london show daily 17 april 2012

Big names, buzzy debuts

While the first day of the London Book F a i r s a w p l e n t y o f

debut authors drawing interest, a bevy of literary heavies seeped into chatter as well. Just before the annual trade show kicked off, word was posted about new books from both William T. Voll-mann and Erik Larson – Paul Slo-vak at Viking took North Ameri-can rights to a story collection by Vollmann, while Larson’s latest, about the sinking of the Lusitania, went to Molly Stern at Crown. And, although William Morris Endeavor is not showing here in London the manuscript of Caleb Carr’s first major new work in years, The Legend of Broken (which Random House will pub-lish in the States in November 2012), the agency has the book on its rights hot list, and is expecting to send the work out to interna-tional clients after the show wraps.

Outside of those marquee names, a handful of titles by new authors were drawing heat on the first day of the fair. WME’s big book, which one insider said has “interest all over the world,” is Justin Gakuto Go’s debut, The Steady Running of the Hour, which sold in the US, before the fair, to Simon & Schuster. For-eign sales have closed in five other countries, including Italy and Germany, and WME said offers had come in from the UK, France and Israel. The novel fol-lows two converging plot lines: the first, set against the back-drop of World War I, is about the relationship between a Brit-ish climber (who later dies attempting to summit Everest), named Ashley Walsingham, and his lover, Imogen Soames-

Andersson. The second story line, set in 2004, follows a man who receives a letter stating that he may be an heir to Walsing-ham’s unclaimed fortune. Gakuto Go is 32, got his under-grad degree at UC Berkeley, and then an MA in English from Uni-versity College London.

Another project which has people buzzing is from Swedish super-agency Salomonsson, which is shopping one more big Scandinavian trilogy (see page 4).

Sahar Delijani’s debut novel, Children of the Jacaranda Tree, reported in yesterday’s Show Daily, continues to crop up as a buzz title. Three mid-six figure deals closed on the work right before the fair, with Judith Curr and Sarah Branham at Atria nab-bing the book in the US, Weiden-feld & Nicolson acquiring in the UK, and Rizzoli in Italy. (It’s also well worth noting that in the UK the acquiring editor, Arzu Tah-

sin, worked on such megahits as The Kite Runner and The Tiger’s Wife.) Deijani was born in Tehran and went to college in California at UC Berkeley; the novel follows a group of Iranians through the country's tumultu-ous recent history. Word coming from the floor at LBF is that the manuscript has been getting strong reads, and one insider pegged the book as an early contender – though not the only one – for the “big book of the fair” designation.

Solitude... starting price $1mbeen widely pirated in the country, and the eponymous Balcells, 81 – as garlanded as many of her writers and widely regarded as the most powerful figure in Spanish-language publishing – has previously refused to negotiate with Chinese publishers. The starting price? One million dollars. LBF had scarcely opened when bidding passed $1.5m

Established in 1956, the Balcells client list includes, beside Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Cami lo Jo sé Ce la , Juan Goytisolo, Eduardo Mendoza and Isabel Allende, and she is largely responsible for the 1960s boom in Latin-American publishing.

Marquez once dedicated a book to her, one of many authors to do so, and reportedly asked her over the phone: “Do you love me, Carmen?” Balcells replied: “I cannot answer, you are one third of my revenue.”

In 2010 the Spanish Ministry o f C u l t u r e b o u g h t approximately fifty years of her personal archives for three million euros.

IIn an unprecedented move, the Barcelona-based Carmen Balcells literary agency is

auctioning a two-year license to publish One Hundred Years of Solitude in China.

The novel, by Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has

Fo r t h e l a t e s t f a i r c o v e r a g e , g o t o w w w. p u b l i s h e r s we e k l y. c o m / l b f a n d w w w. b o o k b r u n c h . c o . u k

17 April 2012London

Visit us at Stand G470

Uggie puts paw to paper. See page 6.

Author-Centric, Agent-Enabled.A digital distribution and marketing service designed to enable professional authors

with reverted or not-in-print works to get their titles to the marketplace.

Created by The Perseus Books Group,

the largest independent trade publisher in the U.S.

Powered by Constellation,

a cutting-edge digital service.

Offered via leading literary agencies,

acting as the interface between authors and Argo Navis.

Find out more at ArgoNavisDigital.com

Visit us at the Constellation stand X735 in the Digital Zone of Earls Court 2

317 APRIL 2012 LONDON SHOW DAILY

Will today ’ s existing con-glomerates continue to dominate the

future of publishing? Or, will technology enable a rising tide of upstarts and independents to forever change the publishing landscape? That was the ques-tion at the heart of The London Book Fair’s Second Annual Great Debate, which put forth the following resolution: in the fight for survival, outsiders and startups are taking on today’s heavyweights and will ulti-mately deliver a knockout punch.

Arguing for the resolution: Allen Lau, CEO and founder of Wattpad, and Bob Young, CEO and founder of Lulu.com. Argu-ing against the resolution, Evan Schnittman, soon to be Chief Marketing Officer at Hachette, and Fionnuala Duggan, Manag-ing Director (International) at CourseSmart.

The audience seemed willing to accept there was a new world order in store for the publishing industry: the pre-debate poll revealed 88 for the resolution; 37 against; and 82 undecided –

then the fun began.Wil l the upstarts win?

“We already have,” noted a gleeful Bob Young. He cited Wikipedia’s r ise, and the decision of the centuries-old Encyclopedia Britannica to cease printing, and noted that just decades ago, there was no Amazon, or Google.

“We adap t ,” r ebu t t ed Hachette’s Evan Schnittman. From indy bookstores to chains, from Amazon and Google, to the Kindle, publishing has faced challenges, and these challenges have made them stronger, and more efficient. “Disruption,” Schnittman said, “makes us stronger.”

Wattpad’s Allen Lau went for publishing’s jugular. “New players always win,” Lau said, “And it’s no exception for the publishing industry. The inter-net has already created new heavyweights.” For the first time in history, he noted, anyone could share stories directly with anyone else, anywhere in the world. And he noted the chang-ing economics, taking a playful dig at the major publishers’ legal troubles in America. “Marginal cost of creating copies is now

BDS has won the contract to supply data for the British Library’s Cataloguing in Publi-cation (CIP) Programme in a joint bid with Nielsen Book.

BDS, which has held the con-tract since 1995, will supply industry-standard catalogue records for books published and distributed in the UK and Ire-land and lead the process of introducing new international cataloguing standards. Nielsen’s expertise in managing publisher relations through the ISBN Agency for UK & Ireland and provision of analytic informa-tion through its Nielsen Book-Scan service about the United Kingdom’s publications will be integrated into the process.

BDS and Nielsen will ensure that the maximum number of titles are claimed for posterity,

and represented in the British National Bibliography (BNB).

“At a time when all organisa-tions are seeking the best solution for outsourcing require-ments it makes sense for the two major players in the biblio-graphic data supply industry in the UK to collaborate to provide an unbeatable service to the British Library” said Lesley Whyte, MD of BDS and leader in the bidding process for the two companies. “We are confident that by working together for the British Library, libraries across the country and the nation will benefit.”

The award of the new contract runs for two years, with yearly options for the British Library to renew for three years thereafter before re-tendering has to take place.

zero,” he said, “price fixing or not.”

Duggan anchored the pub-lishers’ argument, noting that while it was true that anyone could publish these days, all those writers who do self-pub-lish successfully ultimately wind up with traditional publishers. “We’re in a perfect storm of innovation,” she posited, “and the publishing industry has responded magnificently. This is a hallelujah moment for publish-ing.” In her closing remarks, she referenced the value added by publishers, asking Lau if he’d ever go to a movie theater to watch an hour and a half of You Tube Clips.

The final verdict? A stirring comeback for the publisher side, who turned the crowd around: 41 supported the resolution, 147 opposed, 13 undecided.

The Great Debate – publishers come from behind

BDS and Nielsen win British Library contract

FAIR DEALINGS

Bookseller Blackwell’s has appointed Ingram’s VitalSource® as its ebooks solutions partner.

“As the UK’s largest Academic Bookseller, our network of campus and online bookshops has always prided itself on ensuring that the right book is in the right place at the right time,” said David Prescott, Managing Director, Blackwell’s Bookshop and Online. “The education community is now looking to us to provide innovation in the digital age, and with the VitalSource platform, we have the resources to deliver a variety of comprehensive e-textbook offerings to the students and institutions we serve.”

Content contracts, orders, and fi nancial management remain completely in Blackwell’s control.

Blackwell’s chooses VitalSource®

To contact the London Show Daily at the Fair with your news, visit us at the Publishers Weekly stand G470Reporting for BookBrunch by Nicholas Clee and Liz ThomsonReporting for Publishers Weekly by Andrew Albanese, Rachel Deahl and Jim Milliot

Project Management: Joseph MurrayLayout and Production: Heather McIntyreEditorial Co-ordinator (UK): Marian Sheil

To subscribe to Publishers Weekly, call 800-278-2991 or go to www.publishersweekly.com

Subscribe to BookBrunch via www.bookbrunch.co.uk or email [email protected]

London Show Daily produced by Jellyfi sh Print Solutions 01489 897373

www.publishersweekly.comwww.bookbrunch.co.uk


Open Road Integrated Media has teamed with Italian publishing giant

Mondadori to digitise, distrib-ute and market English-lan-guage e-book versions of titles from Mondadori’s catalogue. Mondadori is Open Road’s first foreign publishing partner and kicks off the company’s interna-tional publishing partner pro-gram. “Open Road is commit-ted to working with interna-tional publishers to bring works from foreign countries to a wider audience than they have ever had before,” said Open Road cofounder Jane Friedman. “We are excited to build on the success we have enjoyed with our American partners and to start our international publish-ing program with Mondadori.”

Open Road will begin mar-keting the digital editions of Mondadori titles this summer starting with 50 ebooks. As part of its marketing effort Open Road will create original videos that will be distributed through its online platform and syndi-cated to content partners. The Mondadori titles will be on sale globally through Open Road’s

usual e-tailing outlets including Amazon.com, Apple iBook-store, BarnesandNoble.com, Google/IndieBound, Kobo Books, OverDrive, and the Sony Reader Store.

“Thanks to the digital revolu-tion,” said Maurizio Costa, dep-uty chairman and chief execu-tive of the Mondadori Group, “geographical barriers are fall-ing and the publisher is increas-ingly becoming also the pro-moter of its authors, not only at the national level, but also inter-nationally.” The agreement with Open Road, Costa added, will give Mondadori’s authors “direct access to the biggest mar-ket in the world.”

Open Road launches international program with Mondadori

Mondadori CEO Maurizio Costa

4 LONDON SHOW DAILY 17 APRIL 2012

FAIR DEALINGS

Swedish super-agency Salo-monsson has another big Scandinavian trilogy at this year’s London Book Fair. The outfi t (which is famous for rep-resenting internationally-known Scandinavian writers including Jo Nesbo) closed over 10 deals for Anders de la Motte’s A.R.G. trilogy in the days leading up to the fair. Now Salomonsson is overseeing a heated auction for the work in the UK.

The fi rst book in the series, Geim, was de la Motte’s debut, and came out in Sweden in 2010; it went on to become a local bestseller and win the First Book Award from the Swedish

Academy of Writers. Geim follows a petty criminal named Henrik HP Petterson who enters a large-scale alternate reality game that, quickly, proves more dangerous than thrilling. Petterson’s path then crosses with a female detective. The next title, Buzz, has already been published in Sweden, while book three, Bubble, will come out in the country in August 2012.

De le Motte is a former cop who also oversaw the security team at a major technology company.

The trilogy has already been sold in nine countries, and most recently in Russia and Iceland.

Salamonsson shops new Swedish trilogy at LBF

In a bit of creative deal-mak ing , ag en t s P e t e r McGuigan and Stephen Bar-

bara, at Foundry Literary + Media, closed two deals – for an adult novel and a YA novel – for a debut thriller that was initially submitted as a standalone novel. The pair sold Geoffrey Girard’s Cain’s Blood at auction to Stacy Creamer at Touchstone and, simultaneously, closed on a YA version of the novel, Cain XP11, with Courtney Bongiolatti at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Both deals – the adult one drew a six-figure advance, while the YA one drew high five figures – were for North American rights.

