London
Thursday 14 april 2016
visit pW and BookBrunch at Stand 6C75
UK Fair exhibitors remain upbeat Publishers yesterday maintained the positive mood that prevailed at the opening of the London Book Fair, writes Neill Denny, with optimism about the business and approval for the Fair venue. Amanda Ridout of Head of Zeus and Richard Charkin of Bloomsbury were among those using the word “confidence”. Hachette CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson said: “It seems very busy, my staff are very happy. Confidence is good, people are pleased to see the market is stabilising and that the print market is up. “We have the money but we want to put it on the right books. LBF has become more important, it is now a pretty full blown rights fair–it has become indispensable.” Ian Chapman, CEO and Publisher at Simon & Schuster, also talked about the key role of LBF: “It’s upbeat–although the way you feel all depends on the books, and there is money around for the right books.
London has become a credible alternative to Frankfurt. There are many Americans who are coming to London and are liking it very much. I am enjoying this week. Some years ago it wasn’t taken seriously.”
Stephen Page of Faber described the mood as “really great. There’s a reason there’s a deal frenzy, and we are having an excellent rights fair.” Tom Weldon, CEO of Penguin Random House,
said: “I like West London, because our visitors prefer it.” At wholesaler Gardners, MD Jonathan Little was “very busy”, and added: “London is now international; we have to be here.”
International visitors happy Enrique Parrilla, CEO of Lantia, a Spanish publishing conglomerate from Seville, praised the quality of the LBF’s attendees, which he said were of a “high calibre”, writes Edward Nawotka. He also praised the seminars: “If I wasn’t here looking for partners to expand our international distribution, I could have spent the entire day attending seminars.” The sentiment was echoed by David Lopez-Del Amo, of the Beijing-based Sinicus literary agency, who said that when he has a chance to pull himself away from working the Rights Centre, he has found “the conferences are all
interesting–it is one of the main reasons I come”. Lopez-Del Amo deals in rights from a variety of European markets, and noted that it was now much easier to come to London and have meetings in and round the Rights Centre, which he described as “more casual” than the one at Frankfurt. Gallimard’s director of foreign rights, Anne-Solange Noble, said: “Of course, as one of my colleagues has said before, in no other country is the Rights Director so important to the author as in France, because we don’t have a culture of literary agents–so here, in London, I am very busy.”
Gordon Fournier of National Geographic said that though he was more or less pinned to his booth, he felt the Fair was “busier than last year, for sure.”
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Thursday 14 april 2016
london show daily
Man Booker International Prize shortlist The shortlist for the £50,000 Man Booker International Prize has been announced. a General Theory of oblivion, José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola), translated by Daniel Hahn (Harvill Secker) The story of the lost Child, Elena Ferrante (Italy), translated by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions) The Vegetarian, Han Kang (South Korea), translated by Deborah Smith (Portobello) a strangeness in My Mind, Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), translated by Ekin Oklap (Faber) a whole life, Robert Seethaler (Austria), translated by Charlotte Collins (Picador) The Four Books, Yan Lianke (China), translated by Carlos Rojas (Chatto) Each shortlisted author and translator will receive £1,000, and the £50,000 first prize will be divided equally between the author and the translator of the winning novel. The judges, who received 155 entries, are Boyd Tonkin (Chair), Tahmima Anam, David Bellos, Daniel Medin, and Ruth Padel. They will announce their winner at a dinner at the V&A on 16 May.
BookBrunCh Board Following the appointments of JaneTappuni as Head of Business Development, Tobias Steed as Publisher, and David Roche as Chair of the BookBrunch Advisory Board, BookBrunch has made further appointments to the Board. They are Nicola Green, Midas PR; Clare Harington, Hachette; Matt Haslum, Faber; Jo Henry, Nielsen; Scott Pack, Unbound; and JacksThomas, London Book Fair.
To contact london show daily at the Fair, please visit us at: BookBrunch stand 2A61 Publishers Weekly stand 6C75 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 Book Bus Foundation and its sponsors Motovun Group of International Publishers (MGIP) are at LBF raising awareness for their work bringing library books to schoolchildren in Africa, Ecuador and India.Their stand features one of their buses, decorated by specially commissioned illustrations from Quentin Blake, a supporter of the Foundation.
Storytellers bought Storytellers Agency, a literary agency owned by Swedish publishing group Bonnierförlagen and authors Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril, is being sold to the Salomonsson Agency. All works by bestselling Swedish author Lars Kepler, the pen name for the Ahndorils, will henceforth be represented by Salomonsson. “Our collaboration with Bonnierförlagen has always been characterised by innovative thinking, and our shared agency was part of that,” the Ahndorils said. “It was created from an author’s perspective–and the fact that we are now taking the step to combine our perspective with the Salomonsson Agency’s unique expertise feels exactly right.” Bonnierförlagen and the Ahndorils have worked together since 2009, and jointly established the Storytellers Agency in 2013.
Libraries respond to Nourry The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) has penned a response to remarks made by Hachette CEO Arnaud Nourry in his 10 April address to the International Publishers Congress. Nourry suggested that “vast exceptions to copyright law for libraries, for education, for fair use” proposed by the European Commission would have “devastating consequences on European publishers”. “It was a great shame that Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry chose to target libraries at the International Publishers’ Congress this week,” the letter reads. “Libraries support a balanced copyright system where everyone has access to information and creativity, and authors are fairly rewarded.” The full letter is available on the IFLA website (www.ifla.org).
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Thursday 14 april 2016
Sarkar’s goal: to revolutionise Indian publishing
You had a successful career with Penguin Random House in India, why walk away for a start-up? I wish I could tell you there was some great drama, but there wasn’t. Penguin Random House is a fantastic house. They have great books, and I loved it there. But it’s very hard to really change the game unless you’re outside it.
Juggernaut will sell printed books, but mobile phones are a big part of your plan. What made you go in that direction? Smartphones are one of the biggest growth areas in the country. Everyone has a phone. India never had a desktop revolution, or good broadband at home. And what happens in developing countries is that they skip a bunch of technologies, then catch up with a new technology, and leapfrog forward. Indians leapt straight onto the phone. In fact, a number of e-commerce sites in India have closed their websites and just kept their mobile apps. I want young Indians to read. And if they’re going to be on the phone, then I have to find a life for reading on the phone.
Why does the publishing game need to be changed in India? Nothing works in India. Our distributors take a long time to pay us, and our retail is in shambles. We have very, very few good bookshops in the country. An average book in India, a successful book, sells 3,000 copies. I don’t have prizes that help book sales. I don’t have book clubs, or shows on TV, I don’t have Oprah telling everyone to read a book. So, I just thought there has to be another way.
You’re launching soon, and you just announced a big signing at LBF. Tell us more about Juggernaut’s launch. We launch on 21 April, with 100 books, 50 of which will be ours, and 50 that we are distributing. And yes, we announced yesterday that we have signed Rajat Gupta, who is a former MD of McKinsey, and one of the most famous and important men of the last 20 years in India. And he went to jail for insider trading. It’s going to be the book of the year in India.
For many in the industry, becoming publisher of Penguin Random House would be a lifelong goal. But Chiki Sarkar walked away from a major publishing role for the uncertainty of a start-up, Juggernaut Books. Andrew Richard Albanese caught up with Sarkar after her appearance at the International Publishers Congress to find out why.
