”. From Katherine Heiny is the debut novel Standard Deviation (Knopf, May 2017), which Inkwell calls “a rueful, funny examination of love, marriage, infidelity, and origami”.
Janklow & Nesbit One of the top non-fiction titles on J&N’s hot list is High Notes by Gay Talese (Bloomsbury, Jan 2017), a collection of the articles (from magazines including the New Yorker) that inspired his books Thy Neighbor’s Wife and
See review by Dr. Thomas E. Phipps, Jr. in PHYSICS ESSAYS, Volume 28 Number 2 June 2015 page 290.
Honor Thy Father. Another non-fiction title the agency will be talking up is How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden and a Story of Espionage by investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein (Knopf, Mar 2017). The agency calls the book “a groundbreaking exposé that convincingly challenges the popular image of Edward Snowden as a hacker turned avenging angel”. Continues on page 8 g
6
Frankfurt show daily
f Continued from page 6 Trident Media Group Among the big titles Trident is shopping in Germany is Lisa Scottoline’s One Perfect
Wednesday 19 October 2016
UK
Aitken Alexander
Lie (St Martin’s, Apr 2017), a thriller about a single mother attempting to keep
The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida is an intimate and sharply
her son, a high school pitcher, away from a criminal-minded teammate. Another
observed account of a woman’s fight to keep her family alive and thriving, set in
big novel for the shingle is Charlatans by Robin Cook (Putnam, pub date not set),
the Veneto in Italy and spanning nearly three decades following the First World
which Trident says “explores the dark side of our fascination with social media”.
War (Faber UK). Also: novels by Willy Vlautin, Julianne Pachico, Sarah Baume.
Writers House
Darley Anderson
Among the big titles WH will be pushing in Frankfurt is Stephenie Meyer’s
Everything But the Truth by Gillian McAllister centres on newly pregnant
The Chemist (Little, Brown, Nov), the first adult thriller from the author of
Rachel and boyfriend Jack as their future is thrown into question when
the Twilight Saga; rights have been sold in 27 countries to date. From
both of their pasts are unearthed (Michael Joseph UK; Dutch, Polish,
Michael Lewis is The Undoing Project (Norton, Dec), about the work of
Russian rights sold; French under offer).
the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, whose research on judgement has “challenged fundamental beliefs about human nature”.
Diane Banks Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw’s new book Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos
The Wylie Agency
(Allen Lane UK; Da Capo US) shows that, by asking questions about the world
Memoirs by Elton John tells the story of his life and extraordinary career
around us, anyone can think like a physicist and grasp the breathtaking grandeur
“with exceptional candour and wit”. A top fiction title for Wylie is the debut
of our cosmos. Also: Eugenia Cheng on infinity, Christopher Harding on Japan.
novel from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, Heather, the Totality (Little, Brown, manuscript due in Nov), about a seemingly perfect family in
Luigi Bonomi
Manhattan and a man with a far more imperfect life who is on a “collision
Gavin Menzies, author of the NY Times bestseller 1421: When China Discovered
course” with them. From James Ellroy is This Storm (Knopf, manuscript due
America, turns his attention to Neanderthals: the Untold Story, discovering
in autumn 2017), the second volume in the author’s Second LA Quartet.
that they were the world’s first sea traders, adorned their bodies with art, and created and played musical instruments. Also: Bryan Sykes on dogs.
Georgina Capel The Earth Gazers by Christopher Potter explores how the first photographs of the Earth seen from the orbit of the Moon changed life on Earth for all of us (Head of Zeus UK). Also: books by Roger Moorhouse and Gordon Corera.
Conville & Walsh The Lost Pianos of Siberia is part travelogue, part history in which Sophie Roberts tells the story of Siberia as she searches for its historic pianos (Transworld UK).
Curtis Brown Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney is a psychological thriller debut from a recent Faber Academy graduate (HQ UK; Rowohlt Germany; AST Russia).
David Godwin The Germans: A Moral History of Germany by Frank Trentmann explores how a society transitions from one of totalitarianism, conquest and war crimes to one so peaceful, caring and compassionate (Allen Lane UK; Knopf US; De Arbeiderspers the Netherlands; Fischer Germany). Also: Katherine Frank on suicide, Dr Julia Shaw on memory.
Furniss Lawton In I’m Wrecked, This Is My Journal by Shannon Cullen, Publishing Director of Puffin, Wreck This Journal meets The UnMumsy Mum (Luitingh-Sitjhoff the Netherlands; Planeta Spain; De Agostini Italy).
Greene & Heaton The Queen of Bloody Everything is a first adult novel by award-winning children’s writer Joanna Nadin, and follows Dido Jones on a quest for her Continues on page 10 g
8
DID YOU KNOW...
MARK TWAIN ATTENDED THE FIRST ABA CONFERENCE. A CENTURY LATER, IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE. BOOKEXPO 2017. COMING SOON: GAIN ACCESS TO THE NORTH AMERICAN TRADE MARKET THROUGH ITS VIBRANT PUBLISHING HUB, NEW YORK CITY PREMIUM TRADE EVENT WITH HIGH QUALITY ATTENDEES INNOVATIVE CONFERENCE PROGRAM THAT CREATES MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS ENGAGE WITH CONSUMERS AT BOOKCON CONTACT JENNIFER MARTIN FOR MORE DETAILS: 203.840.5454 | JENNY@REEDPOP.COM
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
f Continued from page 8
of Dublin, with photos by Paul Joyce (Hachette Ireland). Also: Nigella
happy ever after ending, and her mother, Edie, the only topless sunbathing
Lawson’s new cookbook, Ben Macintyre on the SAS.
feminist in town. Also: novels by Barry Gornell, Lottie Moggach.
MBA Sophie Hicks
In Under A Pole Star, Costa-winner Stef Penney returns to the Arctic setting of The
Ruth Fitzmaurice’s I Found My Tribe is a memoir and love letter to her
Tenderness of Wolves, in an epic story of ambition, perseverance and love against
husband–who has motor neuron disease and can only communicate with his
the odds (Quercus UK and US; HarperCollins Iberica Spain; Bazar Norway).
eyes–and to her family, the natural world and the brightness of life (Chatto world English; Mondadori Italy; Bragelonne France). Also: Tristan Gooley on water.
PFD The Race To Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport is an examination of
Johnson & Alcock
why the Romanovs’ European royal relatives and the Allied governments all
Where the Wild Cherries Grow by Laura Madeleine is a novel of betrayal, love
failed to get the Romanov family out of Russia to safety (St Martin’s US).
and bittersweet secrets set at the end of the First World War (Transworld world English; Lubbe Germany). Also: a book on death by Professor Sue Black DBE,
United Agents
and a memoir by Alex Hanscombe, son of the murdered Rachel Nickell.
Making the World Again by Margaret MacMillan, the award-winning author of Peacemakers, is about the aftermath of WWII (Random House
Madeleine Milburn
US; Penguin Canada). Also: Lara Maiklem on Thameside found objects.
In The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor, a chalk drawing of a stick figure hurtles narrator Eddie back 30 years, to an innocent childhood game that went terribly
Barbara J Zitwer
wrong (Michael Joseph UK; Crown US; sales in 29 territories in two weeks).
Beautiful Demon by Jeong yu-Jeong is a literary, taut, edge-of-your-seat page-turner by Korea’s female master of psychological suspense (EunHaeng
Ed Victor John Banville’s Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir alternates between vignettes of Banville’s own past, and present-day historical explorations
NaMu Publishing Co Korea; Little, Brown UK; Penguin US). This is a much shortened extract from features that appear in Publishers Weekly and on BookBrunch.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt show daily
MysteriousPress.com Award-winner named Mike Cooper has been named the winner of the first $25,000 MysteriousPress.com Award, writes Jim Milliot. Cooper’s book, The Downside, is described as “an actionpacked heist novel”. The prize, created by Otto Penzler, President and CEO of MysteriousPress. com, solicited unpublished manuscripts from both established authors and newcomers, with the promise of a $25,000 award–an advance against royalties–as well as guaranteed worldwide publication. The book will be available sometime next year. “We received some incredible manuscripts but, in the end, Mike’s story was everything we were looking for: fast, exciting, and well-written,” said Penzler. The Downside was chosen the winner after voting by MysteriousPress.com’s publishing partners: Open Road Integrated
Mike Cooper
Media, in North America and numerous countries around the world; Head of Zeus in the British Commonwealth; Hayakawa Publishing (Japan, Singapore and South Korea); Bonnier (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland); Dutch Media Books (Holland and Belgium); and Bastei Lubbe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece and selected Eastern European countries). Each of the publishers will publish The Downside in their respective markets. After a series of different jobs, Cooper has been writing for more than a decade. He has had several books published by Penguin, including his most recent novel, Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller, released in 2013. Cooper has won a Shamus Award, been anthologised in Best American Mystery Stories and Shortlisted for the International Thriller Writers Award. ■
“We received some incredible manuscripts, but… Mike’s story was everything we were looking for: fast, exciting, and well-written” –Otto Penzler.
11
Distribution
EXPAND YOUR REACH
on a Global Scale
Wholesale
E-learning
Digital Services
Print on Demand
Sales & Marketing
Innovative tools and services built to fit your needs, anywhere in the world.