Girard teaches high school English at an all-boys private school in Ohio, and initially sub-mitted an adult thriller – Barbara called it a high-concept “dark techno-thriller about blood” –

to the agency. The agency was quickly pulled in by the work which, when it was initially sub-mitted, was told from the per-spectives of two characters – a 15 year-old-boy and a former Army Ranger.

W h e n B a r b a r a a n d McGuigan began working with Girard, they realized they could have two books on their hands, instead of one, by splitting the narratives and creating standalone books centered on each narrator. As Barbara explained: “It became clear to us that this writer’s story had two unique iterations – one adult and one YA.” With that in mind, the pair asked Girard to rework his story, and then the agents focused on selling both works to different divisions at one house, with McGuigan handling the adult sale, and Barbara the YA one.

Foundry splits

one story into two

books and deals

At the HarperCollins party, the traditional fair-opener: (from left) Carlo Feltrinelli, Deborah Owen, Ed Victor, and Anthony Forbes Watson.

Louise Haines at Fourth Estate has bought world rights in journalist Hadley Freeman’s Be Awesome: Modern Essays for Modern Ladies from Georgia Garrett of RCW. Freeman, a star columnist for

the Guardian and a contributor to US and UK Vogue, offers a collection of “funny, insightful essays on every aspect of being a young woman today - with the aim of making you an awesome one”.

NEWS ◆

BRIEF

Fourth Estate has Awesome buy

Ingram delivers content to the widest breadth of

potential readers worldwide, including retail customers,

library patrons, and students—in any format.

More content. More reach. More sales.

Stand H400

ingramcontent.com

LONDON SHOW DAILY 17 APRIL 2012


Two high-ranking members of China’s government were joined by the Duke of York and Education Secretary Michael Gove at a reception to launch the China Market Focus of the London Book Fair at

the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Sunday evening. The presence of Li Changchun, propaganda chief of the Chinese Communist Party, and Liu Yandong, the highest ranking female politician in China and hotly tipped for promotion in the October reshuffle (who has responsibility for the scientific and cultural sec-tors), reflects the importance the Chinese government is placing on the Market Focus Initiative.

At an event attended by senior British publishers including Gail Rebuck, John Makinson, Ursula Mack-enzie, David Roche, Nigel Newton and Stephen Bourne, all the speakers emphasized the importance of the relationship between the UK and China. Mr Li said that the Market Focus would create an opportunity for international publishers to learn more about Chinese culture and for the Chinese publishers to learn from the cream of the international publishing industry. Michael Gove asserted that “Our peoples and our nations are closer together than ever”, and that the London Book Fair was the perfect occasion for strengthening those ties. Other speakers were Lie Bin-jie, Minster of the General Administration of Press and

Publication (GAPP); Martin Davidson, Chief Execu-tive of the British Council; Alistair Burtenshaw, Direc-tor of the London Book Fair; Wu Shulin, Vice-Minister of GAPP; and the author Tie Ning, who was in discus-sion with fellow author Bi Feiyu at the Fair on Mon-day.

Li Changchun will also be meeting with David Cam-eron and William Hague during his visit to London. Madame Liu has been in Northern Ireland, and while in London will co-chair the first meeting of a high-level mechanism on Sino-British cultural exchanges before moving on to Brussels.

FAIR DEALINGSPenguin Children’s has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from its US cousin Dutton in The Fault in Our Stars, plus two new novels from John Green, as well as the author’s backlist titles Will Grayson, Will Grayson and the award-winning An Abundance of Katherines.

Francesca Dow, MD of Penguin Children’s, said: “John Green is the most powerful of storytellers, savvy, exciting, brilliant at connecting with a huge range of readers. We look forward with great anticipation to what he is going to write next and are proud to publish him at Penguin in the UK.”

Green is the New York Times best-selling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns, and the 2006 recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award, and a 2009 Edgar Award.

Quercus has bought world rights in two short novels by Patrick McCabe. Goodbye Mr Fish and No Orchids for Mr Nobody are “twin tales of uncoiling menace, one a contemporary tale of metropolitan dread, the other, the warped posthumous testimony of a liar”. McCabe, who has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, will be reunited with Jon Riley, who had edited him at Picador and Faber. The agent was Dublin-based Marianne Gunn O’Connor.

Joel Rickett at Viking has bought world rights in what he describes as “Moneyball meets Freakonomics for football”. The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally is touted as the fi rst big book on football’s data revolution. The book will reveal “why preventing a goal is more valuable than scoring one, why taking too many shots might kill you, and why it is far better to improve your worst player than buy a superstar”.

Anderson, a former German professional goalkeeper, is a professor at Cornell University in New York. David Sally is a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. The agent was David Luxton at DLA. Viking will publish in the UK in April 2013.

NEWS ◆

BRIEFS

Laffont at Edit ions Lattès in France. They will publish the book s imultaneously this autumn, and Uggie will be donning his diamante collar and putting his best paw forward for a full promotional tour.

At the annual eve-of-f a i r Harpe rCo l l i n s Home House party, Nevins, of LA-based Renaissance Literary & Talent, told BookBrunch that interest in the prop-erty is running high, boosted by further open-ings of The Artist. And Uggie does have a story to tell – for von Müller rescued the pooch from the dog pound, where he was facing likely death. His career has since included touring with a dog talent show, a role in Water for

Uggie – the book of the Fair?Pan Macmillan has signed two further book series with The School of Life. Editorial director Liz Gough bought world rights in a direct deal.

The fi rst six books will be a continuation of the How To self-help series, which launches in the UK in May 2012, and for which rights have been sold in 10 international territo-ries. The second series, also of six books and tentatively titled the Great Thinkers, comprises a set of collectable pocket guides offering essential life lessons.

Founded in 2008, The School of Life is dedicated to offering “good ideas for everyday living”.

More life lessons

Royal presence at China launch

From left, Michael Gove, HRH The Duke of York, Li Changchun, Liu Yandong

Publishers are hot to trot with Uggie – My Story, the rags

to riches tale of the canine star of the Oscar-winning film,The Artist. The 10-year-old Jack Russell will put paw t o p a p e r w i t h t h e h e l p o f j o u r n a l i s t Wendy Holden, who approached West Coast agent Alan Nevins with the idea having seen Uggie and his owner-trainer Omar von Müller on The Graham Norton Show.

Publishers, like the public, enjoy a shaggy dog story and already N e v i n s h a s s o l d UK rights to Carole Tonkinson at Harper-C o l l i n s U K , J e n Bergstrom at Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster in the US and Laurent

Elephants and commer-cial work – most recently as a Spokesdog for Nintendo. During film-ing for The Artist, doggie doubles were trained, Nevins said, but Uggie didn’t need them.

T o n k i n s o n s a i d : “Uggie is enchanting. He has already graced Gra-ham Norton’s sofa and appeared on the BBC. We look forward to his author tour and making this the Christmas gift book of 2012. Move over Meerkats.”

Victoria Barnsley, H C U K C E O , i s enchanted. “I’m besotted with dogs,” she told BookBrunch, speaking of her Golden Lab Roxy, and one of her pups, “the runt of the litter, with only one kidney. I bottle fed her for two months.”

6

VISIT US AT LONDON BOOK FAIR Stand U105

SHARJAHINTERNATIONALBOOK FAIRGateway to the ArabPublishing world

“It was such a great fair, great program, greathospitality, great business opportunities, great selection of international publishers. I am so happy to be involved and will be promoting it everywhere.” Nermin Molloaglu, Kalem Agency

Hosting an international publishing programme & translation grant programme

8040 a-w A4:Layout 1 4/4/12 10:38 Page 1


in which publishers and booksellers do busi-ness with each other has not really changed since 1957 – when the last version of the Net Book Agreement came into operation. But the bookselling world of today is light years away from the trading environment of 1957. New financial models have to be tried and tested by publishers, with both parties recognising that the only ones that are going to work and stick are those that bring benefits to both publishers and booksellers.

In the last six years, the number of BA members has fallen alarmingly. Traditional booksellers – and indeed the Booksellers Association – have had to face a myriad of challenges. Nevertheless, there are some encouraging signs. In the US, the number of independent booksellers in membership of the American Booksellers Association has increased – the first time in a very long period. Despite the fallout from the closure of Borders, I still find this surprising, because with digitisation more advanced in the States than over here, you would have thought that the trading environment would be even more competitive than it is here. And I never cease to be amazed by the resilience of so many of our members.

There are lots of different parties who will influence how the book retailing sector unfolds during the next few years. Consumers, of course – and the BA has produced POS to urge book buyers to help keep bookshops on our high streets. But also IT developers in Silicon Valley; global retailers; national and local government; and the competition authorities. But to my mind the publishers have more influence than all these others put together. As copyright owners of a unique product they are in a powerful position. They have played a considerable part in determining how the bookselling sector has developed to where it is in 2012. Publishers have to consider how vital booksellers are to them during the next stage of the book trade’s development and to work out ways in which diversity can flourish.

I think the Rubicon has been crossed. In the US, in the UK and in Ireland there’s now an awareness by publishers that they need good booksellers. The more difficult part is working out ways in which greater support can be given – to mutual benefit. But publishers, by temperament, are creative individuals and not a bit above risk taking.

And some risks do have to be taken if the bookselling sector is to survive. I am optimistic that we will see positive changes in the near future.

Tim Godfray is CE O of The Booksellers Association of the UK & Ireland ([email protected]). H150.

As I write this, a couple of weeks before the London Book Fair opens, I find the state of the UK book trade pretty depressing, writes Tim Godfray. The latest

figures from Nielsen BookScan for the Total Consumer Market (TCM) show that sales of printed books during the first 12 weeks of this year are 10.1% down on the same period in 2011. Indeed, the year-on-year figures since 2009 show a continual decline.

But this minus 10.1% excludes ebooks, and publishers in 2012 have been reporting some staggering increases in digital sales – albeit from a pretty low base. Even so, if ebooks had been factored into the TCM figures, we would still have seen a decline in the sales of printed and ebooks overall – but at a lower level, around 3.5%. I know that negative figures are also being reported by non-book retailers, but you hope that in a recession books do better than most other commodities – sadly, it no longer seems to be the case.

In broad terms, independents seem to be doing better than the chains, and Amazon and the other internet booksellers are faring better than the traditional bookshops. High street and campus booksellers now regard Amazon as their main competitor. The Office of Fair Trading calculated that Ama-zon had a market share of between 70% and 80% in the online bookselling sector, and that assessment was made before Amazon announced it had sold more than one million Kindles at Christmas.

Consumers tell our members that they often buy Kindles unaware that subsequently they can only buy ebooks in Kindle format from Amazon’s Kindle store. We would like Amazon to cease using proprietary software, to adopt the epub for-mat and to move to full interoperability – thus permitting other booksellers to supply content for the Kindle reader.

Booksellers want to have the opportunity to compete fairly. At the moment, it seems to be somewhat one-sided. Particularly if you consider that Amazon has registered its busi-ness in Luxembourg, enabling them to sup-ply ebooks to UK consumers at 3% VAT, whereas a bookseller selling ebooks from the UK has to supply at 20% VAT. This gives a massive competitive advantage to Amazon.

Brave new worldIn 2006, the Booksellers Association (BA) commissioned a report from Martyn Daniels entitled Brave New World. It was a vision-ary piece of work at the time. He said: “It will not be a question of ‘if’ digitisation will have an effect on the general book market, but ‘when’. What we do not know is what will determine the ‘tipping point’ and

when that change will happen. But what we can say with certainty is that when the internet first appeared on the horizon, few booksellers took the development very seriously and a number of the bigger book-sellers now bitterly regret their previous policies. So BA members are urged to start putting together a digital strategy, if they haven’t done so already; certain develop-ments are going to take place very quickly.”