PRH relaunches One World Harlequin goes global Penguin Random House has announced a relaunch of One World, the pioneering multicultural imprint founded by Cheryl Woodroff, who left Random House in 2000. One World will begin publishing again in autumn 2017, with Spiegel & Grau V-P and Executive Editor Chris Jackson tapped as Editor-inChief, reporting to Random House Publisher Susan Kamil. A spokesperson for Random House said more details on the size of One World’s list, and forthcoming titles, would be announced at a later date. Known for its focus on works by and about African Americans, One World has published authors such as Bebe Moore Campbell, Donald Bogle, Colin Channer, Johnnie L Cochran Jr, Nikki Turner, and Connie Briscoe. Jackson, a finalist for Publishers Weekly’s Publishing Person of the Year in 2015, has been at Speigel & Grau since the imprint was founded in 2006. Last year he published Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was awarded the 2015 National Book Award for non-fiction and became a number one bestseller. Other notable authors acquired by Jackson include Edwidge Danticat, Aaron McGruder, Bryan Stevenson, Jill Leovy, Victor LaValle, and Jay Z. Jackson said One World’s animating vision, to “explore ideas that help us re-imagine our politics, culture, and interior lives, without the filter of the dominant culture”, served a vital need today. “I’m thrilled we’ll be reanimating that idea, and expanding its possibilities to capture the world in its fullness for this moment.”
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Harlequin UK and Harlequin North America (NA) are joining forces to jointly acquire and promote fiction for their respective trade imprints across world English markets. Loriana Sacilotto, executive V-P, Global Editorial for Harlequin and head of the North American programme, said that with the UK and North American divisions working together Harlequin would be well positioned to “broaden the scope of our commercial fiction list”, and that it would sell throughout its world English markets. Harlequin said that the London and New York publishing teams would take advantage of their knowledge, networks and expertise in their corresponding markets to jointly distribute, market and sell their titles. Lisa Milton, Executive Publisher at Harlequin UK, said the new programme would enable Harlequin to put more resources behind particular titles in each of its different markets. “With one voice and one campaign tweaked for each market, we can achieve so much more than we could individually,” she said. Recent acquisitions that will benefit from the joint marketing approach include The Improbable Flight of Ginny Moon by Ben Ludwig, A Heart Full of All Kinds of Love by Brianna Wolfson, An Almond for A Parrot by Wray Delaney, For Eve by Allegra Huston, and Arrowood by Mick Finlay. Sacilotto said Harlequin was aggressively looking for additional authors who would benefit from this global approach to publishing.
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london show daily
Thursday 14 april 2016
London Book Fair scenes
At the opening of the Ivy@LBF from left, Fernando Peire of the Ivy, LBF Director Jacks Thomas and Julian Fellowes
Byte the Book founder Justine Solomons presents Ihrani Logan with the Byte the Book Networking Bingo prize
Pen & Sword is to continue the Greenhill Books imprint. Charles Hewitt of Pen & Sword (centre) with Lionel (left) and Michael Leventhal of Greenhill
Quarto CEO Marcus Leaver at the publisher’s 40th birthday party at the Belvedere
Busy scene at the Rights Centre
Self-published bestsellers (from left) Mark Dawson, Mel Sherratt, and Keith Houghton engraved Kindles at a signing session
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Thursday 14 april 2016
LBF rights–day 3 In a six-figure pre-empt, Orbit Publisher Tim Holman has signed world English language rights in a time-travel conspiracy thriller by Robert Dickinson. The agent is Oli Munson at AM Heath. THE TOURIST (Orbit UK and Redhook US, October) will receive “a major worldwide launch” later this year. Holman said: “The Tourist is a novel that will appeal to any publisher and any reader excited by brilliant plotting, brilliant writing, and brilliant ideas.” His US colleague Anne Clarke said: “Right from the start you are plunged into a unique mystery that quickly becomes a superbly drawn conspiracy, where every page brings another glimpse into the world of the book, and raises more questions.” Dickinson has previously had two novels in different genres published by Brighton-based independent Myriad Editions, as well as two volumes of poetry, a comedy drama and a choral libretto. Mike Harpley at Atlantic has signed DISRUPTED: LUDICROUS MISADVENTURES IN THE TECH START-UP BUBBLE by coproducer and writer for the HBO series Silicon Valley Dan Lyons. Hachette has just published the book in the US. Atlantic has UK and Commonwealth (exc Canada) rights following an auction conducted by Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Company, and will publish in September 2016. Disrupted is a “hilarious and scathing” insider exposé of Silicon Valley, where Lyons got a job after being made redundant as a journalist, aged 50 and with a family. Kate Harvey at Harvill Secker has has won a five-publisher auction to sign MONTPELIER PARADE by debut novelist Karl Geary. Harvill Secker has UK and Commonwealth rights from Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh, and will publish in spring 2017. The novel follows 16-year-old Sonny Knolls, living in the working-class outskirts of Dublin and wrestling with school, adolescence and difficult conditions at home. Harvey said: “Karl Geary is a wonderful writer: he has a genius for a beautiful sentence; he also knows what should be left unsaid.” Lee Brackstone at Faber has signed Omar Robert Hamilton’s THE CITY ALWAYS WINS, billed as “an extraordinary and important first novel”. Faber has world rights excluding US through David Godwin, and has already won considerable foreign rights interest. Brackstone said of the novel, centred on the Egyptian revolution: “The City Always Wins is a powerful account of idealism and revolutionary hope turned to ashes. It is hugely intelligent and ambitious and it should become the defining work of fiction about this extraordinary moment in recent history.” Lizzie Bishop at Faber has sold Dutch rights to Hollands Diep, French rights to Gallimard, Italian rights to Guanda, and Spanish rights to Sexto Piso. Ruth Tross at Hodder has signed two novels by Marianne Kavanagh, a journalist and author whose previous novels were published by Text. Hodder has UK and Commonwealth (exc Canada) rights through Veronique Baxter at David Higham. Set on the isolated Isle of Purbeck in Dorset during the Second World War and the late Victorian age, SHOULD YOU ASK ME (spring 2017) starts with the discovery of two bodies, and centres on Mary, elderly and formidable, and William, a young policeman invalided out of the army. Tross said: “Should You Ask Me blends the heartwrenching appeal of Jojo Moyes with the historical depths of Sarah Waters or Kate Atkinson.” Emily Kitchin at Hodder has bought a three-book series by US bestseller Karen Robards. Hodder has UK and Commonwealth rights from Claire Roberts at Trident Media selling on behalf of Robert Gottlieb, Chairman of Trident Media Group. The Guardian series features heroine Bianca Saint-Yves—a talented, smart, young and beautiful thief. Kitchin said: “When it comes to thrilling plots, heart-thumping suspense and hugely compelling characters, Karen is unrivalled. Her new heroine, Bianca Saint-Yves, is her feistiest and most exciting creation yet, and I can’t wait to read more about her.” The series opens with ALL IN, due in early 2017.
