Publishing Matchmakers--Exhibitions and Agents

From January 17 to 24 of this year, the Taipei World Trade Center, which has large-scale international trade shows throughout the year, will hold one with a somewhat special product--the Third Annual Taipei International Book Fair, sponsored by the Government Information Office of the Executive Yuan.

Two hundred and sixty-six publishers from 19 countries and regions will participate, as will 155 domestic booksellers.

Publishing Goes to Market: Participation in international book exhibitions has always been a major channel for the international publishing industry to buy and sell publishing rights. The Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest in the world, has a 43-year history. At these book fairs, whose main purpose is trade in publishing rights, the buyers and sellers are much like the "peddlers" or "traders" of ancient times: on the one hand selling their own wares, and on the other checking around to see whether or not there are any products worth picking up, with the two sides haggling face to face, negotiating conditions, and building friendly relationships.

However, for most Taiwan publishers, participation in in international book fairs is only something that has come up in the last three years. Taiwan publishers, still in the learning stage, have still not done as well as one might hope in the buying and selling of publishing rights.

Mo Chao-ping, a reporter for the China Times who has covered the Frankfurt Book Fair, argues that one reason it that no one has yet figured out exactly what the point of participating is. "The Taiwan booth is like a museum, not like a business," he points out. Both private and official government publishers carry too heavy a burden of cultural exposition, and few operate from the angle of exchange of publishing rights.

Ho Mu-tai, head of the Yi Shu (Arts) Book Company, who has three years of experience of participating in exhibitions, has the same feeling: "There are too many books without any possibility of trading the publishing rights. Books like A Dictionary for the Three Principles of the People really don't need to be taken along."

Tricks of the Trade: Even if you are serious about selling publishing rights, there are still tricks of the trade.

Han Kuang Publishing General Manager Sung Ting-hsi points out that pre-event preparation is vital. For example, you should first write up abstracts of the books you want to display and translate them into English. "They don't have to be long, five or ten pages is OK. Since the other people won't be able to read Chinese, how else can they understand the contents of the books?"

Further, he suggests that publishers fax their books to people most likely to be interested before the exhibit begins, clearly indicate the location of their booth, and even set a time for a meeting. "Otherwise, the exhibition area is just too big, and if you just count on luck, there will be too few opportunities," he notes.

Sung Ting-hsi, an old hand at these things, further advises publishing houses to send someone to the conference with negotiating ability and the power to make decisions; that's the only way to be the first one to grab opportunities. For example, the rights to the Chinese language publication of the bestseller Megatrends were acquired by the China Times at the Frankfurt exhibition two years ago. Again last year, the China Times scooped up the Chinese rights to Mikhail Gorbachev's My Seventy-Two Hours at the exhibition site. Both are excellent examples of how the general manager of the editorial department personally went out to negotiate.

However, the ownership of the publishing rights overseas is rather complex. Sometimes the rights belong to the writer, sometimes to the publishing house, and sometimes to an agent. "If you're not familiar with the terrain, for publishers without any experience negotiating international publishing rights, it is very easy to look in the wrong places for partners," says Luc Kwanten, executive vice president of the Big Apple Tuttle-Mori Agency, which has been operating for five years.

Publishing Rights Midwives--Agents: Under the circumstances, specialized publishing rights agencies have sprung up to meet the need. Right now Taiwan has two such agencies--Big Apple and Bardon Far Eastern Agents, Ltd.

Besides having excellent foreign language abilities, the agencies must have a considerable understanding of the products coming out of the domestic and foreign publishing industries and of the market; that's the only way they can effectively match up different types of books with different buyers.

At Bardon, for example, whether at the New York office or the Taipei headquarters, all employees have backgrounds in publishing. Big Apple Executive VP Luc Kwanten, a foreign national, was born in Europe, grew up in the US, is fluent in Chinese, and often travels between the US, Europe, and Asia. He knows the dynamics of the domestic and overseas publishing industries like the back of his hand.

The methods of the two companies differ. Big Apple President Lily Chen points out that, "Big APple plays the role of the 'agent for the Chinese language publication rights,' directly representing foreign authors in signing contracts with local publishing houses."