Stop by booth #6.0-E129 and say hello. Visit ingramcontent.com/aworldofreaders.
ingramcontent.com
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
This is what we share Nicholas Clee looks at this year’s Guest of Honour programme Under the slogan “This is what we Saturday (22 October), the pavilion share”, 70 authors from the will host the Else Otten Netherlands and Flanders are Übersetzerpreis, given every two visiting the Frankfurt Book Fair to years for a German translation from take part in this year’s Guest of a Dutch literary work. The pavilion Honour programme. As ever, the design, which is the work of programme is not confined to the architecture and design organisation week of the Fair, but is taking place The Cloud Collective, aims to reflect throughout Germany during 2016, level landscapes and broad by the end of which 120 Dutch and horizons, with a panoramic Flemish authors will have taken background that undergoes changes The design for the Guest of Honour pavilion part in some 400 literary and in colour throughout each day. cultural events. It has prompted a The central courtyard of the Fair considerable increase in translated Dutch-language titles, will offer singular attractions too. A Dutch or Flemish “book some 250 of which will have been signed up by German doctor” will prescribe books appropriate to visitors’ needs. publishers by the end of the year. “Arnon Grunberg’s Brain Lab” will measure readers’ brain The Artistic Director of the programme is an author, Bart patterns as they read passages from Grunberg’s works, Moeyaert. He is an aficionado of fairs: he has been coming registering the emotions disgust, contempt, anger, sadness to Frankfurt for 25 years, and is also a regular at the and compassion. The Kinky & Cosy Experience may be Bologna Children’s Book Fair–even though, he confesses, something, like the Mies van der Rohe installation, that he always starts to wonder after a few days what he is resists description: according to the organisers, it is “a giant doing there. Moeyaert says that he wants to talk about the black ‘box’ where visitors are ‘locked in’ for a brief period. things we share because of the puzzlement he often Whilst there, they are ‘brainwashed’, their proper upbringing encounters when he says he is from Flanders–what sort of scientifically erased. A new operating system is then language is Flemish? Why does he have a Dutch publisher? implanted, that of either Kinky or Cosy. In order to see what One of the shared things, he says, is the sea. “Only the results of this are, visitors can submit their new thought choosing the North Sea as our theme would be daft, of patterns to extensive testing in a training zone before they course, because that is a tourist image. But the sea as a are released out into the world as a Kinky or Cosy.” Perhaps literary image–now that is fantastic, because the sea is both not something to try before an important meeting. poetic and political. Just think of the refugees. And it isn’t A safer bet might be the film booth, screening 40 filmed always calm and pretty.” portraits, of 12 minutes each, of Dutch and Flemish authors.
Sharing and the sea
Literary games
One manifestation of the themes of sharing and the sea will be readings of specially commissioned works by poets from Germany, the Netherlands and Flanders: German poet Daniel Falb spent two weeks by the sea in the Netherlands; Dutch poet Erik Lindner went to Ostend; and Flemish poet Els Moors stayed on the German island of Sylt. A second will be a beach theme at the Guest of Honour pavilion, with objects–donated by writers–scattered throughout the construction as if ready to be discovered by beachcombers. Another feature of the pavilion–one that may need to be visited rather than described–is an installation evoking Mies van der Rohe’s pavilion at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1929. The room “isn’t real… but apparently does exist… prepare to be baffled”, the organisers say. We already are. Also at the pavilion are a cinema, a virtual reality opera staging, a studio where you can witness the creation of a graphic fiction magazine, a book exhibition with some 800 titles on the Netherlands and Flanders, an exhibition telling the story of printing, and a bookshop. On
Two literary games for young adults will be on show at the Fair. Winter has a baffling blurb that resists summary, but appears to be set on a world containing people who have all died in the same second. Puzzling Poetry features an empty puzzle, with the words as the puzzle pieces. There are also virtual reality presentations, including an opera in which the stage is a universe and a soprano floats in space while singing of her impossible love for a human. Among the events taking place in the city of Frankfurt, a big attraction is certain to be an event with the distinguished and garlanded novelist, travel writer and poet Cees Nooteboom. Other visiting authors who may be familiar to English-language readers include Geert Mak and Tommy Wieringa. The hub of literary activities will be Mousonturm, the official Guest of Honour café. Moeyaert, distracted from writing by his work on the programme, nevertheless believes the experience will have been valuable: “I tell myself: next year! Then I will write a big novel, and I will probably win the Nobel Prize.” ■
14
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Pausing in stride: Friedman on fast and slow
photo: Ralph Alswang
We live in a world that is fast, and only for the first time created the possibility of getting faster. All of which makes the ability big data for the masses, because that was the to slow down and reflect a more valuable technology that allowed us to string together trait than ever. So argues bestselling author literally millions of computers, so you could and renowned columnist Thomas L store so much more stuff, and search so Friedman in his latest book, Thank You for much more stuff. That’s why Facebook Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving happened, Twitter, Android, Kindle, Airbnb, in the Age of Accelerations, due out in IBM’s Watson. None of those things could November from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. have happened without that foundation of For Friedman–one of the world’s most mobility. And third, there was the cloud. The prominent globalists, whose 2005 book The cloud was made possible in many ways by Thomas L Friedman World Is Flat spent more than a 100 weeks innovations by Google and Hadoop. So, on the New York Times bestseller list–Thank those three things together–mobility (I can You for Being Late may be his most ambitious book yet, now have a computer in my hand); broadband (I can exploring how “accelerations”, including advances in connect with this thing called the cloud anywhere); and technology to climate change, are toppling institutions, and then, of course, the cloud, which can store infinite files, industries, and creating new geo-political global challenges. infinite intelligence and infinite software apps for me to But despite the dizzying pace of change, Friedman’s advice basically do anything I imagine–that all really started to is to remember to slow down every now and then. Andrew come together in or around 2007. Richard Albanese caught up with Friedman to talk about the book, the importance of reflections, and why, in a AA: You put the cloud up there with fire and electricity as period of such disruption, there is cause for optimism in the one of the things that has fundamentally changed human book business. history, and in the book, you refer to the cloud as “the supernova”. Why? AA: So, congratulations on the new book, and let’s start at TF: The term supernova came from my friend, Craig the beginning, with the title–why are you thanking people Mundie, who was head of research and strategy at for being late? Microsoft for many years, because a supernova is the largest explosion in nature–it’s the explosion of a star. And TF: Thank you. And yeah, the title–so, as I explain in the he was just trying to express the extraordinary power of introduction, I often meet people in Washington, DC for the convergence of mobile, broadband and the cloud. And breakfast and occasionally people would come 15, 20 Craig, I think, says it very well: fire and electricity were minutes late and say, “Tom, I’m really sorry. It’s the enormous, but they didn’t have this kind of intelligence weather, the traffic, the subway, the dog ate my that the cloud has. And I think we’ve only begun to scratch homework.” And I couldn’t remember who I said this to the surface of it. I think we’ll look back and realise that first, but one morning I spontaneously said to one of them: 2007 was truly a Gutenberg-scale moment in history. You “Well, actually thank you for being late. Because you were know, I always tell people, that after Gutenberg invented late, I’ve been eavesdropping on this conversation–it’s the printing press some monk said to some priest: “You fascinating; I’ve been people watching in the lobby. And I know, that’s really cool. I’m not going to have to write all just connected to ideas that I’ve been struggling with for this stuff out longhand anymore!” I think you and I are months. And people actually got into it and they started to alive at a similar moment. say, “Well, you’re welcome!” But they also understood kind of what I was saying, that I was giving both of us permission to slow down, you know, to stop and to think. AA: You write about Moore’s law, why the “accelerations” And at this time of acceleration, I just think that’s more technology has fuelled may have many of us feeling a little important than ever. disoriented these days. It used to take 20 or 30 years for technology to make a big leap forward. Now, it happens about every five to seven years. Can people, cultures and AA: Let’s talk about the subject of the book, which is institutions adapt to that kind of pace of change? those accelerations. In the book, you point to 2007 as a watershed year when the pace of change really started to TF: Well, that’s one of the central questions of the book. speed up, to disorienting levels. Explain why you see 2007 And I can’t answer, because we’re literally in the middle of it as such a notable year in human history? right now. But one of the reasons the book is called Thank TF: Well, the big, headline thing that happened, of course, You for Being Late is because I wanted to give people permission to slow down, to feel you don’t have to keep was the iPhone, which launched the whole smartphone chasing this. You know, I talk the talk of globalisation, but revolution. But another really big thing that happened was I’m actually a pretty disconnected person. I’m not on Twitter. [distributed computing framework] Hadoop, which really
16
Wednesday 19 October 2016
I don’t have a big Facebook presence. And that’s nothing against them, it’s just because I really need my solitude to think. One of my favourite quotes in the book is from [author and columnist] Dov Seidman, who says that when you press the pause button on a computer, it stops. But when you press the pause button on a human being, he or she starts. Dov also coined the phrase, “pausing in stride”. And I like that, because you don’t want to just stop and curl up in a ball under your bed, but people do need time to stop, think and reflect.
AA: You have a great discussion in the book about IBM’s Watson, and artificial intelligence (AI), which is starting to become a topic at book fairs. You note that a chess grandmaster was once asked: “What do you bring to a chess match with a computer?” and the answer was “a hammer”. With all the talk of computers now starting to write news articles–and maybe some day, books–are writers going to need a hammer, too, one day? TF: That’s a very good question. But at the end of the day, I don’t think so. I still believe that machines can do a lot of things and, yes, they can come up with a sonnet, or a poem, a sports story, and maybe, you know, one day, even some kind of opinion. But people have bodies and souls. And there’s the ability to read those, you know? To read and interpret those, the raise of an eyebrow, the curl of a lip, you know, the wink of an eye, the fall of a grin; I still think that writing like that is going to be something uniquely human.