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librarian of Congress–the trade response In a headline-grabbing move, Republican leaders in the US Congress have vowed to block President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court of the United States, writes Andrew Richard Albanese. But it’s another appointment that could have a more direct bearing on the US publishing industry–especially in terms of copyright policy: the President’s nomination in February of Carla Hayden, currently the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Carla Hayden to be the next US Librarian of Congress. A new national librarian may not be seen by the public or the press as something that could define a president’s legacy, but make no mistake, the appointment of Hayden is a pretty big deal. Appointing a Librarian of Congress is fairly rare; there have only been 13 national librarians in US history, dating back to 1802. And there have been just six since 1900, a period during which the modern publishing, film, music and tech industries were established and cultural output exploded. But more importantly, Hayden will be the first Librarian of Congress appointed in the digital age, replacing retired James Billington, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987. Under Billington’s leadership, the Library of Congress has come under criticism for lagging behind as digital changed the world of information. And as the first librarian appointed for the internet era, Hayden will surely face scrutiny like none of her predecessors. “It’s important to note that there’s a lot at stake,” noted an editorial in the Washington Post last month. “As we await congressional hearings on the President’s seemingly innocuous nomination,” the Post observed, “the library is in the midst of a massive crisis of mission, and undoubtedly, its next leader faces a daunting challenge to preserve–and possibly revitalise–a symbol of our country’s democracy and culture.”
Battle lines? Hayden’s appointment has been widely applauded, especially by the library community in the US, which last summer had urged the President to appoint a professional librarian to the post. And while it might seem wise to lobby for a librarian, in fact the Librarian of Congress role has often been occupied by non-librarians–Billington, for example, is a Cold War historian. In fact, there hasn’t been a librarian leading the Library of Congress since Lawrence Quincy Mumford retired in 1954. But librarians are not the only people paying attention. Last summer, an article in the Atlantic opined that the next Librarian of Congress could have “a potentially transformative” role, as the first to “truly embrace the internet as core to the library’s mission”. In recent months, other publications have echoed that sentiment–and hailed the appointment of Hayden.
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Of course, therein lies the rub; the internet is at the heart of many a political and business dogfight these days, and frequently puts librarians at odds with content industries and other traditional stakeholders in our information economy. For those who would like to see the Librarian of Congress take more of a leadership role on critical information age issues, just consider the long list of litigation, legislation and policy fights on which the library community, through the ALA (American Library Association) and other organisations, has weighed in on over the last decade. For example, the library community voiced strong opposition to the ill-fated Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was backed by the entertainment industry. The library community actively supports open and public access to federally funded research, which is opposed by the publishing community. The library community has beat the drum against the Patriot Act, and for privacy reforms. And for those who have criticised the library’s slow pace of digitisation, imagine the fallout if the Library of Congress had joined forces with their academic library counterparts who partnered with Google to scan out-of-print books for the HathiTrust–which wound up in federal court.
The copyright issue Indeed, copyright may be the most prominent issue Hayden faces. With copyright reform under discussion in the US, last summer a legislative proposal was floated to remove the Copyright Office from under the purview of the Library of Congress, and to establish it as an independent agency. The content industries support that move–including the publishing community–which, at the very least, wants the move explored. The library community, along with tech companies like Google and Amazon, oppose the proposal. In a statement, the Association of American Publishers sounded lukewarm on Hayden’s nomination, saying publishers looked forward to the Senate confirmation process “where we hope to learn more about Dr Hayden’s views on the future of the Library” and, unsurprisingly, “on the importance of copyright and the need to modernise the Copyright Office”. On its face, it is unfathomable that a librarian as clearly qualified as Hayden–a respected and established leader in the US library community–would be blocked from the job. In 1987, Billington was confirmed swiftly, and unanimously. In addition, Hayden would be a groundbreaker–the first woman, and the first African American, to ever hold the post. But given the state of politics in the US, who knows what might happen? And at the very least, statements from various content industries suggest that her confirmation process could become something of a proxy hearing on copyright. ■
The Quarto Group Come and visit us at Stand 6D105 Inspiring Educating Creating Entertaining
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london show daily
Thursday 14 april 2016
ipG: ten things we have learned We have always known that UK independent publishing is flourishing, energetic and innovative, but collecting the evidence to prove it has always been a challenge, writes Bridget Shine. That is why, with the help of Nielsen, the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) set out to conduct the biggest ever survey of our members last year, distilling the results into our inaugural Independent Publishing Report. It is an invaluable measure of the value of the sector, an important benchmarking tool for our members, and an authoritative tracker of publishing trends, Bridget Shine challenges and opportunities. Here are its headline findings. Independent publishers are driving innovation: Both the report and our recent Annual Spring Conference have showcased the huge innovation and ambition in independent publishing at the moment, and proved that this sector has the flexibility and creativity to transform itself. IPG members are growing: Our report estimates that the collective turnover of the IPG’s publishing members now exceeds £1bn. That is partly a reflection of the vibrancy of the IPG–we now have a record high of 600 members–but also the fact that independents are thriving in countless niches of publishing
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as well as the mainstream. Well over half told us that their businesses are growing. But challenges always remain: Every company has challenges, and independent publishers are no different. As our report shows, some are specific to SMEs, like managing and funding growth, time resources, cash flow and IT. Others are sector-specific, like the dramatic fall in academic library spending and narrowing trade channels. This is where the IPG comes into its own, and our events provide an excellent forum for airing the challenges and for mutual support. Digital has been an opportunity, not a threat: IPG members have embraced the digital revolution, and our report estimates that ebooks now account for an average of 18% of their collective sales. But using print-on-demand has been a great way to preserve print sales too, and there is a sense that the paper market is back in growth. Independents are global businesses: More and more of our members are expanding internationally, and our report suggests that exports now account for 22% of their sales, with overseas rights or co-editions adding another 9%. Europe matters: This global outlook is behind another of our report’s most striking findings: that only 3% of respondents think the UK would be better off outside the European Union, and there seems little doubt about which way most IPG members will be voting in June’s referendum. Independent publishers value their staff: The Independent Publishing Report estimates that IPG members employ some 6,000 full-time staff, plus more part-timers. Many of them realise that hard-working, adaptable and forward-thinking staff are their biggest asset, and invest in their talent through training, bonus schemes and other benefits. Professional development is an important focus for the IPG at the moment, and our free Tim Rix Training Programme is proving very popular. But more work needs to be done: Diversity is still embarrassingly low in UK publishing, and the IPG is using its events and membership of the Equality in Publishing scheme to vigorously promote it in 2016. We will also be addressing the challenges facing talented young “second jobber” professionals who want to rise up through the ranks in publishing, by launching a grants scheme to open up more training opportunities. Independents are making the most of industry expertise: Small businesses take all the help and advice they can, and our report shows that IPG members draw in outside talent in abundance, more than nine in ten of them employing freelancers. The sharing of expertise is at the heart of all IPG events and schemes. The direct line is gathering speed: Many of our recent events have focused on the opportunities publishers now have to get close to their readers, and our report shows that independents are making the most of them. Nine in ten (90%) now sell direct to consumers, and while online retailers remain the fastest growing sales channel, the direct route is not far behind. ■ Bridget Shine is Chief Executive of the Independent Publishers Guild.
