Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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Celebrity books and global markets discussed at VIP industry forum

This year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival included the annual Visiting International Publishers (VIP) program, which offers Australian publishers the opportunity to meet with international publishers and editors. On 20 May several of the visiting publishers participated in an industry forum, with panels on celebrity books, global market challenges and world rights.

Celebrity books

On the celebrity books panel were Jungha Song, acquisition and foreign rights senior manager at Sigongsa in South Korea; Violet Cheong, rights manager at Commonwealth Publishing Group in Taiwan; Sam Carter, commissioning editor at Oneworld Publications in the UK; and José Prata, founder and publisher at Lua de Papel in Portugal.

Celebrity books from sportspeople, TV chefs and reality TV stars regularly appear in the UK’s bestseller charts, said Carter, who observed someone’s ‘15 minutes of fame’ often led to a feeding frenzy among publishers. Celebrity books in the UK are often aided by extracts in the tabloid press, which in turn generate tabloid news stories.

In Portugal, ‘smaller’ celebrities who have a strong story to tell typically outsell ‘bigger’ celebrities, said Prata. For example, Nick Vujicic’s Life without Limits (A&U) sold 40,000 copies in Portugal, while Portuguese football Cristiano Ronaldo ‘doesn’t sell’. Prata observed that book sales in Portugal are driven by the left-leaning middle class, so celebrity authors need to appeal to this segment of the market.

In Taiwan, most celebrity books come from local TV celebrities such as talk show hosts, while in South Korea there isn’t a strong demand for celebrity books, with the exception of K-pop photo books.

The panellists also discussed the influence of reviews in their respective markets. In Korea, reviews in newspapers are less influential than they used to be as newspapers’ readership is declining, said Song. She noted that some publishers have had success ‘product-placing’ their books in popular Korean TV shows. In Portugal, a clean sweep of positive reviews in all the newspapers is required for a significant effect on book sales; one positive review is no longer enough.

Carter quipped that in the UK publishers try to get Stephen Fry to tweet about their books, as Fry was more likely to drive book sales than any UK book reviewers.

Global market challenges

On the global market challenges panel were Anne Hoppe, editor at Clarion Books in the US; Daniel Lazar, an agent at Writers House in the US; Sarah Branham, senior editor at Simon & Schuster in the US; and Britta Hansen, editor-in-chief at Diana Verlag (Random House) in Germany.

Author empowerment was one of the issues raised on this panel, with Lazar—a literary agent in the US—arguing that when publishers withhold sales and marketing information from authors, the authors start to think they can do it better themselves. Simon & Schuster was the first publisher to launch an author portal that allows authors to log in and track their weekly sales, said Branham.

Discovery and word-of-mouth were also discussed by the panel, with Hoppe and Hansen stressing the importance of getting everyone in the publishing house to be passionate about each book, and to communicate this among their wider network. ‘We’re all handselling all of the time,’ said Hoppe.

World rights

On the final panel were Manasi Subramaniam, commissioning editor and rights manager at HarperCollins in India; Carmen Diana Dearden, editor, publisher and president at Ediciones Ekaré in Venezuela; Carole Welch, publishing director at Sceptre (Hachette) in the UK; and Elizabeth Bicknell, executive vice president and editorial director at Candlewick Press (Walker Books Group) in the US.

Kicking off the final panel was the question, ‘Will publishers still buy the rights for books if “traditional” territories are excluded?’ Welch said it was tricky in the UK to make ‘the numbers work’ for US titles when rights are split into UK and ANZ territories, particularly for literary fiction. She noted that having South African and Indian rights could help to ‘bump up sales’.

Subramaniam was critical of ‘clubbing’ UK and Commonwealth rights, arguing that Indian publishers are better able to promote books in their market; while Bicknell noted that the Walker Books Group’s presence in the US, UK and Australia made it easier for the publisher to publish books in multiple English-language markets, as the staff are able to share local market information.

World Spanish rights were important in Venezuela to avoid dealing with competing distributors, said Dearden. However, Dearden noted that she will sometimes take on ‘passion projects’ that don’t include rights for Spain or Spanish-language rights in the US.

The panel was asked whether a publisher would be less inclined to purchase rights for a book if the original publisher had already sold ebooks internationally. Bicknell responded that previous ebook sales could have a detrimental effect in the US because it might make a book ineligible for certain awards. She also noted that if an ebook had already sold in substantial numbers internationally, a publisher might feel that the market has already been tapped.

More information about the program and this year’s guests is available on the Australia Council website here.

 

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