AA: In the book, you write that the task before us is to turn AI into IA–“intelligence assistance”. Can you explain that? TF: That really gets to that adaptation point, which is, how can we really make AI work for us? How can we make all this technology work for us? I was very heartened by some of the examples I came across in writing this book, but there’s one thing I really took away from writing this book, which I think people can’t run away from: and that is, that you have to be a lifelong learner. There’s just no question. There’s going to be fewer safety nets in the future, and you’re going to have to bounce the trampolines. AA: Yes, and you write about the philosophy of AT&T’s executive John Donovan, as an example–that despite all the disruptions, you can be a lifelong employee, Donovan says, if you are ready to be a lifelong learner. Is this angling toward something of a new social contract for the digital information age? TF: Yes, exactly. More than one in fact. One is the social contract between you and your boss, and I think it has to be the AT&T one: we will actually give you the courses,
Frankfurt show daily
and we’ll even pay the tuition in some cases for your lifelong learning, but you will have to do it on your own time. And then there’s the contract between you and yourself, which is, if I want to advance, I’m going to have to do things on my own, after I’m out of school. And then, there’s got to be the contract between you and your government, which is to create both the financial incentives and the possibilities for people to become lifelong learners. And so I think all of these contracts are going to have to change.
AA: We certainly do live in an interesting time. In the book, you quote a Tom Goodwin TechCrunch piece in which Goodwin observed that Uber, the world’s largest taxi service, has no vehicles; Facebook, the world’s most popular media company, owns no content; Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory; and Airbnb, the largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Extrapolating that out, how do you see the book business? TF: I personally think that there’s going to be a backlash against all this acceleration. And I still think curling up and reading a good book, whether it’s on a Kindle, or on paper, that there’s something deeply human about that. Now, I don’t know how these books will be delivered in the future, but being totally absorbed in reading a good book, I still am a big believer in that.
AA: Speaking of how books are going to be delivered, that is one of the big, often uneasy questions facing the book industry, and it brings me to a company that is all about acceleration: Amazon, whose innovations and disruptions have led to a fraught relationship with the publishing industry. What are your thoughts on Amazon, or the other accelerations facing the book business? TF: Sure. You know, cards on the table, Jeff Bezos is a very dear friend. But I’ve always felt that when it comes to technology–and I have this line in The World Is Flat–that whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is: will it be done by you, or to you. So when distributing books in this wholly new digital way could be done, it was going to be done. Now, I don’t know what is going to happen. All I know is, that for me, personally, I still love going into an independent bookstore, and sitting there and sipping coffee and, you know, just the serendipity of surfing through the shelves, seeing what’s there, picking up a book. There’s something to me that, you know, as an author, the independent bookseller is to me one of the great institutions of my life, and there’s something about that experience that I think is wired in our DNA. And because of that, I think someone will always make a business out of it. ■
17
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Brexit: There ain’t no sanity clause (yet) Duncan Calow looks at the implications of Brexit on publishing contracts Well, so far, it’s not been a performance that would get us very far on Strictly or Dancing With the Stars. As trailed six months ago in my London Book Fair article, the Brexit Hokey Cokey has begun. Unfortunately, as things stand, the UK isn’t really in, it isn’t yet out, and the shaking-it-about hasn’t been up to much either. Perhaps the fancy footwork will appear with the Article 50 dance-off. In the meantime, whatever one’s views on the outcome of the vote or the Duncan Calow conduct of the negotiations, we all have to deal with the resulting uncertainty. Which is where the lawyers come in. In popular culture, members of my profession are often accused of taking too much interest in ambulances. In reality, it’s usually something else we end up chasing. Beyond the offices of “Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel”, it’s more likely to be uncertainty that gets commercial media lawyers sharpening their pencils. Ever since it was discovered that oral contracts weren’t worth the paper they were written on (they’re certainly no good for assigning copyright), the aim has been on drafting clauses for any eventuality. So how does Brexit impact on the goal of watertight boilerplate–does it risk flooding contracts with dangerous uncertainty? Certainly, it has the potential for raising arguments where none might have existed before. Firms like mine now even have artificial intelligence software on hand–ready to review filing cabinets-worth of agreements in order to try and identify the weak links in any chain of commercial documentation. Although, for now, for most clients, the priority is knowing what’s known, not a search for unknown unknowns.
agreements. In fact, looking back at Clark’s predecessor, A Guide to Royalty Agreements (first published in 1938) and prepared by the erstwhile Agreements Committee of the Publishers Association, I see that my 5th edition, from 1972, sets out the same sort of country-by-country appendix. A Guide in turn refers to recommendations from the 1950s, as well as “political developments in recent years”, requiring the need for clarity in respect of “Commonwealth and Empire Rights”. Britain has come this way before. With such a track record, it is to be hoped that the territory clauses of many publishing contracts won’t be undermined by Brexit. Agreements which just refer to “the European Union” or equivalent may not be either, but they are more likely to be subject to judicial interpretation and evidence of the intention of the parties. Notably, A Guide doesn’t suggest any form of force majeure provision. Clark’s includes several examples of this standard term: each trying to provide a “get-out” when circumstances beyond a party’s control prevent performance. Whether acts of God were less common in the Seventies is a question for statisticians and the Church. Whether Brexit, though not expressly mentioned, will trigger any such clause is for publishers and their lawyers to consider. It may be possible if governmental action has been referred to. In other parts of the media and entertainment industry, and in some tech deals, the threat of regulatory intervention or legal change is higher, so contracts often go further and include specific legal and regulatory review clauses. When such changes or intervention take place, these clauses try to allocate risk, provide for agreed responses or just allow for focussed discussion. The use of that mechanism is already being evaluated for specific Brexit clauses, although it may be some time before any standard forms of text begin to emerge. Of course many publishing contracts may never need such text. And, in any case, drafting is a challenge whilst Brexit means nothing more than, well, Brexit. That’s a legal definition that the Marx Brothers would have enjoyed (“The Party of the First Part” etc.). But the negotiations are likely to be a marathon not a sprint, so it is something to keep under review. Less of a quickstep then, more of an awkward tango, but once we begin to know our Brexit rhumba from our elbow we may all have to face the music and dance. Cha cha cha. ■
“It’s... likely to be uncertainty that gets commercial media lawyers sharpening their pencils.”
Fewer unknowns And in publishing contracts, at least in part, there may be fewer unknowns than elsewhere. Only last year, the Publishers Association’s Trade Publishers Council and the Association of Author’s Agents agreed good practice guidance on contractual negotiations, including provisions on how to deal with territorial definitions. It wisely advised that changeable terms such as EU or EFTA (or Commonwealth) “should be avoided or clarified”. If referred to they should “reflect the accurate and current list of countries which are part of such bodies”. That represents an approach which has long been adopted in industry bible Clark’s Publishing Agreements, currently in its 9th edition. Clark’s provides carefully listed territories in its detailed schedules designed for appending to author and other
18
Duncan Calow is Partner at DLA Piper UK LLP. For more detail on some of these issues see https://www.dlapiper.com/en/uk/focus/brexit-legal-impact/overview.
Reed New Holland an imprint of New Holland Publishers
www.newhollandpublishers.com
Visit us at Stand C92, Hall 6.0
STERLING PUBLISHING, CO., INC www.sterlingpublishing.com
PLEASE VISIT US AT STAND #6.2.C120
STERLING PUBLISHING, CO., INC www.sterlingpublishing.com
PLEASE VISIT US AT STAND #6.2.C120
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
US publishing lawsuits wind down After a decade of high-profile court battles, it appears that US publishing industry executives may finally be taking their lawyers off speed dial. Andrew Richard Albanese looks at the high profile cases that remain Cambridge University Press vs. Patton
“[For the publishers] winning slowly is just about as bad as losing quickly.”–James Grimmelmann
After more than eight years of litigation, this closely watched copyright case is right back where it was in 2012–before a US Court of Appeals. And barring some unexpected settlement, it is still far from resolution. The suit involves three academic publishers (Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and SAGE), who in 2008 sued administrators at Georgia State University (GSU), for allegedly encouraging faculty to use illegally digitised course readings (known as e-reserves) as a no-cost alternative to traditionally licensed course readings. After years of legal manoeuvring, Federal Judge Orinda Evans handed the publishers a stinging defeat in 2012, holding that GSU’s digitised excerpts were protected by fair use. Two years later, an appeals court reversed Evans, and sent the case back to her with instructions to re-balance her final fair-use analysis. In her remand decision issued this spring, Evans again found that GSU’s e-reserve programme was fair use. And, in a final order issued in July, she dismissed several motions put forth by the publishers, and once again ordered the publishers to pay GSU’s legal fees and costs–GSU is seeking more than $3.3 million. Not surprisingly, the publishers have once again appealed. In an August filing, they cited at least six legal errors committed by Evans in her decision, including their contention that Evans misapplied the fair-use doctrine. Legal scholars, however, say it is unclear how much of Evans’ most recent decision will be reviewable this time around. That’s because, despite winning a unanimous reversal in 2014, the first appeals court decision actually upheld much of Evans’ handling of the case, and anything that was previously decided in the appeal is settled law, explains Cornell Law professor James Grimmelmann, and anything that could have been appealed in the first appeal and wasn’t, is considered waived. One key aspect to watch this time around: whether Evans’ fee award to GSU will be upheld. This past spring the US Supreme Court issued new guidance on when fees should be awarded in copyright cases–and legal scholars say that Evans’ decision looms as the first test of that new guidance. Association of American Publishers’ President Tom Allen has called this litigation an important “test case” for fair use in the digital age. But after a decade of litigation, it is up for debate whether the final verdict will even matter by the time it is reached. Indeed, the market is already solving the issues at the heart of this case; academic publishing continues to shift toward a licensed access regime, for
22
example, and the open access movement continues to grow. For the publishers, “winning slowly,” Grimmelmann observed, “is just about as bad as losing quickly”.