Tipping pointWell, the tipping point for ebooks has come, and it has come fast. Consumers are now going into bookshops to ask for ebooks. All but the largest bookshops are finding it hard to supply ebooks at reasonable margins. At present, there are only two options for most independent booksellers to sell ebooks to consumers: through Gardners’ Hive or by becoming a Google Affiliate to sell Google eBooks. There are concerns over the latter, because booksellers fear that they could well lose the customer to Google after the initial transaction. So because of structural problems in the sector, more business is being lost from the high street and the campus to the large internet booksellers.

Publishers are concerned about this as well. A few years ago, publishers were quietly going “hell for leather” to supply consumers direct with their digital products, thus aiming to bypass the bookseller, in order to make a greater margin and collect consumer data.

But there has been, I believe, a serious re-think among the leading UK publishing houses. There is a real concern that if shop windows go, consumers will find the “discovery” element in selecting a book that much harder – and publishers’ sales will suffer. More importantly, they will be left with no proper diversity in the marketplace – just with a small number of very large book retailing customers who will call the shots.

Publishers now recognise that their book-shop partners need more help and support, and accept that new ways have to be tried. The basic financial model governing the way

Past the point of no return

Tim Godfray


The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing GroupStand # i605

InternatIonal orderIng InformatIon:NBN internationalairport Business centre10 Thornbury roadPlymouth Pl6 7PP, uKTel: +44 (0) 1752 202301fax: +44 (0) 1752 202333e-mail: [email protected]: www.nbninternational.com

UnIted StateS orderIng InformatIon:rowman & littlefield Publishing Group15200 NBN Way, P.O. Box 191Blue ridge Summit, Pa 17214Tel: 1-800-462-6420fax: 1-800-338-4550Website: www.rowman.com

rlPg ebooksa simultaneous release of all frontlist books in print and ebook editions

muniCh 1972tragEdy, tError, and triumPh at thE oLymPiC gamEs

by david CLay LargE

roWman & LittLEfiELd PubLishErsapril 2012 • 396 pages

978-0-7425-6739-9 • $29.95 • £18.95 • Cloth

finding love that lastsbrEaking thE PattErn of dEad End rELationshiPs

by vEra sonJa maass

roWman & LittLEfiELd PubLishErs2012 • 208 pages

978-1-4422-1278-7 • $35.00 • £21.95 • Cloth

alfred hitChCoCk’ s frenzythE Last mastErPiECEby raymond foEry

sCarECroW PrEssJune 2012 • 176 pages

978-0-8108-7755-9 • $40.00 • £24.95 • Cloth

the food and feasts of JesusinsidE thE WorLd of first CEntury farE, With mEnus

and rECiPEsby dougLas E. nEEL and JoEL a. Pugh

roWman & LittLEfiELd PubLishErsJuly 2012 • 232 pages

978-1-4422-1290-9 • $39.95 • £24.95 • Cloth

China in and beyond theheadlines

3rd EditionEditEd by timothy b. WEston and LionEL m. JEnsEn

roWman & LittLEfiELd PubLishErsJuly 2012 • 384 pages

978-1-4422-0905-3 • $35.00 • £21.95 • Paper978-1-4422-0904-6 • $99.00 • £59.95 • Cloth

Clash of CrownsWiLLiam thE ConquEror, riChard LionhEart, and

ELEanor of aquitainE—a story of bLoodshEd, bEtrayaL,and rEvEngE

By Mary Mcauliffe


978-1-4422-1471-2 • $26.00 • £19.95 • Cloth

blowing smokerEthinking thE War on drugs Without Prohibition and

rEhabby miChaEL J. rEzniCEk


978-1-4422-1514-6 • $35.00 • £21.95 • Cloth

still the greatestthE EssEntiaL songs of thE bEatLEs’ soLo CarEErs

by andrEW grant JaCkson

sCarECroW PrEssJuly 2012 • 288 pages

978-0-8108-8222-5 • $35.00 • £21.95 • Cloth

important that all content is available to your customers and at the very best price. The Harry Potter books are some of the most popular, most important books in the world, so I think it makes sense. No one had to be dragged in kicking and screaming, they’ve been immensely supportive, and we’ve been delighted to work with people who know more about retailing than probably anyone in the world.

AA: Can I get your impression of the ebook market in general?CR: I think it’s terrific for publishers, retailers and for authors, as more content is made available and is being read. But it also comes with challenges, as publishers have to justify their role in the value chain. In the digital world, marketing to consumers becomes more important and publishers must become experts at building brands. The great problem ebooks throw up is discovery. You used to be able to pay a bookseller to put books on a table, now there are fewer stores, and fewer of those tables. And, it’s not just about ebooks. As the tablet becomes more ubiquitous, publishers will need to create new products. So, with digital, publishing kind of shifts from editorial, distribution and marketing to the trade, to editorial, product develop-ment and marketing to consumers.

AA: You mention new products and the tablet market; what are your thoughts on so-called enhanced ebooks?CR: I’ve always believed in the opportuni-ties of enhanced ebooks, but I think they’ve failed to take off for a number of reasons. Firstly, because publishers hadn’t really figured out how to enhance content and add value. I also think “enhanced ebooks” is a horrible expression. But going forward I do see the tablet becoming ubiquitous, and that’s an enormous market for publishers to start creating content for. It’s quite easy for me to see how you enhance non-fiction – I can see how a cookbook with video demonstrating how to make a recipe adds value. With children’s books, I understand how live animation enhances value. In the fiction world, however, it is a struggle, because the value of fiction is the skill of an author to create an imaginary world in your mind’s eye that is so rich, and immersive. But I think enhanced ebooks is a skill that publishers are going to have to have, and one that can add to their place in the value chain.

At the end of March, Potter-more, JK Rowling’s site for all things Harry Potter, went live with its ebookstore, offering official versions of the popular

Potter books in digital editions for the first time. Andrew Albanese caught up with Charlie Redmayne, Pottermore’s Chief Executive Officer, to talk about the launch, the decision not to use digital rights management (DRM) and the future of books in the digital world.

AA: Congratulations on the Pottermore ebookstore launch at the end of March; any news or feedback to share?CR: Thank you, first of all. Whenever you go live with one of these sites you fear things are going to happen you’ve not anticipated, and with the ebookstore, we knew there was going to be great, immediate demand, so it was very challenging. What delighted me most was that the platform stood up well; I think users found the experience relatively easy and attractive. I think in general it was well-priced, too, so it all went down very well. We had a lot of positive feedback from customers, and in the press. We’re not sharing specifics, but I can say that we sold over £1 million worth of ebooks in the first three days.

AA: You’ve decided not to use DRM on your ebooks, just watermarking. Can you talk about that decision?CR: The most important thing for us is that we felt it important that if someone bought a Harry Potter ebook they should be able to read that book on any platform they choose. The thinking behind this is that I don’t believe DRM is effective in stopping piracy. Harry Potter was already one of the most pirated books in the world, and the reason for this is because it is one of the most popular, and it has not been available in ebook form. But it didn’t require digital files being made available for digital files to show up on pirate sites – physical books were used to create those pirate digital editions. My feeling is that if we’ve learned anything from the music industry, it is to make content available to consumers on the platforms they want to consume on, and at prices they find reasonable to pay. If you do that, the necessity for piracy is less. We do use watermarking, both visible and invisible, so we could possibly track a file back to an individual. But ultimately, what we want is for people to buy Harry Potter ebooks,

to be able to download them to multiple devices that they or their family own, and to enjoy the experience of discovering these extraordinary books.

AA: Unlike half of the big six publishers, you also allow libraries to lend your ebooks. Can you talk about your library policy?CR: In my previous role at HarperCollins I was very involved with libraries, and my per-sonal view is that libraries play a very impor-tant part in their communities, and an important part when it comes to discovery. This is something we should support. The challenge is that we need to protect the rights of the intellectual property (IP) holder, because a physical book degenerates over time and, eventually, it will need to be replaced. In a digital world that never hap-pens, or it should never happen, so a digital file could be still available in a hundred years. So, we wanted to support libraries, but we wanted it to be limited. We have a five-year limit from the time the library buys that book, during which time it can be lent for an unlimited number of times (one copy/one user). We think that’s a fantastic value for the library and, at the same time, protects the IP holder.

AA: Much has also been made of Amazon sending customers to Pottermore to get the ebooks for their Kindles. As far as we know, that was unprecedented. What kind of spell did Harry Potter conjure to make that happen?CR: When we came up with Pottermore, and it became clear that the ebooks would only be available from the site, partners like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony were actually very keen to do this and were very engaged. You’d have to ask them their stra-tegic thinking, but I imagine that if you’re Amazon or B&N and you’ve created these fantastic ereading devices and platforms, it is


Pottermore – the fi rst monthAndrew Albanese discusses the launch of Pottermore, which offers official digital versions of JK Rowling’s books, with Charlie Redmayne

Charlie Redmayne


people to buy ebooks and not just borrow them. To get the library relationship started, Bilbary reached a deal with the State Library of Kansas, through which the library will add a link to Bilbary on its website as an option for patrons. State Librarian Jo Budler said the move serves two purposes: serving patrons who want to buy ebooks quickly and easily, and helping to support a new “library friendly” player in the growing e-bookselling market.

ReviewsCoates is working with Ingram’s Core Source in developing Bilbary. His goal is to include books in as many languages as possi-ble, and Bilbary will use ebook metadata to restrict sales to territories were ebooks can be sold. To help consumers find ebooks, Bil-bary will carry reviews from reputable sources as well as recommendations from booksellers, affiliated librarians and teach-ers. The site will also include places for pub-lishers to blog and to post promotional material. Readers will be able to suggest titles that they would like to read as ebooks, but cannot find on the site.

Publishers on both sides of the Atlantic have been eager for more online retailers to spring up to provide customers with more places to buy ebooks and give

more competition to Amazon, Apple and BN.com, writes Jim Milliot. That’s just what former Waterstones head Tim Coates had in mind in creating Bilbary.com, an interna-tional ebookstore that went live with a beta test on 20 March, with 340,000 titles from about 2,300 publishers. Since the launch Coates has been adding titles from publish-ers that sell ebooks using the agency model, and had approximately 100,000 titles by the time the London Book Fair began. By the end of the month the plan is to add a further 150,000 titles from publishers outside of the US, but for which the publishers hold world rights. The final phase of the early rollout will be to add between 60,000 to 80,000 “quality” self-published titles and a selection of out-of-print books.

Coates and other members of his team are at the fair looking, not only to sign up more publishers from around the world, but also to get content into Bilbary’s “cloud”, so that

it can offer cloud browsing and reading. Ebooks will be made available in as many formats as possible: “We are device agnos-tic,” Coates said.

Publisher friendlyTo compete with the established ebook retailers, Coates is positioning Bilbary to be publisher, customer and library friendly. Publishers can set their own prices and change them whenever they wan t ; t h ey will receive 80% of sales, with Bilbary taking 20%. Publishers can also sell or rent ebooks by the chapter, and lend them out for a lim-ited period. Coates sees the lending option as a particularly attractive option for expensive reference titles that publishers could lend at a reduced rate.

To facilitate lending through libraries, Bil-bary will let publishers set a “borrowing” price that is less than the sale price and include a time limit. (Bilbary will set a 20-day limit as a default.) Coates hopes that by offering flexible pricing, and different lend-ing and renting options, he can encourage

Bilbary.com gets rolling

Indies at Earls Courtpicture, as well as The Maybelline Story: And the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It, for which BYB recently sold Spanish rights, and which has been slated for a four-part televi-sion series. Some spring 2012 titles appearing at the show are Living with Multiple Personalities: The Christine Ducommun Story, The Rebirth of Suzanne Blac and Truth Never Dies: The William Chasey Story. The company is also looking for buying opportunities at the Fair.

Copyright Clearance CenterMichael Healy, Copyright Clearance Cen-ter’s Executive Director for Author and Pub-lisher Relations, called London “one of our important shows,” and notes that CCC is using it primarily to reinforce established relationships. “It’s principally about existing relationships with existing rights holders,” says Healy. “Major rights holders we repre-sent are exhibiting and attending, and it’s an opportunity to meet with clients to talk to

them about what we do for them.” CCC will use the show to highlight its Per-

missions Acquisition Service, a suite of new services designed to simplify the licensing of content between rights holders and enable re-publication, which launched late last year.