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Thursday 14 april 2016
The real problem Publishers are never short of problems, writes Michael Bhaskar. But perhaps the biggest problem is one we rarely talk about, partly because it’s a hidden problem, partly because grappling with it presents a fundamental challenge to the business model we all rely on. The problem is this: there Michael Bhaskar are far, far too many books. The market for books is chronically saturated, yet we must all go on regardless, writing, publishing, selling, stocking, distributing and marketing more, more and more books year in, year out. At some level most of us recognise this, but rarely do we dwell on the business, let alone the cultural, implications. What evidence is there for this excess? The number of books against population has been rising inexorably. The UK now publishes more than 200,000 new books a year, a total exceeded by only China (more than 400,000 titles) and the US (300,000 titles). In the Britain of the 1800s, which led the world in publishing, there would be one new book published each year for every 20,000 people. Today that is one new book for every 400, an astonishing (over) productivity. Globally there are a reported one million new ISBNs issued for English-language books every year. This is, of course, before we get to the information explosion of digital technology. Self-publishing is going through an extraordinary efflorescence. Numberless thousands of indie-authored novels are now published every year. Scientific journals have been on a 60-year bull run. By the mid-2000s there were well over 1.35 million peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published every year with a long-term growth trend of more than 9% (according to Nature, the world’s most-cited scientific journal no less). On top of this is the general overload we experience from the endless stream of tweets and status updates, the ever refreshing news websites, blogs and listicles, the multitude of new videos on YouTube–400 minutes’ worth of new content every minute of every hour of every day. According to the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, the average American is exposed to information equivalent to 175 newspapers in an ordinary day. By way of comparison a medieval peasant may have been exposed to much less in their entire lifetime. Why does it matter? Because it changes the value equation. This is something I have been thinking about in
“There is one new book published each year for every 400 people.”
Thursday 14 april 2016 tnq.co.in
connection with my forthcoming book, Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess. Essentially in such saturated environments, I believe value shifts to secondary selection from primary production. This is difficult for publishers inasmuch as they are producers of books, but good if we see publishers as arbiters and selectors. The truth is they are always both, but thinking in terms of an overloaded market–a market where the marginal value of adding another book is decidedly limited–lets publishers, and all in the book world, have a clear sense of where their value lies. Curation may be the buzzword we love to hate, dismissed as faddish and ridiculous, but underneath that it’s a more interesting and powerful idea than we give it credit for. The choices an imprint makes define everything else in the publishing process. Perhaps the most important thing any publisher does is say no. When there are so many books, if a publisher’s choices aren’t meaningful, they are nothing. Secondly it pushes us back to the old chestnut of market making–sales, marketing and publicity. It’s hardly a secret that books don’t sell themselves, but when the competition is this extreme that is underlined. What other industry faces so many comparable product launches in any given year? Without serious amplification, no book stands a chance. Lastly it puts greater emphasis on the whole wider network of curation around books. It explains why Amazon invented the whole category of personalisation; the first algorithms for recommending products online were created by an Amazon engineer called Greg Linden. In the process he created the template for web retail more widely. But it also helps explain their approach to physical stores; part of the challenge for Amazon now is whittling down the sheer mass of stuff on the site. It helps explain James Daunt’s moves at Waterstones, decentralising buying power and putting selection back in the hands of individual stores, catered to local and more idiosyncratic tastes. This more customised approach to selecting books appears to be paying dividends as the group, so vital to the UK trade, moves back into profitability. And it provides the context for everything from the flourishing of books clubs to the sharing of books on social media. Almost everyone reading this article, myself included, makes their living from producing and selling new books. But most of us will have also felt what the Japanese call tsundoku–that feeling of having too many books to read. Characteristically the Japanese have a solution, a bookshop in the Tokyo’s Ginza district that sells only one book at time. Now that’s an idea. ■
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Michael Bhaskar is Co-Founder and Publishing Director of Canelo. His new book, Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess (Little, Brown Piatkus), will be published on 2nd June. He can be found on Twitter as @michaelbhaskar.
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Thursday 14 april 2016
author of the day: Judith Kerr
Becky Fincham
Today, I shall be in conversation with Judith Unexpected answers Kerr for half an hour in the PEN Literary The experience was also different each time Salon at the London Book Fair, writes because, although there is always some Nicolette Jones. It won’t be the first time we familiar ground, Judith invariably comes up have shared a platform. In fact, if my records with unexpected answers. At our last event are complete, it will be the 20th. Our first she surprised me in response to a question was in 2007, when Judith was only 84, at about her favourite character she had the Cheltenham Literature Festival, where written about by saying: “It’s a close run we have met several times since. thing between Mog and Hitler.” Her quick I have had the privilege of interviewing wit and her sharpness take my breath away: Judith at festivals big and small, from they would be great in any interviewee, let Nicolette Jones with Judith Kerr Imagine at the South Bank to Chorleywood alone one of 92 (“and a half”, as she would Bookshop. We have shared events with other writers and say). We also find ourselves down new avenues every time, illustrators: talking about life under the Nazis with Tomi in the way that you do when chatting with old friends. Ungerer, as part of the Children’s Book Show; discussing But one thing is constant. In every public conversation how you might approach the horrors of history in books with Judith Kerr I have been aware of the audience falling in for children with Michael Morpurgo; and celebrating the love with her. People Tweet afterwards such responses as: “Is joys of picture books with Lauren Child. it wrong that I wish she was my Granny?” Partly she gives We have talked about Mog and the Tiger for fidgety people hope for their own old age: that they will be funny, audiences of small children, whom Judith’s readings entertaining, acute, active, independent, up-to-the-minute (she instantly stilled to thumb-sucking silence. We have marked researches on the net, speaks of “selfies”, follows the news) Holocaust Memorial Day at the House of Illustration, with and, crucially, still producing beautiful work, into their a sequence of astonishing works of art on the screen by 90s. Partly it is that she exudes a kind of joie de vivre, and a too-little-known artists who were murdered. We have gratitude for the moment, that makes everyone appreciate complemented the exhibition of her own life and work the now. And partly it is that she is modest and charming. housed at the Jewish Museum at Camden. We have tried to And this relates to another important aspect of our events. cram 92 years into 15 minutes, for the Guardian’s 5 x 15. She speaks of the circumstances she left as a child, when her We have shared adventures from the Bush Theatre to family’s lives were under threat because they were Jewish. Budleigh Salterton, from Foyles to Lady Margaret Hall. She reminds us of an episode of history that must not be forgotten, and embodies so much of value that could have been lost: all the joy of her books and of her person, that we Landmarks in life We have observed together landmarks in her life and her work. feel an immediate investment in the horror of that threat. I remember, before I ever had the pleasure of offering up Among these were: the publication of her autobiographical leaden questions for Judith to turn into gold, that I heard Judith Kerr’s Creatures, with its many previously unpublished her give a speech at an 80th birthday party thrown by her drawings; the BBC’s “Imagine” documentary about her publishers. She spoke of her gratitude to Great Britain for made by Jill Nicholls; the textile she designed for Liberty’s; several new picture books; her OBE in 2012; her departure, the kindness she and her family had experienced, and her love of the country (the third, as it happens) that took her at the age of 91, into fiction for emerging readers with Mr in. But she also reflected on those who were not so lucky. “I Cleghorn’s Seal; the Sainsbury’s ad she appeared in last wonder,” she said, “what books those who did not survive Christmas; and the bestselling Mog tie-in that has raised might have written?” It raised the hairs on the back of my £1million for Save the Children’s literacy appeal. neck. She makes her personal experience resonate with Every occasion has been different. Sometimes there were hitches. There was the time she rummaged for her glasses in something much bigger. I hope that, over those past 20 events, there have been her handbag and brought out a hairbrush instead, to the young people in the audiences who will one day, after a hilarity of the audience, and had to borrow my specs to lifetime of having understood an important truth about the read aloud. And the day she tripped over (to my shame and past, tell their grandchildren that they saw a delightful stopping heart) my carelessly placed handbag in a Green woman speak about her narrow escape from Nazi Room, but bounced back up, apparently quite unshaken. Germany. And they will pass on that understanding, and Sometimes I remember circumstantial details: stoical young the empathy engendered by having heard Judith Kerr people steaming in Tiger costumes, whom Judith greeted speak. That feels a huge thing to have had any part in. with great kindness. In Bath, after her event, with ■ characteristic curiosity, she asked her driver to take us to Judith Kerr will be talking to Nicolette Jones at 12.30pm today in the see the Royal Crescent, and the Cathedral, where we English PEN Literary Salon. Nicolette Jones is a writer and critic, and the contemplated the statues on the façade. Children’s Books Reviewer of the Sunday Times.