Gitman vs. Pearson Education Inc
First filed in October 2014, by two plaintiff authors, Lawrence J Gitman and Michael D Joehnk, this suit alleges that Pearson has been systematically short-changing textbook authors on the royalties they are owed. The case continues to progress through discovery, but legal scholars say the big question–whether the case can win class action status, and sweep in a large number of authors–remains very much uncertain. In its filings, Pearson attorneys argue that the company acted squarely within the bounds of its contracts with the plaintiffs, and argue that the “material differences” between the contracts of thousands of Pearson authors makes certifying a class-wide complaint impossible. But even if that proves true, the action, should it progress, could shine a light on the publisher’s practices. In filings, the authors claim that an audit showed one of their textbooks rose 140% in price from 2000 to 2011 (from $108 a copy to $260), yet, due to a range of accounting and sales practices, their royalties over the same period remained stagnant. As of this writing, the parties are due in court on 20th November for a status conference.
Green vs. US Department of Justice This one is not a publishing suit, per se, however, if it progresses it could have an impact on the digital future for publishers. In this suit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violates the First Amendment by making it a crime to circumvent DRM software that governs access on copyrighted works, even if the user is seeking to make a legal use of the copyrighted work. Users can lobby for “exceptions” to the DMCA’s rules. However, the EFF argues, having to argue for such exceptions amounts to “an unconstitutional speech-licensing regime”. The case is in its early stages. But with copyright reform still inching along in the US, this case could certainly shift the debate. While DRM is seen by many content providers as necessary to protect trade secrets, and as a way to limit online infringement, the flip side of that coin is that making DRM legally unbreakable also empowers digital licences to write out fair use, space-shifting and other kinds of examinations of copyrighted works that often lead to innovation. ■
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt show daily
Pearson remains the largest publisher Pearson maintained its place as the world’s largest book publisher in 2015, but that doesn’t mean the UK-based company didn’t face its share of challenges. The company began a major restructuring effort in the year that included the sale of the Financial Times and its stake in the Economist. Pearson also announced in January 2016 that it will cut about 4,000 jobs from its worldwide educational publishing operation, in an attempt to “create a single global product organisation”. Pearson embarked on the overhaul to adapt to changes in the educational marketplace. Those changes were a major factor in total revenue at the company falling from more than $7 billion in 2014 to $6.6 billion last year. The five largest publishers in 2014 retained their positions in 2015 on the Livres Hebdo/Publishers Weekly ranking, but that stability masked some notable shifts that took place among the global giants. For one thing, Pearson was not the only publisher that saw revenue fall between 2014 and 2015. In fact, more than half of the companies on the global ranking had a decline in sales last year. Among the factors for the revenue drop were weak economies in some countries, disruptions caused by the
2016 2015 Publishing Group Rank Rank or Division
increased use of ebooks and other digital content, and currency fluctuations. Like Pearson, many publishers took aggressive steps in reaction to the changed market conditions. One of the biggest deals in 2015 was the merger of the Holtzbrinck-owned Macmillan Science and Education companies (excluding Macmillan’s US higher education and trade properties) with Springer Science + Business. The merger was completed in May 2015, with Holtzbrinck holding a 53% stake in the combined company, which was renamed Springer Nature. The deal had a direct impact on the global ranking. With the shift of revenue from its professional and education business to the new entity, Holtzbrinck’s sales fell to $1.2 billion in 2015, dropping the company from 10th place on the 2014 list to number 19 last year. The new Springer Nature was the 15th largest publisher in 2015 (Springer Science + Business Media was the 20th largest in 2014). ■ For the full list of top publishers and detail on exactly how the table was compiled, go to http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/internationalbook-news/article/71268-the-world-s-52-largest-book-publishers-2016.html. (in millions)
Parent Company
Parent Country
2015 Revenue
2014 Revenue
1
1
Pearson
Pearson PLC
UK
$6,625
$7,072
2
2
Thomson Reuters
The Woodbridge Company Ltd.
Canada
$5,776
$5,760
3
3
RELX Group
Reed Elsevier PLC & Reed Elsevier NV UK/US/ Netherlands $5,209
$5,362
4
4
Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer
Netherlands
$4,592
$4,455
5
5
Penguin Random House
Bertelsmann AG
Germany
$4,056
$4,046
6
7
China South Publishing & Media Group
China South Publishing & Media Group Co. Ltd.
China
$2,811
$2,579
7
6
Phoenix Publishing and Media Phoenix Publishing and Media Co.
China
$2,755
$2,840
8
8
Hachette Livre
Lagardère
France
$2,407
$2,439
9
9
McGraw-Hill Education
Apollo Global Management LLC
US
$1,835
$1,855
10
11
Grupo Planeta
Grupo Planeta
Spain
$1,809
$1,943
11
12
Wiley
Wiley
US
$1,727
$1,822
12
12
Scholastic
Scholastic
US
$1,673
$1,636
13
18
HarperCollins
News Corp
US
$1,646
$1,667
14
14
Cengage Learning
Apax and Omers Capital Partners
US/Canada
$1,633
$1,708
15
20
Springer Nature
Holtzbrinck & EQT and GIC Investors
Germany/ Singapore/ Sweden
$1,605
$1,167
16
16
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company
US/Cayman Islands
$1,416
$1,372
17
15
China Publishing Group
China Publishing Group Corp.
China
$1,402
$1,495
18
–
Zhejiang Publishing United Group
Zhejiang Publishing United Group
China
$1,364
-
19
10
Holtzbrinck
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck
Germany
$1,231
$2,000
20
21
China Education Publishing & Media
China Education Publishing & Media Holdings Co. Ltd.
China
$1,154
$1,108
Source: Livres Hebdo. The listing was compiled by international publishing consultant Ruediger Wischenbart under the aegis of Livres Hebdo.
23
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Open access: free content, but can you find it? One of the key trends–if not the key trend–in academic publishing now is Open Access (OA). This is defined by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) as “the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment”. At present, researchers are still some way from reaching this promised land, writes Byron Russell. Much OA content is not fully available, in the sense of being freely discoverable–and an Byron Russell increasing amount of what is available is not worth the time to download, casting doubt on the validity of OA as a real turning point in scholarly publishing. According to the Universities UK Open Access Co-ordination Group, around 34% of published academic content is immediate or delayed. So much Open Access is, in fact, not immediately available at all–but only becomes available after a predetermined period, during which publishers have extracted their subscription revenues. But OA publishing moves on parallel tracks, at different speeds. In particle physics, the rate of OA archiving approaches 100% (Peter Suber, Open Access, MIT 2012); in the humanities, it’s rare. Universities happy enough to fund APCs (article ad_b_1_2.ai 1 seem 2016/10/5 下午 07:14:40
processing charges) for quantum physicists; researchers in Provençal poetry, not so much. The original promise of OA was summed up back in 1991: “the anticipation of a centralised automated repository and alerting system, which would send full texts only on demand (in order to) democratise the exchange of information… globally for all with network access” (Paul Ginsparg, Cornell). If OA is to fulfill this ideal, surely it has to be truly open to everyone and every discipline. Discovery is hamstrung by the boxing-up of content into diverse, unconnected silos: OA publishers’ resources to actively market their content–thereby guiding a path to discovery–may be very limited. So much good material is out of reach while far too much thirdrate content is launched into the void through “predatory” OA publishing houses. Beall’s List this year contains more than 920 such enterprises; it is easy for any author to pay to get content published somewhere–without a proper peer review. How can we all find what we want, and how do we know it’s good? One way of course is to visit indexers which adopt approvals screening such as the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals),
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
General registration deadline: Oct.30, 2016 Further information: www.tibe.org.tw
24
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt show daily
or renowned sites such as PLOS (Public Library of Science), with 150,000+ authors, 80,000+ reviewers and 6,000+ editorial board members across seven journals. In the longer term, discovery may be increasingly guided by institutional librarians, escorting researchers down the most appropriate discovery pathways. As for marketing, social media and innovative thinking are key. There are examples of OA publications–even in the humanities– reaching heights paid-for publications can only dream of. How the World Changed Social Media, an OA book series published this year by UCL Press, was promoted via diverse means: a website featuring articles, blogs, key facts and videos; a multilingual MOOC; and an exhibition of photographs at UCL. This meant the widest possible audience reach, both academic and public. According to Lara Speicher at UCL, How the World Changed Social Media was downloaded more than 5,000 times in just two weeks. Another marketing option is to turn authors into promoters; Kudos is an innovative toolkit, which empowers authors to share their own research via social media. Discovery also depends on sharing access, and this is where OA publishing has the edge. In the disruptive world of OA, jealously guarding content from “competition” is meaningless. So one exciting option is transparent collaboration, and a drawing-together of all the dispersed OA content silos into one
searchable Hub, which incorporates quality assurance into its indexing policies and content management systems. This is what a new project from Ingenta aims to achieve, using the experience gained from Ingenta Connect, which offers both content hosting and indexing to nearly 300 academic publishers. The new site, Ingenta Open, is launching officially this week at Frankfurt; in its initial form it offers low cost hosting for fledgling Open Access publishers and indexing for OA content. The site will eventually enable networked search and discovery across multiple silos, including indexers such as the DOAJ and participating institutional repositories. With clear indications of peer review processes behind each content source and tools such as automated APC invoicing to help smaller publishers, Ingenta Open aims to simplify and streamline the whole discovery process for research across multiple disciplines. Much has been written about the publishing side of OA, and rightly so–it’s a complex paradigm for all publishers. But little so far has been done for its readership. There’s an assumption that if it’s free, people will find it and “buy” it, but there are still too many thresholds for people to cross. ■ Byron Russell is Head of Ingenta Connect. He will be chairing “Open Access = Openly Accessible? What Can we Do to Make OA Content Really Discoverable” (Hall 4.2 Hot Spot stage, this morning, 9:30am).
