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Aiming for the Next Level of Excellence: Printing in Hong Kong 2011
Consider this: in 2010, imports of printed material and related products from Hong Kong and China to U.S. shores hit $2.397 billion (or nearly 45% of the category total). That is almost back to the pre-crisis level of 1998. Obviously, the outsourcing flow has not ebbed despite fervent calls for made-in-U.S.A. books. Then again, there is the slumping greenback and weak economy. For print suppliers, it is indeed the best of times and the worst of times.
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Looking Back—and Ahead: Printing in Hong Kong 2011
In 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Brothers, Commodore launched the Amiga personal computer, Steve Jobs founded NeXT, and Bill Gates issued the first version of Windows. It was also the year PW launched the first report covering the Asian printing industry, of which you are now holding the 25th annual issue. (In case you wonder about the calculation, we skipped one year at the beginning.)
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Dubai Publisher Makes U.S. Debut
Awakened Press, in Boston, the U.S. publishing division of Dubai's Dar-El Shams Books, just published its first book in the U.S., and the company's first book in English, Rise Up and Salute the Sun. This collection of writings by U.S.-Egyptian writer and filmmaker Suzy Kassem will be released worldwide in the late fall in both English and Egyptian Arabic.
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Selling Abroad: Mysteries and More
Mysteries led the way in new books hitting international bestsellers lists in June, especially in the land of the mystery, Sweden. Criminal defense lawyer and author Jens Lapidus landed at #2 in Sweden last month with the final volume in its Stockholm Noir trilogy, Life Deluxe.
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Global Publishing: Staying Put
With the global economy still struggling to get on a solid footing in 2010, the world’s largest publishers had a mixed performance in the year, although the majority of companies managed to post sales gains in the year.
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Book Exports Had Small Gain in 2010
Book exports rose 1.2% in 2010, to just over $2 billion, according to data compiled by the U.S. Commerce Department, while imports increased 5.8%, to $1.85 billion. Because of federal cutbacks, full-year breakdowns by book category are not yet available, and there is some question as to how the Commerce Department will conduct the statistics program in the future.
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Selling Abroad: Vargas, Lackberg, The Casts
In France, bestselling author Fred Vargas landed at #1 with a new Commissaire Adamsberg mystery, The Furious Army. Penguin will release a paperback edition of an earlier Adamsberg novel, An Uncertain Plan, in the U.S. in October, but has not yet acquired rights to the newest title.
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Just Don't Call Him Stieg... Or Do
In one of the first profiles on Jo Nesbø that appeared recently in the U.S., in April in the Wall Street Journal, the comparison was made right off the bat in the headline. The comparison was to Stieg Larsson, the Swedish crime novelist whose Millennium trilogy became a multimillion-copy bestseller in the States after exploding in Europe. Nesbø may not have much more in common with Larsson than a loose bit of geography and the fact that they write in the same genre—he is certainly not the first bestselling Scandinavian crime writer the publishing industry has tried to slap a "next Stieg Larsson" tag on—but he seems to be getting traction where others have not.
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Auel Hits in Europe
Jean M. Auel's The Land of Painted Caves was the big story on international bestseller lists in April. The book, "30,000 years in the making and 31 years in the writing," according to PW's review, is the sixth and final volume in the Earth's Children series. It landed high on bestseller lists in Europe: #1 in the Netherlands and Sweden, #2 in Spain, #4 in France, #5 in the U.K., and #9 in Germany.
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McClelland & Stewart Starts New Nonfiction Imprint
Canadian publisher McClelland & Stewart is launching a new nonfiction imprint this fall. Signal will showcase books by Canadian and international authors on important issues in politics, religion, culture, history, business and the environment.
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Content Services in India: A Special Report
Our special supplement on content services in India
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Lit Journal ‘APS’ Launches ‘Monkey Business’ in New York
Brooklyn lit journal A Public Space, along with author Roland Kelts and translator Ted Goosen have joined together to help launch Monkey Business: New Voices from Japan, an English-language edition of the Japanese literary magazine founded by prominent translator and professor Motoyuki Shibata. In fact, MB is based on APS and the new English version will offer a selection of cutting edge writing, poetry, manga, and interviews, culled from the Japanese magazine and will launch with a series of trans-cultural events in New York in April and May.
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International Bestsellers: Debuts in France, Spain, Sweden
New fiction on France’s March list included Harlan Coben’s Caught, the first two volumes of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, and Patricia Cornwell’s Port Mortuary. Also debuting was Katarina Mazetti’s The Family Vault, a sequel to the Swedish journalist’s Guy in the Grave Next Door, which sold 450,000 copies in Sweden.
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Hachette, Penguin, Random Join PEN for Publishers' Initiative
Hachette Livre, Penguin, and Random House have joined with PEN International to launch the PEN International Publishers’ Circle. The initiative will provide support for PEN International’s work and will focus on the publishing aspects of PEN’s work for Freedom of Expression.
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Random Creates Hogarth, a U.S.-U.K. Imprint
Two divisions of Random House that exist across the pond from each other are launching a fiction imprint that will share a close but non-exclusive editorial relationship. The Crown Publishing Group in the U.S. and Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Vintage Publishing, which is a division of The Random House Group in the U.K., announced the creation of Hogarth today. The imprint will focus on "contemporary, voice-driven, character-rich stories that entertain, inform, and move readers."
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BookNet Canada Launches Online Catalog
BookNet Canada, a non-profit industry organization which tracks book sales in Canada, launched its new online cataloging service, BNC CataList, on March 31.
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On Rights and Book-Scouting
Translations account for about 12% of all titles published in Russia in 2010. Here, as in other corners of the world, American and British blockbusters are translated and almost guaranteed top slots on the bestseller list. Names like J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Nora Roberts, Stephenie Meyer, and John Grisham are no strangers in Russia.
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Bricks-and-Mortar Still Rules
Nearly 40% of Russia's book sales in 2009 came from independent bookstores. Bookshop chains contributed around 20%, and only 8% were transacted online. The dependence on bricks-and-mortar outlets remains unassailable even though bookstores outside of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and some other major cities (such as Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk) are poorly stocked.
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Braving the Digital Path
Given that nearly 90% of Russian households are expected to have Internet access by 2012, it is easy to see why e-books, online retailers, and electronic libraries are getting so much attention (and investment interest) in recent years. Russian publishers, fueled by the success of their U.S. counterparts, are busy converting e-books and working with service providers to put the titles online. But this being a new sector in the Russian book market, challenges abound. Here, a few dominant players talk to PW about the general e-book industry, their successes, and the challenges ahead.
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A Young (and Very Ambitious) Group of Publishers
The current crop of Russian publishers is collectively on the young side, many of them born shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then, teething problems were many and the growth path rocky at times. But today these publishers produce nearly 120,000 new titles per year, placing Russia firmly in the #4 slot in global ranking (after China, U.S., and U.K.) in terms of output.
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