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Thursday 14 april 2016
what’s next for library ebooks? Remember those heady days of 2012, writes Andrew Richard Albanese, when US librarians were locked in contentious talks with major publishers over how to enable ebook lending, and, in some cases, whether it would be enabled at all? We may soon recall that period as the good old days. But when it comes to library ebooks, let’s start with the good news: despite a recent BISG survey that suggested that only a quarter of library users borrow ebooks, ebook circulation is still on the rise in US libraries. In 2015, OverDrive, the leading ebook lending platform for libraries, reported another year of impressive growth in circulation. And, as of this year, all of the Big Five publishers now offer ebook lending in libraries, and some major indie holdouts have finally entered the market too, including WW Norton, which announced that it was finally getting on board just before the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference last June. Beyond that, however, the news is mixed at best. For libraries, providing ebook access in 2016 will remain a complex, time-consuming and expensive puzzle. As they did in 2015, libraries will have to deal with a growing number of e-lending platforms, providers and restrictions, and high prices. Among the notable changes for library ebooks in 2016, in January, Penguin Random House (PRH) officially “unified” its
ebook terms of sale for libraries. Ever since the blockbuster merger between Random House and Penguin was announced in 2012, librarians had wondered which e-lending model would ultimately win out: Penguin’s, which offered ebooks to libraries for one year at near-consumer prices?; or Random House’s, which offered perpetual access for higher prices (capped at $65)? Now, we know–it will be Random House’s terms.
Hard choices The move, however, has elicited a lukewarm reaction from libraries. While some appreciate having perpetual access as an option, as the only option–and a high-priced option at that–it is problematic. “Penguin Random House–whose titles often make up half of any given bestseller list–is giving public libraries an impossibly hard choice,” observes PW contributing editor Brian Kenney, who is the Director of the White Plains (NY) Public Library. “If we buy PRH ebooks in sufficient numbers to meet demand, we are left with less money to acquire books from other houses, which stymies our ability to create diverse collections. If we hold back, we create a dissatisfied public, and risk becoming irrelevant to our readers.” Meanwhile, ever-changing consumer habits in the mobile era have added a new level of anxiety for libraries. While
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Thursday 14 april 2016
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ebook lending still follows an analogue-era model, streaming services like Amazon, Scribd and Netflix are rapidly shifting user expectations for digital content. “On the user-experience side, the bar is no longer set by [libraries and publishers],” BiblioBoard’s Andrew Roskill noted at a 2015 BookExpo America panel, imploring librarians and publishers to experiment with new models. “It seems like, after four or five years in, we are still talking about [ebooks] as if it is a big beta project,” Roskill lamented. “And, you know, the rest of the world has moved ahead. Frankly, it is time for us to try something different.” Indeed, there are a number of providers hoping to make headway in 2016 with multi-user ebook models, including BiblioBoard and Midwest Tape’s hoopla–and there has been slow progress. Last month, for example, HarperCollins announced that it had licensed its full audio backlist for multi-user lending via hoopla, and there is hope among librarians that success with digital audio might lead to more experimentation with multi-user ebook lending. Will there be a greater sense of urgency in 2016 among publishers and libraries to experiment with ebooks? As digital readers become increasingly glued to a single screen, where the competition for their attention is intense, and
where expectations are being reset by sleeker services such as those from Amazon, it is not likely.
New beginning And that is because, in a sense, 2016 presents something of a new beginning for ebooks in the consumer market. In 2015, all of the major publishers finalised their first new terms of sale deals since the expiration of sanctions stemming from the 2012 antitrust case involving Apple. Thus, for the first time in five years publishers will have their best chance to truly evaluate their ebook businesses–there is no court-ordered ebook discounting; no game-changing new device on the horizon, like the iPad; no new retail models. And publishers now have what they long desired, for better or worse: control over consumer ebook prices. In that light, it seems unlikely that publishers would experiment with libraries, especially as ebook sales are flagging and price-points are being reconsidered. Still librarians say they will continue to push for changes, knowing they can ill afford to settle on a plateau of mediocrity when it comes to ebook lending. “I am proud of the progress we’ve made,” ALA President Sari Feldman says, recalling the days when librarians and publishers were still haggling over basic access to ebooks. “But I also know we’re not done.” ■
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Thursday 14 april 2016
harry potter’s girls grow up The 2015 book market in the UK saw some interesting peaks, writes Jo Henry, particularly in the sales of adult colouring books particularly from Millie Marotta, “healthy” cook books such as Deliciously Ella and psychological thrillers– “grip lit”–such as The Girl on the Train. What might lie behind the growth of these genres? Using Nielsen’s Books & Consumers continuous survey data to profile the buyers of these genres in particular, it seems that there is one specific demographic that is very important to these markets–women aged 25-34, who we might term the older female millennial. She was responsible for 15% of purchases of “grip lit” in 2015, 18.4% of purchases of colouring books and 16% of purchases of healthy cook books. In addition, this cohort was very important to the children’s picture book market, which also saw healthy growth in 2015.
The Harry Potter effect It is interesting to speculate that these are the young women who grew up with Harry Potter; they would have been aged between 6 and 15 when the first book of the series was published to such international acclaim. They were also instrumental in the extraordinary growth in sales of YA titles such as The Fault in Our Stars, and the Hunger Games and the Divergent series. Since 2011 YA has been a key genre, with purchasing fuelled not just by the teenagers at whom the books were targeted, but by consumers aged 18+ buying for themselves. This generation of women has become an important one for the book industry, seemingly making or breaking genres with their patronage– and in 2015, finding “grip lit” a suitable replacement for the YA books they had been devouring a few years before. So given their importance to the book market, what else do we know about them? Nielsen Europe has just put together a comprehensive White Paper on the phenomenon that is the female millennial in order to help consumer brands ensure they keep the women of tomorrow as their customers. This is a generation of digital natives who have grown up in a recession. Nearly 90% own a smartphone and the plethora of devices they have are used to access
information instantly. They use this power to search for the best offers online and to price check constantly, making their money go as far as possible by securing the best prices and saving money by searching for and using coupons. Whilst all ages and both genders have increased spend in value supermarkets recently, the most significant shift is in younger female shoppers, who can now be found in much larger numbers in Aldi and Lidl. This shift has impacted books too, with traditional supermarket’s share of the market falling from 11% to 9% between 2012 and 2015. Female millennials are very open to own brand products, with the “good enough but cheaper” message resonating with their recessionary mindset. In the book industry, this could be analogous to selfpublishing, with younger women generally positive and comfortable with self-published books, agreeing that they are likely to be as well-written as other books. But female millennials are not cheap: they are willing to pay for what they consider essential items in their lives, and they buy the most expensive books of all female age groups, both fiction and non-fiction. We can see in their book-buying behaviour another key characteristic of the female millennial too–they are much more likely than older consumers to experiment and try new brands, to be less loyal and to switch their purchasing, whether it’s the channel they are using or the product they are buying. In the book sector, they are very likely to be persuaded to try something new if they see it on a bestseller list, if it’s been recommended by their peers or if it’s been recommended online, whereas older consumers stick to known favourites and are less likely to try new things, in books as in their supermarket shopping. As this generation is set to become the most important shoppers in terms of income available to spend, the book industry has to ensure that what we publish, and where and how we market and sell to them, takes these key themes and concerns into account–or we risk losing them altogether. ■ Jo Henry is V-p Insights & Analytics at Nielsen Book Research. Brands Risk Losing the Women of Tomorrow, a Nielsen White Paper, will shortly be available as a free download. To reserve your copy, email:marketing.book@nielsen.com.