BOOKS THAT MOVE Bringing Canadian words to the world
DISCOVER CANADA’S COLLECTIVE RIGHTS CATALOGUE RIGHTS CANADA - NOW AVAILABLE ON THE CANADA STAND VISIT THE CANADA STAND
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
GET YOUR COPY
Hall 6.0 | A 47
bit.ly/Rights_Mailing
bit.ly/RightsCanada_Fall2016
www.facebook.com/LivresCanadaBooks
@livrescabooks
www.livrescanadabooks.com
Visit us at Hall 4.2 - Stand J72
Announcing the Enhanced IMF eBookstore
New Features Now you can purchase IMF publications in a variety of formats… Print
ePub
Mobi
In addition, you can review a small list of related publications thanks to the “Also of Interest” and “Readers also Bought…” features.
Watch videos highlighting selected publications.
Explore bookstore.imf.org/pwfb116 I N T E R N AT I O N A L M O N E TA R Y F U N D
Wednesday 19 October 2016
The Arts+ David Hockney was the prestigious figurehead yesterday (18 October) for the launch of The Arts+, the Frankfurt Book Fair’s new programme for the cultural and creative industries, writes Nicholas Clee. At the opening ceremony, Hockney gave a keynote address on the role of the artist in the 21st century, and showed off A Bigger Book (Taschen), a 500-page, giant– it is described as sumo format–monograph on his career. The book comes in a limited edition of 9,000 copies, all of them with the artist’s signature. The Arts+ is a joint venture between Frankfurt and Christiane zu Salm and her company About Change GmbH. She said: “Content is already an important field of activity for cultural institutions and creative professionals. Digital technologies such as 3D, VR or AI enable new and fast growing revenue streams in the very industries requiring exposure and an accessible platform.” For Frankfurt, Book Fair Vice President Holger Volland said: “Frankfurt Book Fair is one of the world’s most important content trade fairs and one of the largest cultural events in Europe. It makes sense to build on this foundation to create the first marketplace of its kind for cultural and creative content.” Volland argues that The Arts+ is especially timely at a time when IPs of all creative industries can be digitised, and therefore copied and shared. “What we need now is a discussion on how to deal with intellectual property and copyright of digital cultural assets. We also need to develop new business models around these digital assets.” The programme is described as “for everyone who creates, manages, exhibits, publishes, presents, remixes or refines creative and cultural content: i.e. publishers, designers, architects, directors and curators of museums and institutions, software developers, media representatives, brand managers, artists, photographers and politicians”. A Museums Hub will act as a meeting point for representatives from museums and cultural institutions. There will be a curated exhibition area as well as a stage, labs, workshops and a salon event. Other speakers include author Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do?) moderating a round table on the “Future of the Business of Creativity”, MIT’s Carlo Ratti, and Annie Luo from the World Economic Forum; and among the industry partners are Monocle, Google, Taschen, Sky Arts, Kodak and Europeana. Held with the Enterprise Europe Network, a matchmaking event called Talk Creative (tomorrow, 2.15pm in the Salon, Hall 4.1) will invite representatives of various cultural industries to share creative ideas. Matthias Röder, who from his position of MD of the Karajan Institute helps to maintain the legacy of the great–but sometimes controversial–conductor Herbert von Karajan, will discuss digital development in the music market. ■
Stay Connected The
WORLD
IS READING PUBLISHERS Publishers worldwide trust Ingram to get their content into the hands of readers worldwide. We have the technology and services publishers need to reach more readers and sell more books with speed and efficiency.
RETAILERS The faster you can meet demand the easier it is to make more sales. Ingram has a huge selection of books, with more distribution points across the globe for fast, reliable order fulfillment that keeps you happy and your customers happier.
LIBRARIES Offer patrons easy access to the right books, right when they want them. Our library services are built upon the belief that libraries are more than a depository for books, but critical community centers, where education and information thrive.
EDUCATORS From textbooks to digital learning, Ingram connects educators, students, administrators, and researchers to the world’s most relevant educational content. Ingram’s VitalSource spells success in today’s quickly evolving learning environment.
Let’s talk. Stop by booth #6.0-E129 or visit ingramcontent.com/aworldofreaders to learn more.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
EU: Towards VAT unity Milan Gagnon reports Publishers awaiting a European Commission proposal on unifying value-added tax for digital and print books can take heart in Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici’s statement that: “An electronic book is a book.” An EU spokesperson confirms that a proposal to bring both products in line will likely be present “by the end of the year”. “We have been campaigning very hard for the Commission to take the next step to acknowledge that the reduced [VAT] rate should not be linked to any specific support, but should benefit the book, as such,” adds Enrico Turrin, an economist and the Deputy Director of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP). “A book has a certain cultural and economic value, not because of its format.” For now, however, for VAT purposes, print books are still considered goods, and ebooks are taxed as Web services. In practice this has meant a VAT as high as 20% for ebooks in Britain and Ireland, countries that apply no VAT to print books. And in most other EU countries, it has meant a VAT on ebooks at least 10% higher than print, with discrepancies in several countries topping 15%. The FEP has been working on the VAT discrepancy since before a 2009 reform allowed reduced rates for publications in all “physical means of support”. And momentum has been building over the last year, after the European Court of Justice in 2015 ruled that countries are not permitted to unilaterally unify the VAT imposed on ebooks with that applied to print, if print receives a reduced rate. Across the EU, the FEP’s members have lobbied their national Culture and Finance ministries, and the group has brought the issue up in discussions with members of the European Commission and Parliament, forging as well a strategic alliance with newspaper and magazine publishers, who are also dealing with the discrepancy for their electronic editions. In the last year, with the support of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Chief Executive of the Commission, the discrepancy between print and digital was included in a VAT Action Plan, which could allow individual EU members more flexibility in setting their own VAT rates.
Major step ahead After the European Commission presents its proposal, likely sometime before the end of the year, EU publishers and ebook vendors will still have a major step to clear: passing the unanimous vote of the bloc’s finance ministers at the European Council. Turrin says he doesn’t expect much opposition to unifying the VAT for print and electronic publications–but it’s hard to know for sure. “It’s not that any member state has anything against ebooks per se, but it always gets touchy when it comes to taxation matters,” he explains. Still, voting to allow nations to unify VAT rates “doesn’t oblige member states to apply the reduced rates: it just gives them the possibility”. A unified VAT, Turrin says, would be a big step for ebooks in the EU, helping to lower prices, and giving publishers incentive to innovate with digital works–and to draw in more readers. “The more people read the better,” Turrin stresses, “not only for themselves, but for society and the economy.” ■
28
Title & Rights Management System 24/7/365
Custom Catalog Creation Tool in four formats (PDF, Word, Excel & HTML) Networking & Global Discoverability
Real Time Transactions
Pubmatch.com
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Twenty years of New Books Twenty years ago this summer, a group of literary professionals gathered for a seminar on promoting translations from German in the UK, writes Charlotte Ryland. From booksellers to translators, editors to rights managers, cultural diplomats to literary agents, the participants agreed on what was lacking: timely, reliable readers’ reports; high- Charlotte Ryland quality sample translations; and a more public profile for translators and translated authors. The consensus that change was both necessary and possible was so strong that a focus group met less than three weeks later to discuss publishing “German Book News”. And so New Books in German (NBG) was born. Twenty years on, we’re celebrating our 40th issue with a new design and new website. It has been a delight to delve into the NBG archives for an article in our anniversary issue, and to find that we now have a project that achieves all of the aims mooted in that first seminar. The core of the project remains the twice-yearly magazine, with reviews of around 30 titles (fiction, non-fiction and children’s) that we recommend to international publishers, and articles about German-language literary culture and the translated literature scene. The impact of these recommendations was given a significant boost on our 10th anniversary, when we introduced a guarantee that all books featured in NBG would be given funding by one of our partners. A victim of our own success, the number of funding applications has increased to such an extent that we’ve had to limit this guarantee slightly–only books we’ve reviewed in the past five years are still guaranteed funding.