The London Book Fair is an opportu-nity for raising profiles and making international connections for inde-

pendent publishers and organisations from around the world, writes Gabe Habash. Here is what some of the independent presses and organisations coming to London, from the US, are hoping to achieve at the Fair.

Soho PressSoho Press is treating the fair as a sales trip, and will be showcasing four titles in particu-lar: Nine Months by Paula Bomer (August 2012), Too Bright to Hear, Too Loud to See

by Juliann Garey (December), Little Wolves by Thomas Maltman (January 2013) and Man in the Empty Suit by

Sean Ferrell (February 2013). For Nine Months, Soho is looking to sell translation rights; for the other three, they are looking to sell UK rights.

United Nations Publications London is also a sales trip for United Nations Publications, which is highlighting titles for a broad audience, including Basic Facts About the United Nations and Disarma-ment: A Basic Guide, as well as upcoming titles The League of Nations: From Collec-tive Security to Global Rearmament and

United Nations at a Glance (an introductory book for teenagers). United Nations Publi-cations sales and promotions officer Vlad Vitkovski also says that librarians will have a chance to learn more about the UN eCollec-tion, a research and reference collection of all current publications of the UN, including books, reports, journals and working papers (totalling more than 2,000 titles), to be launched in summer 2012.

C&T Publishing One publisher looking to buy as well as sell rights is C&T Publishing, which has sent Sandy Balin, Sales Director, and Amy Marson, Publisher, to the show. Stash Books, their line celebrating a handmade lifestyle, will be highlighted for rights oppor-tunities, but C&T will also look to buy sew-ing and soft craft books geared toward children aged eight to 14 years.

Bettie Youngs BooksBettie Youngs Books is taking 10 books to London, a mixture of upcoming and recently released titles. The publisher, represented at the show by Youngs and Suzanne Kenyon, will continue branding On Toby’s Terms, a book that is in development for a motion



The Trusted U.S. Partner

Minimize your risk, returns, and up-front investment whilemaximizing your sales potential.

Print-On-Demandbased distribution

Fully integratedservice provider

Digital and offset printing, printand eBook distribution, complete marketing services, and a full suite of pre-press services…

all under one roof!

eBook Distribution

Supplement your print sales through Bookmasters’ eBook distribution network, which includes all the major resellers .

Global DistributionLeverage our global PODdistribution network to sell your titles internationallywith no inventory investment.

“With their eBook, offset, and print-on-demand capabilities,Bookmasters embodies ‘the new paradigm’ for book distribution.”

Santos Rodriguez, Nowtilus Publishing, Madrid, Spain

For more information call 1.419.281.5100 or visit www.bookmasters.com

Scan for a chance to win a FREEaccount set up or eBook conversion


quotes, pictures and videos. “Tumblr revitalised Twitter during the low periods,” said Erin Cox, adding that: “The integration between the plat-forms was seamless.”

Speaking about working together, Nirasimhan said: “It was very organic. We all had roles and we were always open with communication.” The committee members, all of whom have jobs or internships, established a schedule back in the initial meetings to figure out who could post and when. Since then, they’ve shared responsibil-i t i e s , moni tor ing a l l the platforms so that “anybody who says something is heard – we acknowledged their voice and participated,” said Nirasimhan. The committee’s network became so effective that now, if anyone has a question, they will get multiple responses from other users before the committee even sees the question.

S o c i a l m e d i a a c t i v i t y is expected to peak from the beginning of this week, 16 April, as activities and events begin to kick in ahead of the day itself. On 23 April, activities planned include comprehensive photo documentation to capture the giver experience, which will be critical for next year’s WBN. For the most part, though, the NYU committee will work behind the scenes.

Although other contributors have joined WBN US to line up more publicity through more traditional media, Lennertz credited the committee’s work with giving WBN US a good start by using social media. “They started the drumbeat about WBN with a budget of zero,” he observed. And the students were thrilled for the opportunity: “It’s every book nerd’s dream,” said Cox, “to work on a project that celebrates books with people you’ve never met, across 50 states. That’s been a surreal thing. That opportunity doesn’t happen every day.”

When World Book Night o r gan i s e r s expanded the book-giving

event from the UK to the US for 2012, they knew that generating buzz, and understanding, about a programme with the goal of giving away one million books on a single day would be a chal-lenge, given the limited budget available. So when the newly appointed WBN US Executive Director Carl Lennertz was a p p r o a c h e d b y A n d r e a Chambers, director of New York University’s Center for Publishing, and offered the help of the students on NYU’s Master of Science in Publishing course to publicise the event, it was a no brainer. “I wept in gratitude,” Lennertz quipped.

To get the programme rolling, Chambers worked with the Pub-lishing Student Association, which sponsors an annual book drive and mentors new students, to put together a committee that would select the WBN US team members. Spearheaded by Laura Flavin, a student who is the Vice President of the Publishing Stu-dent Association, the committee selected six students (in addition to Flavin) to spread the WBN US message via social media, picking Lavanya Nirasimhan, who had the most experience with social media, to head the committee.

After forming last fall, the NYU committee put together an

expansive network of news, pub-licity and outreach programmes that rely heavily on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr; all were in p lace when Lenner t z announced the 30 WBN US-selected titles in December.

“Givers were the most impor-tant thing,” said Nirasimhan, who said the committee’s initial efforts were largely devoted to getting givers – the people that will give out the books – to sign up before the deadline on 1 February. Since then, the com-mittee’s focus has shifted to extending the awareness of WBN to non-givers, an effort that will continue until World Book Night on 23 April. The eventual goal, Nirasimhan said, is that on 23 April: “If a person sees someone giving another a book, it should register that

this is World Book Night.”

T h e g r o u p ’ s strategy was divided into sub-groups along plat-form lines, w i t h t h e intent, said Nirasimhan, of “synching everything and having a

cohesive message”. Facebook became a forum for givers and potential givers, as the commit-tee used the account to answer questions, and as a landing page for other users to answer ques-tions for each other. “There was a lot of disseminating informa-tion,” said Nirasimhan, as infor-mation such as “deadlines” and “troubleshooting” found a home on Facebook. Posts made to the Facebook account, which has more than 7,000 “Likes”, routinely get hundreds of responses.

Twitter, meanwhile, became an avenue for blogger outreach and extending WBN’s exposure. Committee member Erin Cox noted that a few weeks before the 1 February deadline for giver registration, activity on Twitter “exploded” and the committee watched as WBN activity spread from core industry people to bloggers, and finally to the gen-eral public. It became so big that the students began seeing men-tions of WBN on their personal Twitter accounts, from friends who had nothing to do with the book industry. As of 2 April, the WBN USA account had more than 2,000 followers.

Tumblr, managed by Laura Peraza, focused on the books themselves, harnessing the platform’s visual layout with

Beating the drum for WBN USGabe Habash explains how NYU students are helping spread the message about World Book Night through social media

Alicia Olivares, Hannah Werthan, Lavanya Narasimhan, Carl Lennertz, Erin Cox, Laura Peraza and Laura Flavin

Some of the World Book Night US editions


Ingram’s inventory of physical and digital content and

related products is the largest in the industry.

More content. More reach. More sales.

Stand H400

ingramcontent.com


through its purchases of US Treasury bonds.But, after three decades of strong growth,

China faces fresh challenges. Relations with other great powers, starting with the US, are still often ill-defined beyond general princi-ples. Domestically, its economy needs to be rebalanced to lessen dependence on exports and to investment in infrastructure, con-struction and other fixed assets.

Under the Five-Year Plan, which went into operation last year, consumption, which is low as a proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP), is being boosted, in part through increases in the minimum wage that can reach 20 per cent a year. Man-ufacturers are being encouraged to shift their operations away from the coastal regions, which has spearheaded economic expan-sion, to inland regions including the giant metropolis of Chongqing in western China, which counts 32 million inhabitants and where a technology park is due to turn out 100 million laptops a year.

The Plan aims to move Chinese industry up the technology chain so that it will make higher value-added products, both to satisfy domestic demand and to sell to overseas markets. By 2015, China aims to be making its own 220-seat airliner and to have devel-oped energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly industries to combat its major pollution problem.

Social and economic change coincide with a transition in the top leadership that will start at the Communist Party’s five-yearly Congress, around October. A new General Secretary of the Party will be named together with new members of the Politburo at the top of the Party. The following March, the annual session of the legislature, the National People’s Congress, will name a new State President and Prime Minister. Xi Jinping, the man most likely to become General Secretary and President, has been making himself better known with trips abroad.

By leading the Commu-nist Party to power in 1949, Mao changed China. Thirty years later, Deng changed not only his country but the world. This is still work in progress; China is still a relatively poor country. But given China’s engagement with the rest of the planet, how this journey turns out is of vital interest to everybody.

Jonathan Fenby’s new book on contemporary China, Tiger Head, Snake Tails; China Today, How it Got There and Where it Is Heading was published by Simon & Schuster on 29 March.

The rise of China and its engage-ment with the rest of the world has been the most important global event since the end of the Cold War two decades ago,

writes Jonathan Fenby. The effect has been felt all over the planet as the People’s Republic has become the second largest economy on earth, the biggest manufacturer and exporter – and the key player in world commodity markets, its up-scale consumer fuelling demand for European luxury goods, while its companies establish a growing presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

More than 60 million Chinese take holidays abroad each year; department stores in London install ATM cash machines with instructions in Chinese and American hotel chains offer Chinese breakfasts. At home, China’s domestic market offers the last great business frontier for foreign consumer goods, industrial equipment and, yes, books. As knowledge of foreign languages spreads (especially with wide-spread teaching of English) so the potential for foreign-language book sales expands while there is a steady stream of books about China abroad, and increasing translation of novels and memoirs from the mainland.

The expansion after the launch of market-led economic reforms at the end of the 1970s has amazed the world by its scale. But its speed has also been unusual. Now, three decades after the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, set the country on a new course, China is aiming at a second transformation, which reaches beyond the economy.

Once a predominantly rural country, the People’s Republic now has a majority of its people living in urban areas and plans to boost that during this decade. The urbanisa-tion of China has altered the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people. Migrant workers from backward villages assemble high-tech products in vast plants in ever-growing cities. Diets, dress and lifestyles have changed. In a few years, the country has gone from a time when land line telephones were few and unreliable to an era in which just about everybody has a mobile telephone – or, in many cases, several.

Highways, airlines and high-speed trains link major cities, breaking down the old geo-graphical divisions. While the Communist Party retains monopoly political rule and those regarded as threatening state security are sent to prison for long terms, individual liberties have increased greatly. People stage

protests over a wide range of subjects from the environment to the requisitioning of farm land by local authorities. Social media have blossomed beyond the state-owned press and broadcasting stations.

Given the country’s size (the third largest nation on earth after Russia and Canada), its 1.3 billion population (the biggest on the planet) and the insistence of its ruling politi-cal party on territorial unity, it is easy to see the People’s Republic as a giant monolith. It is, in fact, a nation of many parts.

Geographically, it ranges from the north-ern plains and mountains with their long, bitter winters to the sub-tropical south. Food

differs by region. There is a multiplicity of linguistic dialects. Each province has its tra-ditions and its source of pride. As an old say-ing has it: “Marry in Suzhou (famous for its canals and silk work – and claiming to house the most beautiful women in the country); Live in Hangzhou (extolled as a paradise on earth); Eat in Guangzhou (the southern city once known as Canton, which considers itself a culinary capital); and Die in Liuzhou (a city in the south-west where the sandal-wood coffins are held to preserve corpses).”

