Picking the winners
Acquiring a copyright is a bit like a competition to see whose gut instincts and taste are superior. But more than that it resembles a lottery-with the right bet, it is possible to make a mint on a minimal investment.
Recently, longer novels have been all the rage in Taiwan. The book that touched off the craze is none other than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first volume in the Harry Potter series, published in Taiwan by Crown.
Chuang notes that 400-page fairy tales were not what the Taiwanese public was clamoring after at the time, yet the group of editors at Crown in charge of vetting foreign books for publication was in agreement that this was a special book that had the potential to be a big hit. Accordingly, they got in touch with author J.K. Rowling's agent.
At the time, Sorcerer's Stone had been out nearly six months in the US and Europe, and Rowling had gone from anonymous single mother to media sensation. Crown's usual advance offer of US$1500 was immediately shot down, but six months later they sealed the deal for several thousand. The competition was far too slow on the draw-they only began pursuing a contract with Rowling's publisher a year after the ink had dried on Crown's contract. Now that all seven books in the Harry Potter series are available in Chinese, they have broken the all-time sales record in Taiwan, with 6.5 million copies sold, and Crown has reaped a windfall of NT$300 million in revenue.
After Harry Potter captivated the muggle world in 2000, a series of other long international bestsellers (dubbed "bricks" because of their heft and thickness) followed, including mystery thriller The Da Vinci Code in 2004 and the poignant The Kite Runners in 2005.
Ecus is one of 13 small publishing subsidiaries under the Cultural Enterprise Co. Ltd. banner. Known for their unique tastes, exquisite packaging, and marketing technique of floating out book excerpts to attract readers, they have met with consistent success. Wang Ruolan recalls that as a first novel by an unknown Afghan author, The Kite Runner only met with moderate success at first. But as readers discovered its merits it quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller lists.
As it turns out, at the same juncture Ecus was developing plans for a contemporary literature series, and The Kite Runner seemed to have the makings of a good market probe. They licensed the title for the moderately high price of several thousand US dollars. As it heads into the fifth year of its release in Taiwan it has sold 50,000 copies.
Published in Taiwan in 2006, La Sombra del Viento, a magical realism take on the detective story, is one of Gray Tan's (of the Grayhawk Agency) most representative efforts to date.
Tan says that he came across La Sombra del Viento on Amazon. Intrigued by the introductory snippet in English, he researched further, discovering that the original language was in fact Spanish. Though he himself spoke no Spanish he nevertheless resolved to obtain the copyright.
Spanish language and culture are not widely understood in Taiwan, and are accorded little attention. Fortunately, La Sombra del Viento's agent was very open-minded. He figured that for it to sell well in Asia would be a difficult assignment, but as long as expectations were reined in, there was no reason not to let Tan make a go of it.
Much to everyone's surprise, a little later, without any fancy promotion the book had swept the globe, being licensed in 40 different countries and selling millions of copies. The literary establishment heaped praise, giving rise to what the Western media dubbed "Zafoin fever," after the author's surname. Gray Tan obtained the right to license the title for the high price of US$13,000, which was sold to the Eurasian Publishing Co. This series of events established his reputation as an eagle-eyed judge of talent.
These global marketing triumphs have encouraged publishing companies to drum up the investment capital; no matter how dour the overall state of the book market, there is still the hope of landing the big one, and so the competition grows fiercer by turns.
So, does putting up ever larger advances for books, continually upping the ante, necessarily entail success? Ben Han of China Times Publishing demurs on that question. He observes that a book's success rests on a combination of factors: marketing, media exposure, effective retailing. Every global mega-hit is propped up by scores of commercial failures. It's all too common in the US for a publisher to pay out US$100,000 to an author only to see that investment evaporate in lackluster sales.
Gray Tan adduces the following example. In 1997, American author Charles Frazier's first effort, Cold Mountain, surpassed all expectations with sales of 2 million copies. The literary establishment adored it-it won a National Book Award-and it was made into a successful motion picture that received several Academy Award nominations.
Random House subsequently bid an astronomical US$8 million to publish Frazier's next novel based on a one-page synopsis. But that book, Thirteen Moons, was 10 years in the making and earned mixed reviews from the critics. Recouping that investment does not appear to be in the cards.
Emily Chuang laughs: "The book industry today isn't so much a gamble, it's an M-shaped society!" Either a book is wildly successful or it languishes in obscurity. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground.
Tan says that while he keeps a finger on the pulse of the publishing market, people also seek him out, sending him upwards of 1000 books per year for his perusal. He's only able to read about 10% of them, but when he comes across something that grabs him, he doesn't waste time in recommending it to publishers. Though his skills as a pitchman are formidable, he's often rejected four or five times before anything materializes.
The 2008 academic thriller Obedience is a clear example. It was the author's first outing, and as it hadn't made any incursions on any of the foreign bestseller lists, there weren't any benchmarks by which to predict its performance. Eventually, Faces Publishing Ltd. picked up the copyright. In time it proved to be a hit in Taiwan, selling 40,000 copies.
The craze for reading novels that swept the world from 2004 onward has since peaked and is now gradually abating. But novels still attract a faithful readership.