Collaboration is key The project’s key is in collaboration. I know of few projects that work so successfully across national boundaries–in this case bringing together Austrian, German and Swiss publishers and cultural organisations, as well as those in the UK, US and beyond. The strong sense of shared purpose means that NBG has a superb support network. Our core partners are the cultural institutes of the three German-speaking countries (the GoetheInstitut London, the Austrian Cultural Forum London and the Swiss arts council Pro Helvetia) as well as their embassies in London, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the British Centre for Literary Translation and the German Book Office New York. Representatives from these organisations bring an enduring commitment to the project that keeps it fresh and engaged. In addition we have a very committed team of “readers”–those who write readers’ reports for us–and an expert group of advisors who help us to select our recommended titles for each issue. Meetings of these advisors are always an enormous pleasure: the enthusiasm for the writing and the shared desire to make more of it available
30
oks in German to an international readership are contagious. We’re also in regular contact with a huge number of translators, and our Emerging Translators’ Programme puts us in touch with new talent, so we are always able to recommend the best translators to publishers for sample translations and readers’ reports.
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO IMAGE
Significant partnerships Our partnership with the German Book Office (GBO) New York has developed into a particularly significant one. We now work together to assemble a single list of recommended fiction titles that will appeal to both markets. A New York jury discusses all the German fiction submissions, and a “US Jury Pick” stamp on certain titles highlights those books that have found particular favour there. Again, NBG has grown stronger through this collaboration, and it’s always great to work with GBO Director Riky Stock and her team–more of that common purpose, this time across the pond. During my time at NBG I have taken maternity leave twice. Acting Editor Jen Calleja has stepped in both times, bringing tremendous energy into the project: “Editing the magazine over a total period of two years–or four issues–has been a lifeenhancing experience, she says. “I went from awestruck intern to Acting Editor due to Charlotte Ryland’s much valued trust and generosity. Carrying out the role during this year in particular, due to the climate of Brexit, made the magazine feel all the more vital. Sales of literature in translation have risen dramatically in recent years and New Books in German is part of that wave. I know it will keep enthusiastically promoting and supporting the translation of German, Austrian and Swiss literature to English-language publishers in these important years to come, doing its part against the climate of isolationism through the power of incredible literature.” As we look ahead to the next 20 years, we have two particular aims in mind. The first is to develop work that’s already begun on outreach and events–networking with publishers in person as well as virtually, and putting on public events that will introduce more German-language writers to UK audiences. Last year we held the first of what we hope will be many NBG/ Goethe-Institut London joint events, a crime fiction evening entitled “In the Library with the Lead Piping”. We’re inspired by the wonderful Festival Neue Literatur in New York, run by the German Book Office, which brings together German, Austrian, Swiss and American authors in a series of events, and hope to develop something similar in London. Secondly, we’d like to work more closely with the increasing number of sister-organisations out there–from the Swedish Book Review to New Spanish Books and all those in between. This goes back to our focus on collaboration: we don’t just want publishers to publish more German-language books in translation, we want them to publish more books in translation from all languages. This is definitely a field in which co-operation trumps competition, and we look forward to developing those links in the years to come. ■
Bryan Lee O’Malley & Leslie Hung
TM
FUTURE
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
Mark Millar & Greg Capullo
For more on Image Comics graphic novels, visit DBD at Stand H6.1 D94 diamondbookdistributors.com
Charlotte Ryland is Editor of New Books in German.
31
Wednesday 19 October 2016
European copyright reform and
NEW, FUN AND QUALITY CONTENT FOR CHILDREN, TEENS AND COMICS FANS. FIND CREATIVE WAYS TO COLLABORATE. REACH US AT
HALL 5.0 STAND A87 or info@kaikenpublishing.com
On 15th September 2016 the European Commission published, earlier than expected, its copyright reform package, writes Susie Winter. Forming part of its digital single market initiative, the new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is heralded as key to making “copyright rules fit for the digital age”. The Commission, in its review of the Susie Winter current framework, concluded that new European legislation is required in a number of areas. There are to be new mandatory exceptions covering the use of digital materials for illustration for teaching, text and data mining, and preservation by cultural heritage institutions; a new publishers related right for press (newspapers, magazines) publishers; and Member States are to be required to introduce domestic legislation to ensure fair remuneration for authors and performers–specifically legislation to cover transparency of reporting, bestseller clauses and alternative dispute resolution. So what will these measures mean for UK publishers? With some, the impact may be limited. Many of the “glitches” these new proposals are designed to address were already resolved when the UK went through its own copyright law amendment process. For example, the EU’s proposals to ensure teachers can use digital materials in the classroom for the purpose of illustration, and cultural institutions can digitise work for preservation purposes, without infringing copyright law, are already permitted under UK law. The UK also introduced its own exception permitting text and data mining of content, to which the researcher already has legal access, for non-commercial research. This is not to say that should the UK be required to implement these measures they will not encounter any problems. For example, the UK exception for preservation only allows institutions to preserve works which cannot be readily replaced, i.e. where it is not reasonably practicable to purchase a replacement. The new EU exception for text and data mining differs from our legislation in one very important way. The UK exception clearly stipulates that the exception can only be used to mine content for non-commercial research, while the Commission has made its focus the non-commercial status of the beneficiaries of the exception, rather than what the output of the mining is used for. We will be exploring the implications of this on our legislation.
Questions raised However, there are two new elements in the published directive which do raise a number of potential questions for book and journal publishers in EU Member States. The first of which relates to the Commission’s decision to restrict a new related right to press publishers. In an age where there is a growing need for publishers to be able to protect their investment and enforce their rights, this is disappointing.
ALL ABOUT STORIES
Wednesday 19 October 2016
rm and the UK To explain. Under the current system publishers derive their rights in the content from authors. However, with published works becoming more multi-formatted, multi-media, and in some instances increasingly multi-authored, the investment publishers make that sits behind such works has to be able to be protected, so that the works themselves are able to be exploited. For example, in the case of an academic journal, there is the ownership of the goodwill in the title of the journal, the copyright in the selection of articles and so on, all of which can be and often are owned by the publisher. While a particular article published in a journal does come from an author or group of authors, its importance to the community is derived partly from its being accepted by and published in a specific journal, the rights in which are not owned by the authors of the article. In addition, many information products may fall outside the originality test for copyright. The ownership of such rights and investments made by all publishers needs to be recognised and protected. The second rests with measures which will require Member States to introduce legislation to ensure fair remuneration for authors and performers. Authors are at the heart of what publishers do, and so we share the frustration of the author community that it is increasingly difficult for authors to make a decent living from their writing. The reasons for the decline in average author income are wide and varied: margins are being squeezed across the whole supply chain; books are facing stiff competition from other media and entertainment sectors for consumers’ time; and self-publishing has led to there simply being more writers, as evidenced by the increase in the number registered with ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society).
It’s more than just a mystery.
Authors Publishers want all of the authors and titles that they help to bring to the market to succeed–that is the essence of their role. Of course, not every single title can achieve the same level of success, but publishers work relentlessly with their authors to get the best possible outcome. It is unclear whether the measures being introduced by the Commission, the principles behind which publishers fully support, will properly address this, but we look forward to discussing them with our author colleagues. But why, following Brexit, is any of this a concern for the UK? The reform package comes at a strange time for the UK, with the vote to leave complicating any analysis of how, or if, these reforms will affect businesses operating in the UK. The new Prime Minister is clear that “Brexit means Brexit”, but the government has also been equally clear that up until the UK triggers Article 50 and leaves the EU, business will continue as usual. We will keep working to ensure that the final copyright package reflects the needs of the publishing industry, but in the end exactly how these proposals impact businesses in the UK depends on factors entirely separate to the details of the reform package itself: the timing of the package and how it overlaps with the timing of Brexit. ■
Celebrating 75 years in 2017! Visit Albert Whitman & Company in Hall 6.0 C32 for a FREE Boxcar Children magnetic bookmark! www.boxcarchildren.com
Susie Winter is Director of Policy and Communications at the Publishers Association.
F
L :
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Mexico: A mature and changing market Ahead of the launch of Nielsen BookScan Mexico, Luiz Gaspar looks at the changing landscape in reading and educational attainment in Mexico Mexico is a country of 121m people with a literacy rate of 94%. It is the 11th largest economy in the world and the composition of the country is changing with an increase in young professionals who are college educated. There were more than half a million college graduates in the period 2013-14 and this is rising year-on-year. There has always been a strong link in Mexico between education, purchasing power and reading, and so these younger professionals can drive growth in the market not just for educational books, but leisure reading too. With this in mind, it has to be said that traditionally, Mexican’s do not read very much. An annual average in 2006 of around 2.9 books were read per head, but this figure is also rising–the latest figures for 2015 show 5.3 books read, the rise coming from the under 25s. Taking out the under 25 figures, the average is 3.8 books read, so still showing a strong increase (Conaculta, National Survey of Reading and Writing 2015). The economic situation in Mexico is uncertain. The country’s income is based on oil and the global downturn
34
in oil prices means the Mexican economy is slowing down. Nielsen’s Global Confidence Index shows a 3-point decrease in Q2 2016 on the previous quarter. However the book market is mature and is changing; there is now more emphasis on an open market and less on the federal government, which currently has a 60% market share (CANIEM, Indicators for Private Publishing Sector in Mexico). The trade market is set to grow with many more retail outlets for books now available. The traditional bookstores of Porrua (established 1900) El Sotano, Gandhi, Gonvil and the state-owned Fondo de Cultura Economica are joined by department stores and supermarkets such as Sanbornes, Liverpool, Walmart and Costco, where the consumer experience is quite different. Gandhi, one of the largest book chains has 34 stores, but also points of sale (franchises) in department stores and supermarkets. Alberto Achar, Gandhi’s Marketing Manager told Publishing Perspectives, that his aim is “to make Mexico a country of bookstores”. Online presence is also growing, since Amazon entered the market in 2015.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Frankfurt show daily
“There [is] a strong link. between education, purchasing power and reading.”
