rwischenbart – Seite 24 – Ruediger Wischenbart

Juni 6, 2007 In general

Bookmarkets – where’s the limit?

At BookExpo America, I could set up and launch a debate on the „Internationalisation of English reading„, or a funny 3 bn $ market niche that so far got little attention by book folks aside from the few online and wholsalers who are actively increasing their revenues from it.

Anyone exploring a major book store in Europe can see how the ‚foreign language‘ section (as they used to call it when ‚foreign‘ was still considered to draw a clear line of separation between ‚us‘ and some ‚other‘) has expanded over the past few years. Yet hardly anyone has so far tried to make sense out of it, in terms of business, culture, or personal convenience for readers like you and me.

Many funny things occur in that niche:

1. It doesn’t exist in the first place, at least if you look at the general trade statistics. Yet, as Pascal Zimmer of Libri could show at our debate, if you consider the sales of any major wholesaler, and dig up data from within their warehouses, you see how tremendously the niche is growing. You can, of course, also just look at many readers (I am a good example myself) to realize that reading the ‚original‘ has become pretty popular in no time.

2. For some reading markets, like Scandinavia or the Netherlands, this even turned into a substantial problem, at least as far as translations are concerned, e.g. from English into Swedish or Dutch, as Lasse Winkler from the Swedish book trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel told us, as the imports aggressively compete with those translations.

3. In major corporations, this competition between several language versions unavoidably became part of a sales strategy, as explained by Richard Kitson of Hachette / Hodder Headline UK, as his company routinely adds to the domestic sales of UK fiction bestsellers over 100.000 (!) more exported copies across Europe alone, and guess what, of course these export markets are the same into which translation rights for the same title have been sold.

I put some material at my website, with more on this exciting and likely also controversial subject to come.

Mai 22, 2007 In Allgemein

Diversity? Of course, please! But only then, the trouble sets in.

Last night, I was invited by Gerfried Sperl of Der Standard newspaper, to sit on a panel discussing the UNESCO declaration on cultural diversity, together with Unesco’s Austrian representative Gabriele Eschig, writer Marlen Streeruwitz and Green MP Wolfgang Zinggl.

Of course, between us, we considered the Unesco convention to be a positive move in the right direction, given all the obvious changes in the cultural sphere.

But only then, during our debate, I started to realize – and was puzzled – how clearly a line separated two different approaches to its value and perspectives.

Marlen pointed out probably most clearly how she welcomed the declaration as the return of politics into a field that was recently taken over by brutal market forces, and how she expected now small island of protected, secured land to emerge within the general turmoil. For her, in an analyses of power positions, the goal of the declaration was to help those who, like artists, or other minoritarian groups, speak from low power positions, to retain control over ‚their‘ cultures and hence their ‚territories‘ (while those market driven forces tend to erase such borderlines and territories).

There is no doubt, I guess, that such a threat does exist, and such simple examples like the disappearence of small neighborhood book shops, giving way to non-territorial marketplaces like Amazon, well illustrate what occurs.

Yet, I have my problems with the perspective of a landscape full of fortified, little villages, as urban culture, from its beginning, was based on open spaces, and on opening doors and windows to ease the exchange and communication between the many, and by tearing down the walls of territorial entities.

There is probably no easy answer to this conflicting perspectives, but I understood at least, what the question may be. Which is a pretty good result for an hour and a half of debate, I think.

Mai 14, 2007 In Asia

That hidden 3 bn dollar book market

Book markets today have a reputation of being slow, flat, little exciting, except for those breath taking crime novels that top so many bestseller lists around the globe.

Yet there is this 3 bn dollar niche market that draw little attent, if not by a few international sales people from wholesalers or large corporations.

I speak of the expanding market of English language books that are exported from the UK and US into the rest of the world.

In 2005, the US exported books for 981 million USD, and the UK books for another 2246 USD (and these numbers already exclude exports from the US into Canada and the UK, and from the UK into the US, Ireland and Australia – otherwise it is a staggering 5 bn market niche). And these export markets show significant growth in some places.

Put together, the 3 bn $ cake grew by 20 percent over a decade, from 2461 m $ in 1995 to 2975 in 2005 (all numbers according to the UK Dept. of Trade and Industry, and the US Trade Stats Express).

Those numbers get even more interesting, once we dig into details.

Rule Britannia

First of all, we see that the UK is by far the stronger exporter than the US, and this is true for most target markets indeed.

Germany in 2005 imported 95 m Pound Sterling (or almost 200 m $) worth of British books as compared to less than 60 m Yankee books.

China bought books for 27 m $ from the UK as compared to 20 m $ from the US – and China is, for books just as well as for anything else, probably the most important destination in the near future. Imports from the UK grew from 1,3 m GBP (or some 2,5 m $) in 1995 pretty much continually to its level of today, while from the US side, it started in 1995 from more serious 6 m $, at a much slower pace, to its current purchasing level.