When Deng launched his economic revo-lution at the end of 1978, China had been exhausted by Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which followed more than a century of con-vulsions and invasions. The combination of cheap labour, cheap capital and a benign external environment, in which richer coun-tries welcomed cheap Chinese goods, led to an outcome that had not been seen before. Never before has a nation still in the course of development become so important glob-ally. Never before has a country with so many poor people – divide the bounding economic statistics by 1.3 billion people and you get a different picture of China’s wealth – been a major contributor to bankroll the richest country on earth, as China does

Tiger head, snake tails

( )“It is easy to see the People’s Republic as a giant monolith. It is, in fact, a nation of many parts.”

Jonathan Fenby


Build YOuR Own BRanddeliveR tO ManY PlatfORMs and devicesMaxiMize sales with flexiBle selling OPtiOnsReach a glOBal audience

PresentationToday / 17-AprDIGITAL THEATER 1

10:30 AM

Key Publishers’ eBook Stores Powered by Qbend

USAWolters-Kluwer Law and BusinessPPIHumanics Publishing

CanadaDC Education Publishing

SpainBlueBottleBooksLID Editorial

The NetherlandsEleven Publishing

SwedenSöderpalm Publishing

IndiaUnicorn BooksSterling PublishingStudium Press

www.facebook.com/qbend www.twitter.com/qbend

eBook SalesMulti-channel Publishing

Custom Publishing

DIGITAL ZONE

V 805

www.qbend.com

LBF12 PW Ad.indd 2 4/7/12 10:46:51 AM


Paul Harris at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “We’ve known for a long time that reading stories to children is one of the best ways to enrich their language and imagi-nation,” says Harris. “Magic Town is a tool that can help parents engage children in a whole new world of stories.”

Publishers and authorsFor publishers and authors, Magic Town offers a way to broaden their digital offering. Magic Town provides a solution to the “discoverability” problem, as children are drawn to Magic Town for a fun and engaging experience, while parents feel confident seeing brands they know.

To date, Magic Town has more than 250 stories under licence. Its partners include Oxford University Press, Simon & Schuster UK, Andersen Press, Egmont, Barefoot Books, Edzione EL, Hachette Children’s Books, Illuminated Films, Little Tiger Press and Usborne. “Our mission is to use technol-ogy to enhance the way children learn through storytelling,” says Mindshapes CEO David Begg. “And we’re excited to partner with many of the world’s top children’s publishers to bring their brands to life.”

The response from publishers, including Liz Cross, Head of Publishing at OUP Children’s Books, has been overwhelmingly positive. “What we like is that it is rooted in the idea of parents sharing stories with their young children,” says Cross. “We also like the way animation is used to move the story forward sympathetically.”

Some authors are also developing original works for Magic Town. Janey Louise Jones, creator of the Princess Poppy series, launched a new series called Superfairies exclusively in Magic Town. Likewise, Ian Whybrow’s Shrinky Kid brand has its own Magic Town house filled with “digital first” stories.

Publishers earn quarterly royalties based on how much time the Magic Town community engages with their brand, and receive feedback about reader profiles. Users get access to a portion of Magic Town for free; full access requires a subscription (£7.95 a month), and other pricing plans are being developed.

In the future, children will undoubtedly spend increasing amounts of time using screens, whether online, or on smartphones and tablets. Magic Town ensures that story time is a part of screen time, and not sidelined by it. We look forward to seeing you in Magic Town…where stories live.

Deb Gaffin is VP, Marketing at Mindshapes. You can visit Magic Town at www.magictown.com, and download the iPad version from the App Store later this spring.

For children, story time is magical, a chance to imagine, dream and learn. In Magic Town, story time enters a new digital age, writes Deb Gaffin.

Magic Town is a virtual world based on popular picture books and stories for young children. With content licensed from top publishers, it provides children aged two to six-plus with access to a wide range of new and existing brands in a single destination. They can play games, read and explore stories, interact with characters and down-load printable activities.

Launched in March, Magic Town is the latest interactive learning product developed by Mindshapes, a start-up founded in 2010. When the company’s founders went looking for engaging educational games and apps for their young children, they came up short, so they decided to create what they couldn’t find. By combining gameplay, early learning principles and storytelling, they hope that Magic Town will inspire children to develop a passion for reading and learning.

User experienceWhen children enter Magic Town, they meet Max, an animated guide who shows them around a vibrant landscape dotted with illustrated houses. Each house is devoted to a particular brand. There are houses of fairy tales, original titles and well-known series, such as Winnie the Witch, Aliens Love Underpants, Elmer, Little Princess and the World of Happy, to name a few. Each house holds stories, puzzles and activities devoted to that brand or series, and as children return to Magic Town each day, additional stories and houses appear.

Magic Town’s virtual world was built using games technology that provides each child with a customised experience. An algorithm based on the child’s age, gender and previous reading experience is used to present a new story every day the child logs

in. Parents can also customise their child’s experience by selecting specific brands they would like their child to explore.

Story formatEvery story in Magic Town is presented as a Livebook story format, a proprietary format designed to meet the developmental needs of young children. Livebooks are not ebooks or book apps, and they do not contain interac-tive elements that can distract from the narrative. Rather, Livebooks are lightly ani-mated versions of the original story that offer a choice of different reading modes. Children can watch a narrated story unfold; read with an adult or on their own; or interact with the screen to move the story forward.

In the most immersive reading mode, “Explore”, the narrator pauses to pose ques-tions tailored to the child’s profile. The child responds by clicking on an illustration, selecting an on-screen answer or completing an interactive task, such as typing a word or drawing a picture. Each question is designed to deepen the child’s understanding of the story and to mirror the way experienced teachers share picture books with students.

The ultimate aim of the Livebook format is to stimulate children’s creativity, as well as language and social development, and it was developed with input from teachers and child development experts, including Professor

Magic Town

Deb Gaffin



cedural reasons, and, on the merits, claim the scanning is permissible under fair use. In its motion, the Authors Guild asked the court for a partial judgment holding that the libraries’ efforts are not protected by any defence recognised by copyright law. “If they win this motion, the case is all but over,” noted NYLS’s Grimmelmann. That, he added, is unlikely and, barring further developments or delays, a trial is set for November.

Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et alThe high-profile Google Books case commanded more attention, but a conten-tious copyright infringement lawsuit filed in Atlanta in 2008 by academic publishers against individuals at Georgia State University (GSU) may ultimately deliver what publishers and authors sought to avoid in their ill-fated settlement attempt with Google: a significant fair-use ruling. The case involves a popular practice known as e-reserves – digital copies of course readings placed on a password-protected server for educational use. The trial and post-trial filings wrapped up last August, and a verdict could come any day.

At trial, publishers argued that GSU’s use of e-reserves was far too liberal, and that its “fair-use” guidelines issued to faculty were fundamentally flawed. They have asked the court for an injunction limiting the amount of material GSU can place in e-reserves, and, more controversially, have asked for some kind of oversight as to how instructors at GSU use copyrighted materials. GSU attor-neys countered that their policy is consistent with fair use – but, they also argued the case should be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, notably state sovereign immunity.

If she finds the publishers don’t have standing to sue, Judge Orinda Evans could end the case without touching the fair-use issues. But if she decides publishers do have standing and rules on the issues, her verdict will be among the most significant in decades, as it will offer a new analysis of how fair use applies in the educational environ-ment, whichever side wins.

Antitrust, and the “Agency Model” Class ActionDid the major publishers’ near simultaneous move to the “agency model” for ebooks in 2011 involve an illegal conspiracy to inflate

Remember the days when being a publishing industry lawyer was a nice, rather quiet job? Those days are long gone. In recent months and years there

has been a wellspring of thorny litigation over the digital future, and 2012 looms as possibly a major turning point in many of those cases.

The Authors Guild et al v. Google Inc.Since the collapse of the Google Settlement just over a year ago, the underlying case against Google has quietly progressed. Cur-rently, Judge Denny Chin is reviewing cross-motions from the Authors Guild and Google, but things are on track to heat up in a matter of weeks, possibly days. For now, there are two immediate developments to watch for. First, when the parties agreed to the current trial schedule last year, publish-ers’ attorneys told Chin they expected the schedule to be moot, as they were close to settling their complaint against Google. Months later, however, publishers and

Google have yet to strike a deal. If they are going to, it should happen soon.

Second, Google has moved to dismiss the Authors Guild from the proceedings, argu-ing the organisation lacks standing to repre-sent the broad universe of authors. Google has also opposed the certification of a new author class. If Chin finds for Google, and knocks out the AG, or kills the class action, it could dramatically impact the case. “While the lawsuit could in theory go forward even without the class,” noted New York Law School’s (NYLS) James Grimmelmann, “it would be far less viable in practice”. Since the suits were first filed in 2005, the ebook business has matured and largely moved on from this case, which deals with older, out-of-print works. But barring further delays or a sudden turn of events, a trial – yes, a trial – could begin in September.

Literary works in electronic databasesIt may have drifted from memory, but it is perhaps the bedrock rights case of the digital

age – and it is still unresolved. In August, 2011, a federal appeals court rejected an $18 million settlement in the class action suit filed against publishers by freelance writers to settle claims stemming from the landmark case Tasini v. New York Times. It is unclear where any new negotiations stand, but experts agree that resolving the case (known shorthand as “Freelance”) – or not resolving it – could have a significant impact on the digital future.

“For their part, publishers and data-base owners have warned of a diminished historical record,” noted lead objector Irv Muchnick, as publishers have threatened to pull works from databases in the wake of the settlement’s collapse. But the collapse of both Freelance – along with the collapse of the Google Book settlement – offers “an extraordinary opportunity” Muchnick maintained. “The ongoing saga of well-conceived lawsuits and ill-fated settle-ments,” he said, “should finally motivate stakeholders to push Congress for a coherent, fair copyright system for the digital age”. Of course, no one expects that

to happen any time soon. But, it is astonish-ing to think that the claims at the heart of this action are now nearly two decades old.

Authors Guild Inc. et al v. HathiTrust et alAs the digitisation suit against Google became more complicated, the Authors Guild (joined by several international author organisations) opened a new front in late 2011: it sued an alliance of research libraries over a digitisation programme known as the HathiTrust. The suit alleges that the pro-gramme is built with millions of “unauthor-ised” scans, most created in cooperation with Google, and it seeks an injunction bar-ring the future digitisation of copyrighted works, as well as to scuttle the libraries’ plan to allow limited access to orphan works. The libraries have since suspended plans to pur-sue the orphan works initiative, after discov-ering errors in its procedures.

Judge Harold Baer is now considering motions. HathiTrust attorneys have moved that the suit be dismissed for a variety of pro-

Trials…and tribulationsAndrew Albanese takes a look at some of the legal cases concerning digital publishing that could make big news in the coming months

Continues on page 24

( )“In recent months and years there has been a well-spring of thorny litigation over the digital future, and 2012 looms as possibly a major turning point in many of those cases.”


EasyEPUB

Automated online eBookcreation from InDesign or Quark files in minutes

www.easypress.comJUST RELEASED - AUTOMATED FIXED-LAYOUT

EPUB FROM JUST 50P PER PAGE

Visit us at Stand X900at The London Book Fair to talk about our exciting online eBook solution

YOU HAVE READ THIS CORRECTLY! AUTOMATED FIXED-LAYOUT EPUBFROM JUST 50P PER PAGE!

ebook prices? That is the claim being put forth in a consumer class action suit led by Seattle-based firm Hagens Berman. While the filings so far include no proof of any col-lusion, the prospect of publishing executives being deposed about pricing, the economics of digital publishing and other core opera-tions has to be troubling, not to mention the legal fees and the torrent of bad press por-traying publishers as the ones who want to keep ebook prices high.

More importantly, the US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit

against five publishers and Apple over ebook prices. Industry observers complain that sanctioning publishers and Apple on ebook prices would in fact hurt the competitive

environment for ebooks, and help the dominant player for ebooks – Amazon.

HarperCollins v. Open Road Integrated MediaIn what could be one of the defining cases of the ebook transition, HarperCollins sued Open Road Integrated Media over its deal with author Jean Craighead George to publish a digital edition of the bestselling, award-winning children’s book Julie of the Wolves. The suit charged that Harper-Collins’ contract with George, signed in 1971, gave it the right to be the exclusive publisher “in book form,” including

via “computer… or any other electronic means now known or hereafter invented”. Complicating matters, though, the contract also appears to state that Harper-

Collins must get the author’s consent to publish any digital edition.