The publisher mix in Mexico is quite concentrated–there are more than 200 publishers, but 29 large publishers produce 80% of all books. Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world (Spain itself is third, behind the US); publishers are therefore looking to Mexico as the gateway to other Latin American countries. Measurement of the market place is currently done by CANIEM, Secretaria de Cultura and other commissioned reports, which give a very firm and accurate measure of the state of the market at a point in time. With more publishers entering the market, there is a need from publishers and retailers to have independent, up-todate and current market information. In countries around the world, including the US, UK, Spain and Brazil, this type of market data is available from Nielsen Book. In late 2016, Nielsen will be launching Nielsen BookScan Mexico. This will be the 11th country in which Nielsen Book has independent reporting of trade sales, which it collects directly from retailers’ points-of-sale systems. Weekly market measurement allows retailers to understand their product mix in relation to the whole market, and understand the gaps within genres and series, and accurately report on their own market share.
Publishers can measure their share within genres and look at the effects of marketing and promotions independently. This information informs their planning, and helps with author and retail negotiations. Traditionally, in the markets in which Nielsen BookScan operates, the very fact that retailers, publishers, distributors and wholesalers have access to the same independent sales data, “a common currency”, enables a better flow of information, which informs business decisions and helps the trade to work more efficiently. There is a demand for more accurate and objective market information among Mexican publishers and booksellers, and the book industry in Mexico is keen to support the introduction and development of business intelligence tools available through Nielsen BookScan. For our part, we at Nielsen Book are excited to launch in this publishing environment and look forward to working with the Mexican book industry to provide accurate and robust market measurement. ■ For further information about the Mexican market and the launch of Nielsen BookScan Mexico, contact Andre Breedt or Luiz Gaspar (Hall 6 B133). Luiz Gaspar is Head of Nielsen BookScan Iberia and LatAm Nielsen Book.
THE COMPREHENSIVE COLLECTION OF KNOWLEDGE CREATED BY THE UNITED NATIONS
Better browsing - now by theme and/or by country Visit un-ilibrary.org today! FEATURES
• Intuitive navigation • Integrated search results • Granular content
• Citation tool • DOI identification • Multilingual content
For information and subscriptions: ilibrary@un.org Visit us at FBF 2016 for a demo. Stand# J72
35
Wednesday 19 October 2016
A good story, well told Nicholas Jones believes that introducing audio listening habit in people that will benefit them all In the 2015 television adaptation of John Lanchester’s Capital, the wife of merchant banker Roger Yount (Toby Jones) asks him to read a bedtime story to their son Conrad. He goes upstairs, but rather than take a book off the shelf turns on a CD audiobook of The Wind in the Willows. “Tell you what. Nicholas Jones This is a better idea. This is someone who knows what they are doing!… See? Much better than me!” When I first started in the audiobook business 25 years ago, recording Richard Briers reading Orm and Cheep, children’s books were the main area of audio publishing. If audiobooks of titles for adults were produced at all, they were assumed to be for people who were visually impaired or who, for some other reason, could not read. Since the explosion of titles available as digital downloads, the audio format has been released from its confines. Vastly more people have discovered one of the oldest human pleasures, hearing a good story well told. I’m glad that Roger Yount thinks reading stories well is something a professional can probably do better than he can (I hope his creator agrees). Like any activity, reading out loud improves with practice. It requires a specific set of skills: being able to interpret the grammar of a sentence on the fly so as to emphasise the right words and communicate the shape of a sentence; a good general knowledge of pronunciations; and, with fiction, a confidence at least to indicate, if not imitate, an appropriate voice for each character. Nuances can be vital to meaning. Consider the sentence: “I didn’t see your wife.” Depending on which word is emphasised, it means five quite different things: “I didn’t…” – someone else did; “I didn’t…” – she wasn’t there; etc. These are inflections we all make automatically when speaking off the cuff, but many find it difficult when reading out loud. A well-produced audiobook does the work for the listener and frees the imagination by painting aural pictures.
Listening improves reading Listening skills improve reading. This isn’t just a subjective assessment: there is hard physiological evidence from MRI scans on three to five-year-olds that indicate that reading aloud to a child stimulates the areas of the brain associated with that child learning to read1.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
books in childhood encourages a reading and their lives Reading, both silently and aloud, is a skill that develops competence in so many other areas. Author Anthony Horowitz observes, “I can tell you if a school has a good library five minutes after entering it. It is in the eyes of the kids.” Reading out loud to others used to be a regular classroom activity, but teaching style has moved away from that. It was deemed humiliating and counterproductive for less-skilled readers. Maybe listening to audiobooks is as valuable an alternative? US academic Frank Serafini, now Professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature at Arizona State University, wrote a decade ago, in a paper called “Audiobooks & Literacy”, that: “Teachers and parents are encouraged to use audiobooks because they expose readers to new vocabulary: as new words are heard in the context of a story they become part of a child’s oral and eventually written vocabularies, and they provide demonstrations of fluent reading and appropriate phrasing, intonation and articulation.” Yet at about the same time, a teacher observed: “Uncertain whether audiobooks belong to the respectable world of books or the more dubious world of entertainment, elementary and high-school teachers have often cast a fishy eye at them, and many have opted for the safe course of avoidance.”2 I know which view I support!
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Added sound effects Although the interaction between a human reader and a child undoubtedly has unique benefits, a recorded reading can do things a live one cannot, using music and sound effects to create a sonic picture and engage a child in supplementary ways. Audio can have an intimacy that the printed word sometimes does not, particularly if listened to on headphones, and it can bring “heroes” into the home or classroom: we have recently recorded Frank Lampard’s “Frankie’s Magic Football” series for release later in 2016. Coincidentally, our producer’s aunt is a teacher in northeast England. That series, she says, produced a level of recognition and engagement with some of her reluctant readers she had never previously encountered. And Frank himself appears in the audiobook. The UK Reading Commission states in a report: “Literacy is a significant issue for all… Many employers are providing basic skills training for their school-leaver recruits… The choice to read [as opposed to being forced to read] is… a key element of the ongoing motivation to read, which will support lifelong learning and, ultimately, social mobility. Parents, teachers and librarians share the challenge of instilling this desire in children.”3 A wider Continues on page 38 g
MIAMIBOOKFAIR.COM /miamibookfair
#MiamiBookFair2016
600+ AUTHORS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD STREET FAIR / 200 PUBLISHERS & BOOKSELLERS STORYTELLERS & ART FOR CHILDREN / LIVE MUSIC CULINARY PROGRAMS WITH CHEF AUTHORS
Wednesday 19 October 2016
New for 2017
THE RIGHTS PROFESSIONAL AWARD
f Continued from page 37 range of titles increases the chance that a reluctant reader will find something of interest, and the recent increase of titles in audio form helps fulfil this need for those less able to tackle the written word. Professionally produced audiobooks can and should work alongside personalised ones recorded by parents. This has been formalised for instances where parent and child are separated: the charity Storybook Waves helps members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines maintain the link with their children when a parent is serving away from home, and Storybook Dads and Storybook Mums do similar work when parents are in prison. That’s the power of audio: personal storytelling across time and distance.
Bedtime stories
The International Excellence Awards There is a plethora of awards in existence in UK. Wishing to create something specifically for the huge number of international markets beyond the UK, The London Book Fair created the International Excellence Awards in 2014. As a UK-based global Fair, LBF wished to look outward, to celebrate and showcase the wonderful achievements of the rest of the world’s publishing industries.
ENTER NOW AT:
“Reading aloud to a child stimulates the areas of the brain associated with that child learning to read.”
John S Hutton et al., Pediatrics, vol. 136, no. 3, Sept. 2015: ‘Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories’ 2 P Varley, The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 78, no. 3, 2002, pp 252–62 3 All-Party Parliamentary Literacy Group Boys’ Reading Commission. Report compiled by the National Literacy Trust, 2012 1
www.londonbookfair.co.uk/awards Headline sponsor:
We record for the innovative publisher Nosy Crow audio versions of all its picture books, which it offers free on its website, accessed by a QR code in the book. The system logs the time people download, and there is a noticeable peak on Sunday evenings: audiobooks seem to have become a significant part of quality family time! There have been nearly a million downloads in the four-year life of the scheme. It is not only books that work in audio form: we have recently adapted Willow Nash and Joe Bromley’s play for primary schools, “Suddenly…!”, a brilliant mash-up of traditional fairytales, into an audiobook with music and a wealth of sound effects. Hearing a book read aloud is not just an activity for young children. Tony Little, former Headmaster of Eton College, writes in his 2015 book An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education, “I have seen the effect that an adult or friend can have on boys by reading… aloud to them. They become interested enough to read on, either by themselves or sharing the reading with others.” Those who catch the habit of listening to books continue into adulthood. Audiobooks aren’t just a great commercial opportunity: they can change people’s lives. ■
In association with:
Nicholas Jones is Managing Director of audiobook production company Strathmore Publishing.