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london show daily
Thursday 14 april 2016
small press, big impact For all the pressure on big publishing, the last decade has also seen a golden age bloom for small, independent micro-publishers. Andrew Richard Albanese caught up with one award-winning publisher, Giancarlo DiTrapano, Founder and Publisher of New York-based Tyrant Books.
will read it even if it is written on a pile of wet cocktail napkins. If the art is good, the medium shouldn’t even factor in.
AA: As a small publisher, you have a hand over everything you do–what is the toughest part of the job? GD: The toughest part of the job is just surviving, and by that, I mean getting Tyrant AA: First, for those who don’t know you, books into bookstores. I can’t afford to tell us a little about Tyrant. count on my distributor to move books. I GD: I started the lit mag New York Giancarlo DiTrapano always have to take things into my own Tyrant about 10 years ago, and Tyrant hands. That is the toughest part. Books came shortly after. All together I have now published 20 books, not a huge list, but I think they are all great books. And that’s the point, I only publish books AA: And, the best part? that I love. Ideally, that’s about eight titles a year–but I GD: You know, the other night I received a very nice don’t really know because I never know how many email from a writer whom I admire deeply. And attached manuscripts I will like. to the email was a manuscript. In the email he told me that it was my encouragement that got him to fully devote himself to finishing the manuscript. To me, that’s the best AA: Well, speaking of great books, last year you part–that I can help a writer do what they do best is a published the winner of the prestigious PEN/ Faulkner very good feeling. Award–Atticus Lish’s Preparation for the Next Life, now an international bestseller. Talk to us a little about how you found that book, or rather, how it found you. AA: So often in the press, we read about publishing being a GD: I met Atticus years ago and we became friends, when struggling industry. What made you want to get into it so badly? I published his first book of illustrations, Life Is with GD: I’m a hater, kind of (laughter). Or, maybe it’s better People. But I hadn’t spoken to him in months when, for no instead to say that my love is not easily won. Most things– real reason, I called and asked him if he had a novel. Turns no, almost all things–that crowd my life under the guise of out he had been writing one for the past five years, telling art rarely move me. I’m not feigning intelligence or no one but his wife about it. And he had just finished the sensibility when I say that; it’s not that my standards are final draft. He emailed it to me, and I tore through it particularly high, just that they are highly particular. So I immediately, reading the entire thing on my phone. I started Tyrant to try to contribute to the one thing that thought and felt many things on finishing the manuscript, really truly matters to me. To me, I just felt there were but the one I can remember thinking is that I was holding a writers out there that deserved more attention. So, I sold major prize winner. the house that I owned in New Orleans, and invested all of that money–and most of my life–in books. AA: Yes, I remember you telling me that when you gave me a galley; you said a Pulitzer, an NBA, or the PEN/ AA: What’s next for you? Faulkner, maybe all three. Full disclosure: we’ve been GD: Next, is Supremacist by David Shapiro, which I am friends for some time, and I still remember well the actually co-publishing with Thought Catalog; they are doing conversation we had outside a bar in Brooklyn in 2005 the ebook and I am doing the print. Shapiro wrote the book when you told me all about your vision for Tyrant. What about his obsession with Supreme and his trip to visit each I remember most vividly, is that you wanted to publish in Supreme store location. For those unaware of Supreme, it’s a print, which at the time I couldn’t believe. I am still streetwear/clothing company that is also something of a curious about why, when many were predicting print 20-years-long art project. Supremacist is a novel, but it is would be marginalised, you wanted to start a print very much based on actual events. And I know I said I don’t publishing business. fetishise books but, believe me, this book is beautiful, with GD: I remember that conversation well! Honestly, I never incredible photographs from the author’s trip around the globe to visit every Supreme store–including New York, Los saw ebooks taking over, though I do ebooks at Tyrant Angeles, Japan and the UK. because that’s how some people choose to read. But nor do Also, in August I am publishing Annie DeWitt’s White Nights I fetishise print books. I have never been aroused by the in Split Town City, a coming-of-age story about a young paper in a book or the firmness of a book’s spine. I’m just girl who is dangerously precocious. DeWitt is an incredible not romantic like that. I truly do not care what medium I writer and I am lucky to have acquired this jewel. get my art through. The way I see it, if a book is good, I ■
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london show daily
Thursday 14 april 2016
Four questions for BEa’s Brien Mcdonald Last month, Brien McDonald took over at the helm of BookExpo America (BEA). Andrew Richard Albanese caught up with McDonald for a quick “get-to-know-you” Q&A. AA: You’ve been involved with BEA for years, but for those who may not know you, tell us a little about yourself. BM: I’ve been at Reed for six years now. I came to BEA in 2010 to be National Account Director, and from the get-go I’ve been working with publishers. I shifted over to our ReedPOP group a couple years ago to launch BookCon, but I never Brien McDonald really left BEA. I truly enjoy working with publishers. I started my career at a publisher so the industry holds a special place with me. AA: It’s a big year, with BEA going to Chicago. Tell us what you expect from this year’s event. BM: I’m really excited. BEA hasn’t left New York for many years, so it’s great to go to Chicago. It’s going to be really fun to engage with the buyers from Middle America on their home turf, including a lot of folks who may not have been able to make the trek to New York. We’re expecting strong attendance–all the major publishers are heading out to Chicago, and the show floor is shaping up nicely, so everything is pointing in the right direction.