In its original suit, HC chose not to sue the author, but since that filing, the author has petitioned the court to join the suit, claiming she retains the ebook rights, and has validly licensed them to Open Road. This of course is not the first time the thorny question of ebook rights has come up. In 2001, a judge refused to grant Random House’s request for an injunction against Rosetta Books, finding that without a specific grant of digital rights, such rights belong to the author. That suit was later settled.

Is the language in HarperCollins’ contract strong enough to constitute a specific grant of digital rights? And the truly lingering question: what is “book form”? “Depending upon how the case is brought,” observed CopyLaw blogger Lloyd Jassin, “the big six multinational, New York-based, publish-ers… could either score a copyright and unfair competition protection windfall, or meet their digital Waterloo”. That kind of showdown seems to make little sense at this moment in the ebook transition, and most observers expect a settlement.

Sign up at www.copyright.com/pubservices

Scholarly publishers that use

RightsLink Publication Services

are more effectively managing

their author programs

With Publication Services, you can:

Improve Author Relations

and Reduce Transaction Costs

Complimentary Web Event with AIP and Informa Healthcare April 24th at 10am ET

( )“The prospect of publishing executives being deposed about pricing, the economics of digital publishing and other core operations has to be troubling, not to mention the torrent of bad press for publishers.”

Continued from page 22




Edwardian novels, this will bring our MC Beaton list to 127 books.

Q&A with MC BeatonWhat is your morning routine?I crawl out of bed at nine o’clock – well, maybe ten – and write for two hours fortified with a cup of black coffee.Where do you write? I write in a small room at the top of this Cotswold cottage.What is your worst habit? Procrastination!A phrase you use far too often? “Maybe I’ll think about it.”Your best friend? My husband, Harry. We’ve been through a lot together; we share the same views and like the same books.What do you collect? Dust. I’m a lousy housekeeper.And finally, what’s your philosophy? Stop projecting. Tomorrow’s a mystery. This is not a rehearsal. I’m on stage now.

Krystyna Green is MC Beaton’s editor at Constable & Robinson.

MC Beaton is the undisputed queen of cosy crime, writes Krystyna Green. She is the second most borrowed crime author from UK

libraries, and the fourth most borrowed adult fiction author, ranking above Lee Child, Jose-phine Cox and Agatha Christie. This must, partially, be due to the fact that she has an enormous backlist – more than 22 Agatha Raisins and 28 Hamish Macbeths. But she is also a phenomenal seller, with more than 10 million copies of her novels sold worldwide.

This year, Constable & Robinson is celebrating 20 years of publishing MC Beaton’s bestselling Agatha Raisin series. Agatha drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney and is profoundly unlucky in love, but her detecting skills are second to none. To mark the anniversary, we are having a year- long ce lebrat ion, with the paperback publication of As the Pig Turns on 19 April, the publication of the new hardback, Hiss and Hers, on 4 October, and the e-publication of the first ever Agatha Raisin Christmas Story, Christmas Crumble, at the end of the year.

Marion was born in Glasgow in 1936, and her first job was as a bookseller of fiction at John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she got an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to be their theatre critic. There followed a career in newspapers that ended when she began to write Regency Romances.

I have been Marion’s editor for almost 12 years and I am thrilled to report that I have just acquired, for a six-figure sum, more than 60 of her backlist Regency Romance titles. Along with the Hamishes, Agathas, 12 Regency Romances already in print and four

Celebrating 20 years of Agatha Raisin

Krystyna Green and MC Beaton

THE PREMIER DIGITAL EVENT AT BOOKEXPO AMERICA

Hear from and network with the trailblazers and leaders in the digital book industryLearn about direct distribution in North America and around the worldExplore the latest interactivity and enhancements for eBooks and the newest eBook devicesDiscover ways to monetize content and foster reader communities to increase salesSee what’s working and what’s in store for the education and STMS markets

The world’s longest-established digital publishing conference gives you the tools you need to succeed.

Registration Discounts Available at Booth # T755Visit us to learn more and save!

This event sells out so do not delay. Register now.

TO REGISTER, VISIT IDPF.ORG/DB12

Platinum Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors:

Silver Sponsors:

June 4-5, 2012 Javits Center, New York City


official permissions, is a risky leap in the dark. The poor reputation for enforcement of international property rights (IPR) on the Chinese internet also means that publishers and authors need firm guarantees on security before they would be willing to entrust their top titles to an online platform.

For Penguin in China, an agreement was signed with ebook distributor Founder Apabi in 2009 to make its full list of English-language titles from the UK available to Chinese customers. As well as providing straight ebook distribution services, founder Apabi and others are also developing Cloud-based services for third parties wishing to sell ebooks, and Penguin is in detailed discus-sions, independently and through Apabi, with the main players.

The government in China sets the rules – and businesses work within and around those regulations. With no pre-existing structures, and no established working model for China to import from the west, how consumer platforms, publishers and authors will come together is still unclear. And yet, this is China, and the overriding sense is still “when” and “how”, rather than “if”. Central government still wants the nation to be in the vanguard of the digital revolution, and that includes ebooks.

Chinese consumers have tended to prefer one device for all their reading, music and connectivity needs. Whether the standalone ereader will take hold against the tablet PC or Smartphone is one part of the debate in publishing circles. Control is another; it seems likely ebooks would be monitored along similar lines to the internet, via sophis-ticated search engines and firewalls blocking undesirable content, rather than through book-by-book permission to publish under e-ISBNs. And there are discussions under-way as to whether authorities will insist on local ebook formats, such as CEBX, as a way to track the trade, rather than support other international file formats.

Online retailer Dangdang has already taken its first steps into the ebook market, and Scarlet He from Founder Apabi confi-dently says that within the year there will be eight to 10 consumer platforms offering ebooks. Admittedly, many people (myself included) confidently predicted the same for 2011. And yet, here we are, in the Year of the Dragon, with the pieces in place, still poised on the edge of a revolution – and still believ-ing that the distant rumblings continue to get closer to being a commercial reality.

Jo Lusby is Managing Director, Penguin China and General Manager, Penguin N Asia.

The Chinese people have entered the digital age with arms wide open. China is home to more than 500 million internet users, and Chinese surfers spend a

total of 472 billion hours online each year. There are more than 100 million subscribers to mobile reading services, and an even greater number are signed up to online litera-ture sites offering VIP memberships and books by the chapter. Online bookstores are responsible for more than 40% of trade book sales. More than 50 local ereading devices are on the market, and of the near one billion mobile users, a quarter own a smartphone. All of which sounds very dynamic and healthy.

So why, in such a highly connected country, are we still awaiting the arrival of the consumer ebook market?

Over the last ten years, China’s publishers have been forced to confront change on two fronts. Firstly, they have embarked on a major restructuring effort to transform the publishing sector from a staid organ of the state into a robust, commercial industry operating independently of government subsidies. As the warm blanket of financial support was withdrawn, they were also faced with the challenge of entertaining and enlightening people whose own lives, perspectives and tastes were being transformed by China’s economic boom.

Then, just as the new publishing economy began to find its rhythm, the impending ebook revolution appeared on the horizon, threatening to turn fragile margins and newly established companies on their heads.

In a centrally managed economy like China’s, when a strategic priority is decided upon, government departments must then oversee its delivery. China has a solid track record in securing the hardware (infrastruc-ture and systems) of economic development before the software (inventors and creators) – something possibly explained by the domi-nance of trained engineers in positions of political power.

Readiness for a digital revolution has been at the centre of conversations with Chinese policy makers and publishers for some time

now. And as any visitor to the Beijing Inter-national Book Fair over the last five years can testify, there has been much technologi-cal action, not just talk. Handsets, systems, formats and standards are all in place. But the softer side of the equation – how to regu-late something so intangible, and specifi-cally, how to control what is published when the digital door has been opened – has yet to be addressed. A list of 21 companies autho-rised to engage in the publication, produc-tion and sale of ebooks in China was released in 2010; two years on, however, what that authorisation (or lack of ) actually means for players is still unclear.

Usually, a regulatory vacuum in China creates opportunity for savvy Chinese entre-preneurs. And yet, we are still waiting for the convergence of the market. Recommenda-tions have been made by central government on pricing and revenue splits along similar lines to agency agreements. And although it would be fair to say that Chinese publishers are not entirely “ready” for ebooks, should

the right commercial opportunity present itself, things would be made to happen at very short notice.

It seems that, in this situation, a lack of actual policy has presented just too much risk for consumer platforms to be willing to take the plunge. The logistical challenge of setting up an ebookstore – the tie-up with a device, the availability of a wide range of quality ebooks, contractual agreements with publishers and authors – means that the investment of time and reputation to launch, without concrete

Chinese ebooks – waiting for convergenceJo Lusby looks at the prospects for a consumer ebook market in China

Jo Lusby

( )“Handsets, systems, formats and standards are all in place. But the softer side of the equation – how to regulate something so intangible, and specifically, how to control what is published… has yet to be addressed.”


www.READandNOTE.com

Read and Note™ digital content publishing, collaboration and management platform makes content useful. See the presentation Monday April 16th at Noon - in the Digital Zone, Theater Two.

A world of information at your fingertips - but can you use it?

Read and Note™ provides a superior cloud based reading experience with the capability to manage vast libraries of content. It takes your reading and comprehension to new levels by seamlessly integrating annotation, interpretation and illustration in a fully interactive and collaborative environment.

Email us to schedule a demo: [email protected]

Advanced Business Publishing Technology

Visit us:Earls Court Two in the Digital Zone Stand: W960

READAND

N OTAT I O N R E A L I Z AT I O N S Y S T E M

TM

NOTE©Read and Note™, 2012. All Rights Reserved

www.READandNOTE.com

Read and Note™ digital content publishing, collaboration and management platform makes content useful. See the presentation Monday April 16th at Noon - in the Digital Zone, Theater Two.

A world of information at your fingertips - but can you use it?

Read and Note™ provides a superior cloud based reading experience with the capability to manage vast libraries of content. It takes your reading and comprehension to new levels by seamlessly integrating annotation, interpretation and illustration in a fully interactive and collaborative environment.

Email us to schedule a demo: [email protected]

Advanced Business Publishing Technology

Visit us:Earls Court Two in the Digital Zone Stand: W960

READAND

N OTAT I O N R E A L I Z AT I O N S Y S T E M

TM

NOTE©Read and Note™, 2012. All Rights Reserved

infinite libraries, as well as serving as the Director of the National Public Library in Argentina. Borges wrote that he “always imagined paradise to be a kind of library”.

One thing we’ve learned from librarians is just how far there is to go in improving discoverability so that it catches up with the reader’s point of view. So it can answer the kinds of questions readers routinely ask of librarians, while offering librarians some new angles on displays, themed events, book talks and book clubs. We hope we can move that needle and that librarians will find Small Demons not only useful but, ultimately, essential.

AA: In the last year since you’ve been working within the industry launching Small Demons, much has changed. What’s your take, as a technolo-gist with a love of literature, on the state of the book business?VV: You know, I’m just more excited every day. Everything I’ve experienced points to a very healthy mix of competition, collaboration and experimenta-tion across the industry. The enthusiastic reception we’ve received from publishers, retailers, authors, readers, libraries and librarians – I’ve worked in other industries undergoing rapid change, and it’s really not like this. You know, one thing I would say is that literature is itself a form of technology – “equipment for living,” as Kenneth Burke would say, and we’re only really beginning to unpack what that means now.

AA: What’s next for Small Demons?VV: More books, personalisa-tion, sharing and open access to the site – we’re registration based right now. Also, we’re working on an API (Application Programming Interface) to allow our data to be inte-grated into a wide variety of catalogues, websites and apps, and community contribution. A very full plate!

