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Market Transformation Equals Challenges and Opportunities: Content Services in India 2012
In 2006, when PW released the first report on the content services industry in India, the topics centered on XML, PDF, and e-deliverables, and conversations revolved around print- vs. content-centric work flow.
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Publishing in Russia 2012: Vladimir Grigoriev on the Russian Book Market
Twelve years ago, Vladimir Grigoriev left Vagrius (the publishing house he founded in 1992) to join the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, or FAPMC. Much has changed in the country's book market since then. PW catches up with the dynamic deputy director and indefatigable champion of the Russian publishing industry for some insights and news.
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Publishing In Russia 2012: Independent Children’s Book Publishers in Russia
Children’s book publishers in Russia come in different sizes and specializations. Rosman Group, publisher of Rowling, Pullman, Paolini, Funke, and Stine, is the biggest, ranked #7 in the Russian publishing industry. Meanwhile, small indie publishers, spurred by market demand for new authors, unusual topics and unique translations, have sprung up and are growing fast.
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Publishing in Russia 2012: The Agents’ Dozen
No one knows Russian authors better than literary agencies. After all, they have been poring over these homegrown talents’ works, promoting them, and negotiating and signing deals for them. So “PW” asks four agencies—Banke, Goumen & Smirnova; Elkost; FTM; and Galina Dursthoff (covered in “The Rights Side of Business”) to recommend 12 contemporary authors that might represent the new Russian voice, in alphabetical order.
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Publishing in Russia 2012: Charting the Bestsellers
Gauging reader preferences and taking the pulse of the market is on every book industry player’s must-do list. And this task of deciding what will work and what won’t often involves analyzing bestseller lists.
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Publishing in Russia 2012: The Rights Side of Business
The rights industry in Russia has grown much more professional in the past five years, according to Julia Goumen of Banke, Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency. “The interaction between publishers and agencies, as well as scouts, has improved tremendously as our publishing industry becomes better connected to the international book community. Previously, it could take up to a year for new trends, big titles, or major events to reach Russia. These days, Russian publishers are often among the first to acquire rights to major works of fiction.”
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Publishing in Russia 2012: Shifting Retail Landscape
Back in 1990, there were nearly 8,500 bookshops in Russia. By 2009, however, the number had plunged to no more than 2,500, according to the Russian Book Union. Even Top Kniga, Russia’s largest book chain, had shrunk from 700 to 450 stores, and is now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy yet again.
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Publishing In Russia 2012: Here Comes Pubmix.com
With Russia’s online book market growing about 30% annually, more households having Internet access, and consumers becoming increasingly comfortable purchasing and paying online, it is logical to see print on-demand coming into play.
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Publishing In Russia 2012: Growing the Digital Side of the Business
Amazon.com is the model that most online bookstore entrepreneurs want to adopt (and, hopefully, replicate its success as well). But tweaking it to fit the Russian book industry—that is easier said than done.
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Publishing In Russia 2012: Publishers in a Changing Industry
Despite the economic gloom, the number of titles produced annually in Russia continues to grow. The country is now #3 in terms of book production (approximately 125,000 new titles per year), after the U.S. and China. It also saw more than 20 million e-book downloads and some one million reading devices sold in 2011.
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Jaber Wins Arabic Fiction Prize
Rabee Jaber won the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction on Tuesday night for his novel The Druze of Belgrade, at the Rocco Forte hotel in Abu Dhabi. The event took place on the eve of the 22nd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.
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Poetry and Dieting Score In February
A surprising success occurred in Italy last month, where the collected poems of Wislawa Szymborska landed at #2. Szymborska, who died February 1 at the age of 88, has a similar collection seeing “steady sales” in the U.S. from Mariner Books titled Poems New and Collected, originally published in 2000. But the poet’s performance in Italy, where the book has sold 64,000 copies, has been called “an unprecedented success for a volume of poetry on a world scale” by publisher Adelphi.
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Moroccan Authorities Ban Newspaper From Running Excerpt of French Book
The International Publishers Association is speaking out after authorities in Morocco banned the Spanish-language daily newspaper El País from distributing its February 26 issue because of an excerpt it featured from the French book The Predator King.
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International Bestsellers: February 2012
The new #1 fiction title in January was from bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen, who landed in the top spot with The Alphabet House. Adler-Olsen’s most recent U.S. title, The Keeper of Lost Causes, was released last August by Dutton and received a PW starred review. Dutton will publish Adler-Olsen’s The Absent One this coming August.
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Selling Abroad: Strong Debuts Across Europe
International bestselling author Paulo Coelho debuted at #2 in Germany in January with his latest, Manuscript Found in Accra, a novel that takes place in the year 1099 as Jerusalem prepares for the invasion of the Crusaders.
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Fiction, Nonfiction Mix it Up: International Bestsellers January 2012
Germany’s top fiction title at the end of December, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out His Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson climbed up from #5, supplanting previous chart-topper Inheritance (Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance was also #2 in Spain). Jonasson’s novel has sold more than one million copies in Sweden, and rights have been sold in 24 languages. Hyperion acquired world English rights and has an October pub date set in the U.S.
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Random House of Canada Takes Over McClelland & Stewart; Canadian Pubs Unhappy
Canada’s biggest multinational publishing house just got bigger. Random House of Canada has become the sole owner of McClelland & Stewart, one of Canada’s oldest publishing houses.
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Amazon's Japanese E-Book Store Hits Snag
Japanese newspapers are reporting that Amazon has hit a hurdle in its attempt to open a Japanese e-book storefront. According to reports, the retailer has pushed back its launch date for an e-book store in the country, after local publishers declined Amazon's terms.
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Jobs Bio a Global Hit: International Bestsellers December 2011
A few days after Amazon announced that the Steve Jobs biography was its top-selling book of 2011 (combined print and e-book sales), the book debuted on bestseller charts around the world, including the three countries highlighted this month. Steve Jobs was #3 in France and the Netherlands, and atop Spain’s nonfiction list, where it knocked Pedro J. Ramírez’s The First Wreck to #2. Also on the nonfiction list in France, Stéphane Hessel has two titles including Indignez-vous!, which was released in the U.S. by Twelve in September as Time for Outrage.
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International Bestsellers, November 2011: Literary Novels Hit in Germany, Italy
The top three fiction titles in Germany were all debuts in October, led by In Times of Fading Light, which recently won the 2011 German Book Prize and is set for publication in the U.S. by Graywolf Press in fall 2013. Umberto Eco’s newest book, The Prague Cemetery, which debuted at #3, is newly published in the U.S. from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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