AA: What can you tell publishers new to the city about Chicago? BM: Chicago is an amazing convention city. It has so much character, world-class museums, food, music and is very convenient to get to, with many flights operating daily. The McCormick Center is a great facility that will have a different feel from the Javits Center in New York. We’re also benefiting from a location with significantly lower hotel rates, the lowest we’ve seen in years. AA: Since its launch two years ago, BookCon has done very well–I think exceeding some people’s expectations. Do you think the momentum will follow BookCon from New York to Chicago? BM: I do. Right now we’re comparing BookCon in Chicago to year one in New York and we’re hitting all our marks. Chicago is a great city for ReedPOP, we have a lot of experience and a nice track record with the fans there, particularly from our comic convention C2E2. So we’re excited to bring BookCon there and we’re expecting success. And who knows, BookCon could develop into a movable model, with a few of them happening throughout the year. It will always be attached to BEA, but it will be fun to get out and experiment in a new city. ■
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london show daily
Thursday 14 april 2016
don’t rush to legislate on copyright In May last year, the European Commission published its strategy for the digital single market, writes Susie Winter. It came as no surprise that reform of the copyright framework was identified as necessary for the digital single market. This was subsequently followed up by a Communication in December, which repeated the need for “legal clarity” in a number of areas of copyright. The publishing industry has consistently been supportive of a digital single market, it already being a reality for the majority of our businesses. By licensing or having transferred rights from authors Susie Winter on a pan-European basis, publishers are making works available across the EU. Publishing–together with other creative industries– has been able to adapt to, and drive, the changing digital landscape thanks to the inherent flexibility of copyright law. The existence of a framework for copyright law, within which different business models can evolve and flourish, has been central to the economic success of the sector. Therefore, our time since May has been spent trying to understand what reforms the Commission wants and why they think that legislation is the way to achieve them. Let us take education as an example. The Commission has the rightly laudable aim of wanting to ensure that teachers in every
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Member State are able to copy materials digitally for the purposes of illustration for teaching. They also want to ensure that such materials can be accessed by students if they are in a different country to their educational establishment. We fully support both of these objectives, but are pointing out to the Commission that these are already being delivered in the UK thanks to the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency) education licence. This demonstrates that delivering the necessary adaptions in order to make the current education exception work in the digital age can be achieved faster and with greater flexibility (so that existing different arrangements already in place in many European countries can be taken into account) via licensing. This rush to legislate can also be seen in the Commission’s desire for a new exception for text and data mining (TDM). In 2014, the UK introduced an exception, under the existing legislative framework it must be noted, which was underpinned by three very important principles: that miners needed to have existing legal access to the content they wished to mine; that publishers were able to maintain control of their networks (very important to ensure that mining activity did not disrupt other researchers user experience); and that only researchers carrying out non-commercial research could benefit from the exception. While these three principles are, we understand, figuring strongly in the Commission’s thinking in this area, developments in licensing are reducing the impact of such an exception. An exception gives researchers the permission to mine content, but such access for TDM is being included by publishers in institutional subscriptions anyway, and Open Access articles are published under CC-BY licences, which include permission to TDM. So if all an exception does is give people the right to (legally) access the content, and if this is already being given via other means, then the exception becomes redundant. According to PLS (Publishers Licensing Society) research, the new exception in the UK did not lead to an increase in requests. Things can be done to improve researchers’ ability to text and data mine. Researchers want to know who to contact; they want to know what information they need to supply; and, crucially, they want to be able to interrogate multiple publishers’ material simultaneously. Legislation cannot deliver this. Instead, solutions are being found in the publisher-led and supported services which have been developed in partnership with the research community. CrossRef, PLS ClearTDM, the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) are just three services which have been built to facilitate researchers’ TDM needs. Again, these are solutions that are quicker and more flexible than could be provided by legislation. The Publishers Association (PA) is firmly of the view that should there be areas which require attention, the current framework of legislation and licensing strikes the right balance of clarity, strength and flexibility to allow authors and publishers to flourish, and give consumers choice. ■ Susie Winter is Director of Policy and Communications at the PA.
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Thursday 14 april 2016
london show daily
oup goes global Oxford Global Languages (OGL) could be described as the most defining dictionary project for OUP since the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary, writes Jon French. The OGL project aims to bring linguistic data for 100 languages online and nurture digital language communities, where native speakers can engage with a constantly evolving “living dictionary”. With a focus on languages that are under-represented in the digital space, these communities are managed and promoted by local Language Managers who moderate user activity, user-generated content and forums on each site. “This is a fundamental part of the project,” says Judy Pearsall, Dictionaries Director for OUP’s Global Academic Division and OGL Programme Director, “and it makes an important point–the project is giving people a voice that they feel they haven’t had before. It provides these communities with the freedom and space to help create digital language resources.” The idea for OGL was first proposed by Judy in 2012 at OUP’s annual strategy meeting. Judy explains: “At the Forum there was a focus on our mission, and an appetite to renew it with bold and ambitious projects like the Oxford English Dictionary. The Press invited us all to think big and creatively.” Judy’s idea to harness the energy of global communities to help develop lexical resources for their languages soon captured the attention of others within OUP, and investment was secured in 2014. Language technology underpins the way we interact with the web. While 42% of the world’s population currently have internet access–with an average year-on-year increase of 10%–growth rates in internet penetration vary hugely. So while usage continues to be highest in developed regions (87% in the US), the increase in usage is most significant in areas with the lowest penetration. Africa, for example, has 27% internet penetration while experiencing some of the highest annual usage growth rates. “Many of the language communities we will be supporting are in emerging digital markets; they are growing and getting more digitally connected, and expressing a desire to use resources in their languages,” explains Judy. As well as making content available via consumer websites for everyday use, OUP is also making the underlying data accessible to licensees and developers both large and small, via its API programme–so others will be able to not only use and contribute to the content online, they will also be able to access and build new applications and software using it. OUP’s technologists are developing an entirely new platform to integrate and link language content between and within languages, creating a dynamic network of linguistic data. The flexibility of this platform and the computational power of generating new links means that new data combinations can be produced (for example, extracting bilingual topic lists). OUP has already launched OGL living dictionary sites for isiZulu, Northern Sotho, Urdu and Malay with Hindi, Indonesian, Kiswahili, Latvian, Romanian and Setswana going live in 2016. Dr Langa Khumalo, Director of the University Language Planning and Development Office at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and one of the language advisors for isiZulu, expressed the vision of OGL when he said: “This initiative will move our languages from
the village and the vernacular, and give them the opportunity to become truly global.” Urdu Language Manager, Zafar Syed adds: “We will be able to create a vibrant community where all Urdu lovers will join hands to enhance Urdu’s digital presence. This will strengthen our language, not only online, but offline as well.” ■ Jon French is the Advocacy and Corporate Partnerships Manager for Oxford Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. If you or your organisation would like to collaborate with OUP on the OGL initiative (www.oxforddictionaries.com/ogl), then please contact jon.french@oup.com.
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PHI Learning is a leading Indian academic publisher with prime focus on publishing quality textbooks at affordable prices under the imprint Eastern Economy Editions. PHI publishes books on all disciplines which are written by eminent academics from premier institutes.
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E-Mail: phi@phindia.com
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Gender in translation In March, the longlist for the Man Booker International Prize was announced, celebrating “the finest in global fiction” translated into English, writes Chad Post. Of the 13 titles on the list, only four were written by women. In response, in an op-ed in the (UK) Guardian, translator Katy Derbyshire did not mince words: “Translated novels by female writers are the palomino unicorns of the publishing world,” she wrote, “not just unusual, but a small Chad Post subset within a subset.” According to our data, the numbers bear Derbyshire out. In 2008, Three Percent launched the Translation Database to track how many works of fiction and poetry were being translated and published in English. And of the 3,617 works of fiction and poetry published between 2008 and 2015, counting only those books that had never before appeared in any English translation (excluding reissues, for example), we found that just 1,004 were written by women–about 27.8%. The good news is that the total number of works being translated into English has grown steadily since 2008. Three Percent has posted numerous articles on our blog about various trends in translation–which publishers are doing the most books, for example. The bad news, however, is that the gender gap for works in translation has remained consistent, ranging from a low of 23.3% women writers in 2008, our first year of tracking, to a high of 31.4% in 2014.