In his closing remarks at the Frankfurt Book Fair, director Juergen Boos said that 2011 was a strong year for startups – and

perhaps no start-up had a better reception in Frankfurt than Los Angeles -based Smal l Demons. The buzz around Small Demons hit at a larger trend that has emerged over the last year – the value digital is bringing to all aspects of the book business, beyond the ebook question. A young technologist with a love for l i terature, Small Demons Founder Valla Vakili embodies that trend. In fact, he says, the idea for Small Demons came to him while deep into Jean-Claude Izzo’s book Total Chaos. “To anyone who’d listen,” Vakili says, “I’d open up the book, point to the details inside, and say, ‘look, a book can take you anywhere,’ all we

have to do is grab the details, and connect them.” Andrew Albanese caught up with Vakili to talk about Small Demons, and its plans for the London Book Fair.

AA: Briefly, what does Small Demons particularly offer the book world?VV: Discoverability is where we hang our hat. When we talk about indexing books for

the people, places and things inside them, a reimagined discoverability is the immediate benefit. In our world, every per-son, place or thing leads you to a new book. Brixton takes you to The Buddha of Suburbia and London Fields; Covent Garden through Georgette Heyer to Wendy Holden and David Nicholls; Savile Row from Somerset Maugham to Iceberg Slim. Not to mention where Doc Martens, Zippos and Guinness take you.

AA: Small Demons made quite a splash at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. What has happened since then, and what are you looking to accomplish in London?VV: Since Frankfurt we’ve s i gned more pub l i s h i ng partners, indexed more books. We launched with titles in the low hundreds, and we’re now at 2,000 and growing rapidly month to month. We’ve also continued to improve the search and browsing experience on Small Demons. At the LBF, we’re really looking to continue the trajectory that started in Frankfurt – specifically, a global approach to rolling out Small Demons, which is really important to us. Visits from the UK and London are among the top sources of traffic to our site, and we want to offer the broadest selection of titles to readers from outside the US. So, we’ll be talking to a number of publishers, some of which are new discussions, some ongoing.

AA: You’ve been attending l ibrary conferences , too. What have you learned about libraries, and what have you learned from libraries that fits what you’re doing?VV: We’ve held a deep affinity for libraries and librarians from the start, since discoverability is so key to the library experience, and librarians are some of the most expert navigators of literature and culture. Our name, Small Demons, is inspired by Borges, of course, and he’s forever tied with fictional

Catching up with Small Demons

Valla Vakili


103645



than “technical” solution. The visible and personalised markers in the ebooks act as a sort of reminder to the reader that that copy of the ebook belongs to them and should not be shared illegally. Why should an ebook be worse than a paper book? I can lend, gift, rip and scribble in my paper books, but I can’t do anything with my ebooks (which incidentally cost the same or more than the paper editions because of VAT!).

When DRM is gone, and it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” , ebooks will enjoy an even higher growth than we’ve seen in the past 24 months.

Matteo Berlucchi is Chief Executive Officer of Anobii, the new social retail platform for book lovers.

Wh a t d o e s DRM mean f o r t h e publishing industry?

In theory, Digital Rights Man-agement (DRM) software is applied to ebooks for the pur-pose of preventing people from sharing them in illegal ways. In practice, DRM has a number of negative and unwanted side effects. Firstly, it damages the user experience as ebooks with DRM are very hard to manage and are not interoperable. This means that readers can’t transfer the ebook across devices easily or at all. Secondly, under the pre-tence of having to protect the ebooks with specialised soft-ware, it gives large retailers, like Amazon and Apple, an excuse to lock customers into their own ereading platforms. And as far as piracy is concerned, DRM does very little as pirates have cracked all the main forms of DRM long ago, and will do so in the future with any kind of protection the industry will come up with.

What would be the benefi ts of scrapping it?The principal benefit would be that any ebook retailer could be able to sell ebooks to readers regardless of what ereading device they use. Barnes & Noble customers could read their ebooks on the Kindle and vice versa. Furthermore, readers would gain a better user experi-ence and it would also mean that in most cases they would actually end up owning the ebooks they buy, rather than only having the right to access them on the plat-form of the vendor they choose.

If publishing is to follow the music industry, how long before DRM is abandoned?The music industry went through the same problem five years ago. Apple’s iPod was dominating the market for digi-tal music (like the Kindle today) when EMI decided to drop the

DRM on their music catalogue to enable customers to buy music everywhere, but still be able to listen to it on their iPods. Within nine months all the big five dropped DRM. It took the music publishers five years from the launch of the iPod to reach this decision: the Kindle was launched four and a half years ago, so I think we can expect DRM on ebooks to start going about now. (Pottermore may be the first crack in the wall.) It’s interesting to note that in the most recent industry report on music (220 pages), by one of the leading research firms, the word DRM does not figure at all.

Would users actually take advantage of being able to buy from any retailer? What about concerns about piracy?Like with music, where today you can buy your music from Last.fm, Spotify, HMV or whomever and listen to it on your iPod (and own the actual files), I think this is bound to happen to ebooks in the next 12 months. An open ebook market would be beneficial for everyone – from readers to publishers. As for piracy, again looking at the music industry, recent research from Rice University has actu-ally shown that DRM was encouraging piracy rather than reducing it. The reason being that DRM files are very limited in functionality and users prefer to have files in a more flexible format to allow them to listen to them on any device and

not just on the iPod. Piracy is fought by educating people and prosecuting pirates in courts.

Will publishers take off Digital Rights Management following the Pottermore announcement?I think what Pottermore has done is absolutely the right thing. Charlie Redmayne, Chief Execu-tive Officer of Pottermore, rightly pointed out that there are millions of copies of Harry Pot-ter ebooks online already. Pro-tecting them is pointless. He’s essentially saying: “The bad guys will be bad guys and the good guys should not be punished pre-emptively in case they wanted to become bad guys!” Pottermore has opted for “watermarking”, which acts as a “moral” rather

Scrapping DRMMatteo Berlucchi explains why it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” publishing will abandon Digital Rights Management

Matteo Berlucchi

www.bilbary.com

Contact:

[email protected]

[email protected]



As ebook production overtakes that of hardbacks for the first time, Jo Grange looks at the challenges for publishers as ebooks become integral to publishing

If you would like to submit metadata for all versions of your works, including where you have chosen to produce several formats of ebooks, metadata can be sent to us in your regular file feed with your print products. In addition to a basic bibliographic listing, you may wish to supply metadata such as cover images, descriptions, tables of contents and author biographies, which assist in selling your products in an online environment.

With ebooks becoming an integral part of the publishing world and more publishers exploring the opportunities and challenges they offer, new models of marketing, pricing and delivery are being created and new ways for readers to buy and view books are coming to the market. Some publishers sell through ebook aggregators, others through their own ebookstores and some offer their books through many platforms, on exactly the same principle that they would sell print books. But as technology improves, sales of ebooks will continue to increase and, if cur-rent trends are to be believed, sales of printed books will continue to fall. Perhaps those reluctant to embrace ebook readers will relent and become converts after all. Who knows, perhaps future generations of children will learn to read without ever picking up a physical book as the electronic revolution continues.

Jo Grange is Marketing Manager at Bowker (Stand L315). For further information, on ebooks or digital content, contact [email protected] at Bowker Publisher Relations. For further information on Books In Print , emai l [email protected] or call by the stand at the London Book Fair.

You either love them or hate them, but when ebook readers exploded on to the market and offered an alternative to the physical book, opinions were

divided. One argument went: “How can you replace the book! The feel, the smell, the texture... I’ll never get one of those things! Books are something tactile, something r e a l , a t r e a s u r e , s o m e t h i n g t o love and share.” Yet four years since the launch of the first ebook reader, it is now common to see commuters, holiday makers, students and people from different generations using them. Now, that argument has been replaced with: “I can walk around with more than 1,000 books, I can read whatever I’m in the mood for, and I can buy my books at much cheaper prices or even get some for free.”

A c c o r d i n g t o t h e w e b s i t e handhe ldreaders . co .uk , the ear ly adopters were those in their fifties, but now the market is expanding to incorporate younger readers, perhaps as the cost of the reader comes down and more players enter the market raising the competition stakes. Since the launch of the Kindle, a whole new market of tablets – including the Kobo eReader and the Sony ebook readers – has been developed, which, with the continuing power of the iPad, is leading to a buyer’s market for choice and value.

There is no doubt one retailer has the lion’s share of the market right now. There are more than 900,000 books, newspapers, magazines and blogs available to download from the Kindle store, plus one million free books. With ebook production stated as having just overtaken that of hardbacks for the first time too, this shift from print to digital has lead to some new opportunities for authors. Thanks to the Kindle Direct Publishing service, budding authors can also self-publish now – so where does all this leave publishers today?

For companies such as Bowker, which was founded more than 130 years ago, our evolution from a book publisher to the services we offer today, reflects the changing times and technological

developments that have taken place. As the official ISBN a g e n c y f o r t h e US and Australia, the

focus is stil l very much on i s su ing ISBNs, gather ing those from other markets (including t h e U K ) , a n d making them avail-able through services such as our Books In Print database. But, our core customers are publishers, book-sellers and libraries, all of whom need to better serve their cus-tomers, so we create products and services that make books easier for people to discover, evaluate, order and experience; and generate research and resources for pub-lishers, to help them understand and meet the interests of readers.

Today, the Books in Print database incor-porates all the global data we gather and provides this information in one easy-to-access site, that can be used for finding titles, conducting research and competitor analy-sis, and for accessing general information on vendors, ebook platforms and online retail-ers. There are also additional resources such as professional reviews, tables of contents, summaries, full-text previews, cover images, author biographies and awards information.

Supplying bibliographic data to Bowker i s f r ee and , ju s t a s we as s i s t in marketing print titles via our suite of prod-ucts for retailers, ebook retailers (including Sony, Google and App l e ) , l ibraries and school systems worldwide, we are also able t o p r o m o t e ebooks and other digital content. This aids in the reach of titles on various websites and within customers’ systems around our global customers. It is also great for librarians’ need for a single title record that displays all ebook editions available.

We accept metadata in var ious electronic forms including ONIX and Excel. Also via Bowkerlink.co.uk, which is Bowker’s online publisher access system that provides publishers with an automated tool to update or add bibliographic data listings into our online databases, including Books in Print.

You’ll never catch me using one


UPCOMING FROM

RIGHTS QUERIES:

UK: Linda Biagi , Biagi Rights Management, Table 39S, l inda@biagir ights.com

Thomas MaltmanJanuary 2013 UK Rights Available

LITTLE WOLVES

Pictures of You

Juliann GareyDecember 2012 UK Rights Available

TOO BRIGHT TO HEARTOO LOUD TO SEE

Next To Normal


Mu c h h a s changed in China over t h e l a s t decade, but

the keys for US companies look-ing to do business there remain largely the same, writes Jim Milliot. These are flexibility and the need to build relationships. Cengage has been in China since 1999 and Chairman Ron Dunn says that “establishing relation-ships is the most important thing” to being successful in the Chinese market. “You need to prove your credibility and integrity,” Dunn adds.

Scholastic opened a Chinese subsidiary in 2005 and Shane Armstrong, Executive V-P and Pres ident , In ternat iona l , Growth Markets, cites the need to be resilient and flexible. “A company must be prepared to adapt its business model based on changed conditions, which can occur from any sources, and at short notice,” Armstrong says. Dunn also spoke of the importance to be willing and able to work within the Chinese framework: “You have to be willing to do business according to their system and adapt to the Chinese business environment.”

The most important trait of that business environment is working with a Chinese pub-lisher since foreign companies cannot publish directly to the Chinese market; many Ameri-can publishers have more than one partner. Success in China, M. Lui Simpson, Executive Director, International Copy-right Enforcement and Trade Policy of the Association of American Publishers notes “often depends on finding the right partner”.