December 7, 2016 New YorK CitY Global Kids Connect is a single-day conference in the heart of Manhattan that explores the opportunities and challenges in today’s international children’s publishing landscape. Expect an information-rich day of provocative insights, intriguing territory trends as well as networking with the industry’s leading players. Global Kids Connect sessions offer actionable takeaways: • Managing complexities—and spotting opportunities—of rapidly evolving marketplaces • Of-the-moment editorial and format trends across the globe— and what’s on the horizon • Key discovery strategies to grab—and sustain—the attention of kids, teens and parents
reGister toDaY aND save 25% (our BEST conference discount!)
Publishersweekly.com/GKC
A Conference Presented By
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Bonnier Publishing: at another crossroads Richard Johnson explains how Bonnier Publishing has grown over recent years and talks about its plans to continue that growth Bonnier Publishing always seems to be at a crossroads and we are at another one now. When I started as CEO in 2010, the decision then was whether to sell the group or transform it. In late 2013, it was whether or not to implement our significant growth plan from £45m to £100m. Now, it is whether or not we attempt to double in size once again in a post-Brexit UK. In 2009 my team and I inherited a portfolio of companies around the world Richard Johnson with a combined turnover of £46m. They had no real connection with each other or any significant market size. The publishing was not profitable and we had a serious culture problem. My brief from Bonnier, our parent company in Sweden, was simple: radically change the thinking, improve profits and lay the foundations for growth. In short, transform this portfolio of companies into a group. They were very clear in that, no matter what was thrown at me in terms of bad press, they would support the plan. This was useful, because I got a lot of bad press! There were some tough decisions to be made, but they paid off. From 2010 to 2013 on the same turnover we improved the EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation) by £7m and set the group up for growth. In 2013, we had to initiate that growth. It was important to us to become more relevant, especially in the UK. We had to raise our profile to attract the best talent–employees and authors–and boost our credibility with retailers. Following the acquisition principally of Igloo Books and then Totally Entwined Group, combined with start-up imprints Blink and Studio Press; the setting up of a new fiction division, Bonnier Zaffre; and international expansion in the USA and Australia, we are now at c. £115m.
The right talent The key to growing so quickly and effectively has been finding the right balance of talent. In 2010 we had 200 employees; today we have 500 worldwide. We introduced a common set of values for the group, so instead of pulling in different directions, we all share a common purpose. And we spent a lot of money and energy on getting our HR strategy right. Bonnier Publishing is a top five publisher in the UK, though hindered in the acceptability of that through nonTCM (Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market) sales. Our position at the top table is unique, because our aim is to be a dominant force in mass market and high-end trade publishing. It shouldn’t work in this industry, but it does.
40
We get the same feeling of pride, seeing someone buying one of our books in a pound store, as we do when one of our books is shortlisted for a prestigious award. Publishing is for everyone. Some of the industry grandees forget that.
Better relationships Along the way, becoming more relevant in the industry has improved our relationship with agents, who were understandably affected by the dramatic changes we made five years ago. It’s a different group now than it was then, and I think everyone understands and appreciates that. We have always had a great relationship with UK retailers, and we will always embrace new ways and channels to sell our books. And we must be doing something right, as we now sell 65 million of them every year. Bonnier Publishing today includes five divisions. One in the USA, one in Australia, and three in the UK. Mark Smith heads up fiction, Perminder Mann the children’s trade and adult non-fiction division, and Dan Shepherd has joined us recently to head up our mass market division. In footballing terms, I believe those three could be the Gallactico forward line for Real Madrid. There are crossovers between our UK divisions, but essentially they follow these three paths. All UK and international divisions work and trade with each other. There is probably £30m plus of expansion coming from all the plans we have already implemented and, whilst not ruling it out, we won’t have to make aggressive acquisitions to get us past the £150m mark.
Brexit Brexit has caused us short-term EBITA issues, but we’re a big group and we can take that. Exchange rate problems will be here into the medium term and so all publishers have to find a way to naturally hedge their currency flows. We need more US dollar income in our mass market divisions and a bigger fiction division where you print in sterling and sell in sterling. This is a significant part of our new focus. So do we now err on the side of caution in an uncertain economic world, or do we carry on with the grand plan? Brexit will cause us to target different areas, but it won’t put a halt to our expansion. Our employees and shareholders are partners in our vision, and growth is a central part of that. The new plan is a £200m group by the end of 2019. ■ Richard Johnson is Group CEO of Bonnier Publishing.
SAVE THE DATE APRIL 20, 2017
New York University Global Center, Grand Hall • New York, NY
Publishing professionals, mark your calendars! Learn to adapt and adopt technological advances from a wide range of industries at this innovative, inaugural conference: Explore how other industries have utilized technology... and how you can too. Connect to audiences in new and inventive ways. Develop transformative business strategies in traditional corporate cultures. Take away tangible tactics, tools, and tips for change management
RSVP TODAY AT PubTechConnect.com
CONFERENCE PRESENTED BY:
Frankfurt show daily
Wednesday 19 October 2016
It started with a Napster For many years now futurists have been forecasting what will happen in the publishing industry based on developments taking place in the music industry, writes Enzo Vailati. At some point along the way it was commonly acknowledged that whatever happens in the music industry eventually happens in the publishing industry. Publishers eagerly and nervously monitored the music world for some kind of foresight into what the future might hold for them, how consumer behaviour could change, and Enzo Vailati how an industry may evolve to accommodate, or survive, such upheaval. Looking back at the various waves of disruption, some of the major trends which affected the music industry did inevitably impact publishing and there are certainly parallels between the two industries’ trajectories. Ebooks followed music downloads, dedicated e-readers followed portable listening devices, mobile reading followed mobile listening on phones and tablets, and technology companies suddenly ruled the roost, enjoying unbridled market domination.
Culture of cheaper However, while the entertainment industries have progressively moved away from most forms of physical product, together with more traditional sales channels, the book industry hasn’t quite endured disruption on the same brutal scale. A good percentage of physical book stores remain open, sales of physical books are holding strong, and the devastating “culture of free” trend, which blighted the music industry, was more the “culture of cheaper” by the time it hit publishing shores in the form of ebook pricing wars. Meanwhile, subscription models in the publishing industry have ostensibly failed to capture the imagination of the industry and readers, at least to date, while consumers of TV, film and music have taken to subscription platforms in their masses. Publishing is clearly a unique industry and book readers are without doubt a unique type of consumer. One of the pain points for record labels and publishers alike, is that most have no direct line to the consumer. Content providers are powerless against giant tech retailers, which have been able to negotiate on their own terms, hold them to ransom, and squeeze profit margins– safe in the knowledge that they ultimately possess the keys to the doors that content owners need to open. Very few music fans will search for artists only belonging to Universal, and very few readers will search exclusively for Hachette authors. Ever since the retail ecosystem we all knew and loved was first put under threat, many publishers have tried and failed to market and sell directly to consumers, particularly online. Most have found that book buyers simply don’t care who publishes a book, as long as
42
it’s what they’re looking for and they can purchase it in a few clicks. Loyalty is something consumers are more likely to feel towards an author, a series, or a genre, rather than towards an individual publisher brand, unless you are an Osprey, with a truly niche offering, or a household name like Puffin, for example. In recent years, publishers have focused their attention on turning their authors into brands in their own right, ensuring that all the channels available to them are exhausted in order to reach consumers. They haven’t given up on going d2c, they have just realised that their assets are the most effective way to target consumers. The challenge has always been getting consumers to purchase directly from publishers.
Online communities Providing web-based technology solutions to the music industry over the last two years, we’ve noticed an interesting trend emerge. Record labels have become increasingly keen to develop comprehensive online platforms around their artists. We are not just talking about an artist web shop, which sells downloads and subscriptions to albums and tracks, but a whole online experience created around an artist and their work. This will typically include news announcements, gig dates, artist blogs, fan forums, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds, live streaming from events, and merchandise stores. The idea is to use the assets, which the content provider (in this case the record label) have in its gift, everything from product to image rights, to create an online community and experience around the artist brand, which attracts, engages, retains and sells directly to consumers. If this is a model which can work in music and make a real difference for record labels, then it can certainly also work in the book publishing world. Publishers understand the power of the “author-as-a-brand” and are fully aware of the benefits that can be had from harnessing it. Now that the technology is available and affordable, I believe publishers have a unique opportunity to wrestle back the online market share they have lost to the technology titans, by making the best possible use of their assets and giving online consumers a whole new channel to engage with–one which they completely own and profit from. What this offers is a new way to reach consumers, packaging up content in an attractive, focused way, which enriches the purchasing experience and ultimately generates more revenue. We believe this approach will re-energise the online market and are excited to be at the forefront of it. ■ Enzo Vailati is Chief Executive Officer of Cylo. Visit him and the Cylo team at the Fair in Hall 4.2, stand E25.
TM
INCREDI TM
BUILDS
Deluxe book & Model Set
Coloring Books
Stationery
Copyright © 2016 Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. HARRY POTTER and FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM characters, names and related indicia are © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. WB SHIELD: TM & © WBEI. J.K. ROWLING’S WIZARDING WORLD ™ J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR. (s16)
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM INSIGHT EDITIONS
VISIT US AT HALL 6.1 BOOTH B77 /insighteditions www.insighteditions.com
Come visit us in Hall 4.2 Stand # K35
WWW.ROWMAN.COM | 800-462-6420