AmazonCrossing, did more books by women than men. The other nine presses combined published 532 titles in total, with only 130 (about 24.4%) written by women. In fact, for three of these presses–Dalkey Archive, New Directions and FSG–male authors made up more than 80% of their translations. As the most visible of gatekeepers, it is tempting to point to publishers as the main source for this gender disparity. But speaking as a translation publisher, the problems are more systemic. I can relate many anecdotes of foreign rights agents and translators pitching me far more books by men than by women. These pitches strike me as a big part of the problem; in my experience, it’s much more likely that a
By the numbers Looking at the past five years, we counted 62 presses that have published 10 or more translations. Of those 62, only six have published at least as many books by women as by men. In other words, more than 90% of the presses doing ten or more translations a year published more books by men than by women. The overall gender disparity is also mirrored in the statistics for the ten presses who published the most translations over the past five years. Only one publisher,
Top publishers of translations of female authors’ works
book by a man will be referred to as a “classic,” or somehow more deserving of being published, than a book written by a woman. And these systemic problems ripple throughout the market–if books by women aren’t afforded the same type of respect by agents, review coverage, or bookseller promotion as books by men, it becomes much more difficult for publishers to justify the large investment of time and money required to adequately publish a book. In other words, there’s no single reason why there are more than twice as many books by men being translated and published in a given year than there are by women, and there’s surely no easy fix. There are, however, steps we can take. More strategic funding for initiatives supporting books by women would help, as would more awareness of the issue from the mainstream media.
Under scrutiny Top publishers of translations over the last five years
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Over the past few years, thanks to the work of organisations such as VIDA, #ReadWomen and others, the Continues on page 28 g
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Thursday 14 april 2016
f Continued from page 26 gender disparity in the book world–among books reviewed, books published, etc–has come under a great deal of scrutiny. Several key translation figures (including Kate Derbyshire, Margaret Carson, Susan Bernofsky and Meytal Radzinski) have helped to shine a scrutinising light on the world of literary translations, advancing a conversation about the gender gap, and increasing awareness of the underlying gender imbalance in the minds of book review editors and the like.
Top countries publishing translations
As agents and editors we must be more conscious of the way we talk about and consider books by women– something we hope the data collected by Three Percent for our Translation Database can help with. ■
Top countries for translations of female authors’ works
Chad W Post is the Publisher of Open Letter Books at the University of Rochester. He’s also the Managing Editor of the Three Percent website and the author of The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translation, and the Future of Reading.
Friday 15 April
Growing Up With Bob Hoskins: Rosa Hoskins discusses her moving memoir Soho House, Dean St (5pm)
Remembering the times they shared together, join Rosa Hoskins in conversation with Larushka Ivan-Zadeh about her memoir, It’s All Going Wonderfully Well, a revealing portrait of one of the country’s best-loved actors, and a moving story of a close bond between father and daughter. For tickets and BookBrunch Subscriber 25% discount go to: https://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/lbsw
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DECEMBER 7, 2016 NEW YORK CITY
Publishers Weekly and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair invite you to join us for the second annual Global Kids Connect conference, the premier children’s publishing event of the year.
Join our mailing list to get all of the latest event information. www.PublishersWeekly.com/GKC P R E S E N T E D
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a fully open access university press In an article in the Guardian in February, Stephen Curry, Professor of Structural Biology at Imperial College London, described the public health emergency of the Zika virus, and the response of a consortium of funders, institutes and publishers which have made a commitment to sharing data and results relevant to the crisis “as rapidly and openly as possible”, writes Lara Speicher. The article called for a total rethink of the current journal publishing Lara Speicher model for science, where the publication of crucial data is often delayed and behind a paywall. While publishing for the arts, humanities and social sciences may not address the kind of life and death matters facing science, the argument for free availability to research in these areas still applies. Publishing in the arts and humanities is mainly in the form of monographs and edited collections, rather than journal articles. During the last couple of decades, a vicious cycle has emerged where sales figures for scholarly monographs have decreased, often to just 100-250 copies in their lifetime worldwide, and retail prices have consequently increased. This has occurred for a number of reasons, including the rise of digital publishing and the squeezing of library budgets by journal subscription costs. Increasingly, this scenario is proving unacceptable to many academics, their funders and institutions, who believe that research, which has often taken years to produce, should be read and accessed as widely as possible.
The open access model The open access model can break this cycle of decreased sales and increased prices, as it allows content to be freely available, either to be read online or downloaded in PDF form. Funding models currently include institutional subsidy, BPCs (book publication charges) usually paid by funders or the author’s institution, or “freemium” models where only an online version is available freely and all other formats such as ebook and print are charged for. UCL Press launched in June 2015 as the UK’s first fully open access university press. The 11 books we have published so far have been downloaded more than 18,000 times in nine months. A particular example of how the open access model reaches readers around the world in ways the print book cannot may be seen with Participatory Planning for Climate Compatible Development in Maputo, Mozambique. The book was published in November 2015 and sold around 20 copies in print form, a figure that makes it commercially unviable. However, it has been downloaded more than 1,300 times across 90 countries in three months. This demonstrates that the book does have an audience, but it is made up of readers spread far and wide, often living in countries that are difficult to reach with print copies and where they might be unaffordable in any case.
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When I was setting up UCL Press, there was scepticism from some towards open access. But there were also some notable authors already convinced of the benefits of open access. Among them were Professor Lisa Jardine, eminent Renaissance historian and author; Laura Vaughan, Professor of Urban Form and Society at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture; and Danny Miller, Professor of Anthropology at UCL and author of many books, including Consumption and Its Consequences and Tales from Facebook. Miller has argued for open access publication for some time and believes that: “We have ceded control of dissemination to inappropriate commercial concerns that come to stand for what should have been academic criteria.” When Miller first told me about his global social media project, Why We Post, which had nine anthropologists working in field sites round the world studying social media, and that he wanted to publish a monograph on each country of study, I was immediately enthusiastic. Two years on and the first books in the series are gathering well-deserved media attention. These are fascinating and readable insights into the ways people use social media, and the differences and similarities that can be seen around the world–it is intriguing to learn about the lives of young Turkish women living on the border with Syria, and factory workers in China who have joined one of the greatest migrations ever seen, from rural regions to industrial towns. These books are about people’s lives. But they are also academically challenging; author and academic Tara Brabazon has said about Miller’s own book in the series, Social Media in an English Village: “I’m going to summon a word that I rarely use in relation to social media scholarship: radical… From this book, many influential studies will emerge.” Distributing books in print form in many of the countries that are studied in Why We Post will be difficult, and open access publication will overcome that barrier, so readers in India, China, Brazil, Turkey, Chile, Trinidad and Italy, as well as in England, can freely access the books. The results: within a few days of publication, the first three books have been downloaded 2,500 times, in 80 countries. The project results are also published on a dedicated website in the form of articles, blogs and videos, and the project has also produced a MOOC (massive open online course) in eight languages, to which 12,000 people have subscribed. Perhaps the future will see more research outputs being published in this way: openly and in multiple formats, made truly accessible in order to reach the widest audience possible. The benefits are enormous–from giving isolated people (and indeed, cash-strapped students) access to education and information, to finding solutions to health crises such as Ebola and Zika. ■ Lara Speicher is Publishing Manager of UCL Press.
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The London Book Fair Date : 12 - 14 April , 2016
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