Another point of agreement among US publishers is that edu-cation, and science and technol-ogy are the areas of greatest interest to the Chinese. Dunn estimates Cengage has sold more than 60 million units of its Eng-lish Language Teaching materi-als, and Simpson says demand continues to be very strong for scientific and technical journals. But if the Chinese are eager to

acquire more intel lectual property, they are unwilling to provide any sort of direct access to the market, a source of frus-tration for American publishers. US publishers are willing to help the Chinese improve their exper-tise in various categories, “but there has to be a quid pro quo,” Simpson says. That is why she believes China’s presence at the Fair could be beneficial to all parties: “It is important to show-case to the Chinese government that the West is willing to work with you,” but that there are concerns Western publishers would like addressed.

Simpson notes that “incre-mental progress” has been made in recent years on one issue of great importance to American publishers – protection of intel-lectual property. The govern-ment has passed a number of copyright laws, but the problem, Simpson says, is enforcement. To date, enforcement usually takes the form of a crackdown in a particular area for a limited time. “Enforcement needs to be more consistent and ongoing,” Simpson explains, so pirates “don’t just wait out the cam-paign”. Simpson notes that the Chinese government is engaged in a new round of copyright talks and has solicited comments from the private sector, something it’s rarely done in the past. Ameri-can publishers are hopeful this may signal a deeper commitment to enforcement. For all the chal-lenges that exist in doing busi-ness in China, Simpson observes: “It still remains a market of great opportunity.”

US publishers in China

Shane Armstrong: “A company must be prepared to adapt its business model.”



be his time to visit the stand and he’d arrive with an entourage of media moguls. Neither was it uncommon for a big cheese in politics and other walks of pub-lic life to appear when Lord Wei-denfeld was holding court. It would occasionally prove a little too distracting for some of the foreign booksellers, who clearly found the activities on the stand

Mark Streatfeild

The Frankfurt Book-fair of 1991 proved to be the last to d i s p l a y t h o s e famous orange and

brown colours of Weidenfeld and Nicolson. I had joined four months before, but we already knew at the start of the Fair that Anthony Cheetham, following his departure from Random House, had been in touch with Lord Weidenfeld and, if all went according to plan, we would soon be part of The Orion Pub-lishing Group. So it was just myself, Michael Dover and the legendary Rights Director Bud MacLennan who were on the stand with the occasional appearance of Lord Weidenfeld.

And in the years that followed he always dropped by. He made the Hessischer Hof his home, but Saturday afternoons would

more interesting than the list I was presenting. It was certainly the case when Boris Yeltsin came by in 2000, when we published his diaries.

There were certainly no lap-tops then, possibly the odd mobile phone, and the way of conducting business was very different to what it is now for both rights and sales. I used to drive over in a large van full of catalogues, illustrated spreads, book dummies and numerous jacket/cover kits to hand out, not stopping on the way. Your diary was fully booked from 9.30am on Wednesday right through until the Sunday evening, cover-ing all parts of the world.

As Orion expanded rapidly taking on Chapmans, Cassell, Gollancz and much more, there was always a lot to update peo-ple on. And with Anthony Cheetham, it was never dull.

This was a time when auc-tions on the stand, and around the time of the fair, were com-monplace, and Orion and Wei-denfeld certainly had their fair share. I recall the rights people doing some awesome deals on Simon Sebag Montefiore’s bril-liant biography of Stalin; as well as a range of fiction from Julian Fellowes’ debut Snobs to an amazing array of science fiction and fantasy; and juggling offers on the science list, ranging from Catherine Blackledge’s incredi-bly popular The Story of V (which took a little explanation) to Richard Dawkins’ brilliant work, The Ancestor’s Tale.

The exciting world of co-editions was also the cause of much wheeler-dealing, with quantities and prices agreed there and then. Thomas Paken-ham’s unique books on remark-able trees were always sure-fire winners. And I shouldn’t forget children’s; Bologna, of course, is the main event, but Michelle Paver’s bestselling Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series was auctioned in a number of coun-tries during the Frankfurt Fair.

Turning then to the London Book Fair, which itself has seen

such huge changes in these 20 years – and mostly for the better. In 1992, we had a new stand and a new logo reflecting The Orion Publishing Group. We had just bought A Suitable Boy to be published the following March at £20 in hardback, with no dis-counting. It went straight to number one in the UK, and indeed in many other parts of the world. We also had a young Scottish writer, Ian Rankin, whose Strip Jack we published that October with an initial print run of 1,500 copies.

The LBF is an ideal opportu-nity for British authors to meet their foreign publishers. The Sta-lin deals were done at Frankfurt, and then the following year we hosted a wonderful Stalin dinner for all its foreign publishers at London. We traditionally hold a Science Fiction and Fantasy Din-ner for our authors and foreign publishers, and drinks on the stand for Gollancz debuts. On the Trade side our Export Din-ner is on the Tuesday evening, where more than 30 customers from around the world have an opportunity to meet and have dinner with a few Orion authors. This year we have Anthony Horowitz, Antony Beevor, Kate Mosse, Hannah Richell and William Landay joining us. Wil-liam Landay is over from the States, but is coming into the Fair at lunchtime today to meet customers and sign copies of his cr ime thr i l l e r Defending Jacob. He is new to the Orion list, so this is a great opportunity to meet and mingle. Three years ago we did something similar with Katherine Webb, author of The Legacy, and we have now sold it in 23 languages.

After Olympia, we had the dreaded year at Excel (where we were already part of the Hachette Group), and finally back to West Kensington where, to my mind, Earls Court pro-vides the perfect venue. Long may it continue.

Mark Streatfeild is International Sales Director, Orion Publishing Group.

Holding court on the Orion stand

The cost of printprocurement is as important

as the cost of printLet Jellyfish handle your commercial

requirements

We offer our clients best prices, unbeatable service and outstanding operational support

Jellyfish Print Solutions Ltd. T: 01489 897373www.jellyfishsolutions.co.uk

Jellyfish Print Solutions - ‘Breaking the Mould’

Mark Streatfeild recalls 20 years of book fairs



Rainy Day”, “Breastfeeding Woman”, “Shanghai’s Past” and “Clear Waters”. I also won a number of prizes, including my first Lu Xun Prize for fiction. These successes were perfectly acceptable. I don’t mention them to gain validation, indeed, rather the opposite. I mention them to make me reflect. If I had been a bit stricter with myself, my writing career might have started then.

So when did it start? I can’t put a firm date on it. All I know is I recognised him, or should I say, her. She had wound herself around “me” for too long. Here I should point out that this “me”, this “self”, is pre-cious, that in the long history of modern Chinese literature this “me”, this “I” has been missing. We have “we”, not an “I”. After the advent of modernist literature in China in the 1980s, that “I” became an important word. Before that “I” was some-thing to be ashamed of, a stench of selfish-ness that couldn’t be washed off.

I was trying to find “myself”, while expanding on this new trend in literature of the “I”, of the “self”. I offered my entire youth to this endeavour. My hard work, my anxiety, my vanity was all there in this “self”. The interesting thing was, while I was searching for “myself” and its relationship to the rest of the world what I really found was him, or her.

Magical feelingThis discovery opened up so much for me, and my anxiety vanished. It was a magical feeling. I relaxed. Writing was no longer a selfish activity, and even more unexpectedly, as I learned to relax I got a taste for self-control. When dealing with him, or her, you need self-control. This means not acting according to your own will, you need to give him or her space in your writing. This space comes from “my” imagination, understand-ing and flexibility. My inner world under-went a revolution.

Who is he or she? That’s not too impor-tant. What I absolutely guarantee, however, is that in my world he and she has absolute freedom; I have no reason to obstruct or divert them or their thinking, his or her energy and growth is the most precious thing. This is what writing is, it makes you a humanist, it is literature’s highest ambition and its bottom line.

Bi Feiyu won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2010 for Three Sisters (Telegram Books). He will be talking about his life and work in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith, today, Tuesday 17 April at 11.30am, at the English PEN Literary Cafe. The event will be followed by a book signing.

My father is a retired teacher. My mother is also a retired teacher. My eldest sister has worked as a teacher, as has my

other sister. My wife is still a teacher. My whole life I have been surrounded by teach-ers. As for me, I graduated from teacher training college in 1987, so quite naturally I too became a teacher. As Mencius says: “Man’s greatest problem is that he likes to teach others what to do,” but I rather like my “problem” – I liked being a teacher.

While teaching I also had my hobby, and that was writing stories. I only taught eight classes a week so I had plenty of spare time, especially in the evenings. I used this spare time to write novels. When I was young I suf-fered terribly from insomnia; as soon as the night came I was buzzing. What I’m trying to say is, writing helped me save on the cost of sleeping pills; writing put me at ease and then off to sleep.

There is, however, a real cost to writing through the night, and that was being unable to get up in the mornings. Young teachers have their own particular issues, they often spend the first two lessons of the day prepar-ing, and only really teach the third and

fourth. I went to speak to the dean of my school and said: “I only want to teach the third and fourth periods.” He asked me why, and I responded, believing I had justice on my side: “I spend the nights writing stories, I find it hard to get up in the mornings.” I’m sure the dean had never heard such a mag-nificent reason before, so he agreed. His only condition was that I provide proper, scien-tific lesson plans from then on. From then on, my teaching career was never to rise with the glorious morning sun.

Debut novelMy debut novel was published in 1991, while I was still working as a teacher. My colleagues, friends I should say, made further compromises in order to show their support, rearranging my classes for the after-noons. I have to thank them for that.

My teaching career lasted five years in total. Those five years were happy ones. I have decided to make a boast by way

of commemoration to those five happy years: I was a pretty good teacher. I learned how to use simple language to explain complicated things.

In 1992 I landed at the Nanjing Daily, where I was to work for six years. Those six years were not easy, I can tell you. The offices were nearly an hour and a half by bike from where I lived. A month in and I was already regretting moving there, but there was no going back. I was utterly depressed for the six years I worked as a journalist, which itself only drove me to want to write even more. It was an almost pathological need. Looking back on that time now, I think those

years of feverish writing were a form of escape, I was living in each of those stories, like an artist selling out. It was extremely dif-ficult for me to put my all into working with the great team at the Nanjing Daily. This was no one’s fault, or if it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine, I just couldn’t be a reporter. I was good at making false things real, but I was also able to take the truth and write falsities out of it. The three words I hated the most were, “Nanjing Daily reports”. Just writing them made me stupid, my world was without oxy-gen. By my very nature I am a person who fabricates, I like making things up, I like the satisfaction it brings.

Third profession In 1998, the year I turned 34, I embarked upon my third profession, editor to the literary magazine Flowers in the Rain. By 34 I’d written some pretty good stories, ones that I wouldn’t necessarily be able of write now, like “Narration”, “Candy Floss on a

Me and my storiesAuthor of the day Bi Feiyu describes his path to becoming a writer

Bi Feiyu

( )“After the advent of modernist literature in China in the 1980s, that ‘I’ became an important word. Before that ‘I’ was something to be ashamed of, a stench of selfishness that couldn’t be washed off.”


Abu Dhabi International Book Fair - the ideal venue for networking with Arab and international publishers - eZone Digital content Apps and edutainment- Focus on Rights- Arab Rights Showcase Illustrators’ Corner Come visit us at our stand V215 at the London Book FairRegister now and enjoy an early bird discount!

www.adbookfair.com

Innovate or Perish

Are you ready for the future?

How do customers want to consume

my content?

What will my competitor

do next?

What’s MY competitive advantage?

What’s the next important

technology?

How do customers

Where is the growth coming

from?

What’s the optimal workflow

for my content?

SPi Global empowers leading publishers and content providers to maximise the value of their content by infusing technology, know-how, and innovation into their businesses in three unique ways to gain a competitive advantage:• Redefiningabusinessmodel• Enhancinganexistingserviceofferingordevelopinganewone• Increasingoperationalefficienciesbyintroducingasystemorredefiningworkflows

Stop by booth Y830 and let’s discuss how SPi Global can help you maximise your content. Email [email protected] for more information.

SPi Global

Inno ationLab

ad_LBF backpage option 2.indd 1 2/7/2012 9:51:05 AM

london show daily 17 april 2012

Documents

seamlessly integrating annotation

andrew albanese caught

digital rights management

big scandinavian trilogy

consumer ebook market

manage vast libraries

major turning point

orion publishing group