Three-year-old Bardon, on the other hand," plays the role of 'intermediary,' mediating in discussions between the buyer and seller overseas and at home, helping the foreign owner of the publishing rights to sign a contract directly with the Taiwan company," notes director Wang Jian-mei.

Before dealing, the seller will ordinarily consider the buyer's trustworthiness, sales capability, and royalty rates. The former two items are generally checked out through the agent; the royalty rate is first proposed by the buyer, and if the seller finds it acceptable, the deal is done.

"In general, authors of scholarly type books don't care about the royalty because they want the cultural and academic transmission. For commercial books, like best-selling novels or entertainment, the royalty will be higher," says Luc Kwanten.

No Longer Relying on Chance: Big Apple and Bardon not only help domestic publishers to buy publishing rights, they also help sell such rights. Through the efforts of Big Apple, the novel Smoke and Rain by the author Chiung Yao was published in a Japanese edition in Japan. An American publishing house interested in releasing a series of Asian novels went through Bardon to search for Taiwan novels with international value.

Besides liminating the hassles of communicating and negotiating, going through an agent can make it easier for a Taiwan publisher to get hold of the latest international publishing information.

In the past, when publishers issued translations, most were through a friend "coincidentally discovering" a certain book and sending it or mailing it back, asking someone to translate it, and then publishing it. It was often a gap of six months or a year between the publication of a new book abroad and the appearance of the translation. Today foreign publishers have sales channels, and will take the initiative to provide information on new books to the agencies; Bardon and Big Apple then transmit the news to various local publishers.

"As soon as they send the manuscript to Taiwan, the publishing house finds someone to translate and print it. The Taiwan Chinese language edition can then be issued at the same time at the editions in all other languages," says Lily Chen, continuing: "This was the situation last year when My Seventy-Two Hours came on the market; a book that is expected to come out in April is already being translated right now."

Whether you're buying or selling, and no matter what approach the agent takes, the agent's profit is ten percent of the seller's royalties, with the buyer paying no fee.

Taiwan's two agencies have both been running it the red all along, but they say they have "an eye to the future."

"The system of agents has long been in place abroad, and is the long-term trend," explains Luc Kwanten. For people overseas who have the publishing rights, dealing with a single agent saves a great deal of trouble over negotiating with individual publishers whose operating situations are unclear. For the domestic publishing industry, going through an agency saves even more in expenses than setting up your own publishing rights department or hiring specially trained negotiators."

The Rights to Specialized Trading: Yet the publishing industry still seems to have a number of concerns about agencies. In order to control bargaining chips and prevent the market from being monopolized by a limited number of agents, Yuan-Liou Publishing, which issues a huge amount of new books, recently set up its own publishing rights department. The person in charge of liaison with the outside world in this as yet only selfestablished publishing rights department in the publishing world is a Canadian citizen who is wellversed in the Western publishing market. Hsu Li-li, who is under the publishing rights office, points out that "we are still in the learning stage. Because we don't have a lot of experience right now, the conditions we have been able to get have fallen quite short compared to when we went through an agency in the past."

Nevertheless, besides trying to buy publishing rights directly, the Yuan-Liou publishing rights department is also responsible for selling rights--aggressively sending new book information to foreign agents for them to promote in turn. Their functions are thus similar to the publishing rights departments of foreign booksellers. At present, two books of Chinese children's stories have already entered the US market.

Despite this, whether you are talking about agencies or participation in exhibitions, Taiwan is still just beginning. But that, as they say, is a start.

[Picture Caption]

International book fairs are an important channel for trade in publishing rights. The photo shows an International book exhibition held in New York in June 1990. (photo courtesy of Han Kuang Publishing)

The photo shows products displayed at a meeting of the International Federation of the Periodical Press. Sinorama is among them.

Nearly 600 books have been brought in through the good offices of the Bardon agency, of which these are a part.

The photo shows products displayed at a meeting of the International Federation of the Periodical Press. Sinorama is among them.

Nearly 600 books have been brought in through the good offices of the Bardon agency, of which these are a part.