One may think that this is all a bit like Harry Potter, that British wizzard and sorcerer, who conquered the world, starting at what was at least in the beginning, a rather obscure British boarding school. And yes, those HP books opened many doors, for instance when they hit the top of the German bestseller in 2000 – in English!

Well expect the details about Harry and the Global World of Books – and much more in the weeks to come on the booklab blog, as we prepare at BookExpo America for a Global Market Forum on June 1st, 2007, on exactly those questions, with 2 top expert panels and a lot of insight.

More to come to a blog near you…

Mai 4, 2007 In general

Robert Fulghum’s new book: First in Czech. English follows later!

As we screen and analyse international bestseller lists for several book trade magazines month by month, we were puzzled by that the new book of Robert Fulghum, author of many essays, notably All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986).

His new collection of notes, essays, and observations, titled “What On Earth Have I Done”, hit the Czech charts as of last month – while the English original is announced only for next fall. months before its publication in English. Surprised by such a strange routine, I wrote to Robert Fulghum – and got back a wonderful story that says a lot about why sharing information on interesting books from many places makes a lot of sense and a lot of fun to many people indeed. So I share that story with you in its entirety down below.

This is what Robert Fulghum wrote:

„In partial answer to the question to you raise, I’ll tell you a nice story. All of my books have been published in Czech over the years as a result of the interest of one person, Eva Slamova, the editor-in-chief of Argo. When I began writing a novel, she wanted to see it. My own American editor didn’t want me to write fiction and wasn’t encouraging. Eva, on the other hand, published the novel as I wrote it – in three volumes and beautifully – and it has had great success. THIRD WISH is the tile. Now it has been published in Slovak and Hungarian. A radio adaptation was made for Czech Radio, and a theater piece has developed from it. My entire contract for the novel said, “Publish it well and send me some money if you make some.” They did and they did. Nice, yes?

And so, when I finished my new book of essays and stories, I wanted the Czechs to publish it first, in appreciation for Eva’s faith in my writing. Some critics wonder if the novel and the essays are somehow not good enough to be published in the states, but they don’t understand. It is a real honor to be published first in Czech – theirs is a long and distinguished literary tradition. My American editor and publisher find this confusing, but the USA is not at the top of the heap in many respects these days, and it takes some getting used to. Mostly American publishers think of the sales to European countries as stripping the cow – just extra income – without much respect for the readers outside the USA. Who cares what the Czechs and Slovaks and Hungarians think and read? Well I care very much.

My new book of essays, What On Earth Have I Done? will be published by St. Martin’s Press in the USA in September, and the novel is being considered now by three publishers here. Meanwhile, I am very happy to continue to have my books launched in Czech.

There’s more to the story, but that’s a beginning. So far, nobody has really noticed this except you. Come to the Czech or Hungarian book fairs and see first hand what’s going on. With thanks for your interest and warmest regards, Robert Fulghum“

PS: In the mean time Fulghum has arrived in Prague, just in time for the local book fair, Prague Book World“, and enjoys the fair, the books, good company – and good Czech beer, as he told me on the phone.

April 19, 2007 In general

Nobel Awarded Elfriede Jelinek Writes Next Novel Online

Ever wanted to look across the shoulder of a real Nobel laureate as she (or he) writes? Austrian Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Laureate in 2004) decided to post her forthcoming novel „Neid“ („Envy“) online, chapter by chapter.

The text starts with this sentence: „Kleine Lebenswelten stürzen nach außen, die dazupassenden kleinen Lebensweisheiten nach innen. In der Mitte treffen sie einander.“ (Which translates, word by word, as follows: „Small living worlds crash to the outside, while the fitting small truths of life (dive) inward. They meet in the middle.“)

But if you consider this an act of public writing, you’re dead wrong. Elfriede defines her new book as a „private novel“. Two chapters are already available, with a lot more to come.

The writer who always walked the fine line between public fame and private retreat has been an avert reader of international writing (provided it has the kick of, for example, Thomas Pynchon – whose „Gravity’s Rainbow“ she translated into German) when hardly anyone outside the German speaking audiences had ever heard of her.

April 11, 2007 In digitization

Print – Dead or alive

It is interesting to see how large corporations now start to allow (or even encourage) their thinking staff to do their thinking in public, hence online. Remember when journalists in the field were first allowed, not so long ago, to blog about their reporting?

Now I was pointed to a blog titled „Print is Dead“ – which states in the opening, a bit paradoxically, but rightly so, I guess, that print, in fact, is not dead at all for some time – where Jeff Gomez, the director of marketing of the Holtzbrinck publishing group (Germany / UK / US) collects bits and pieces and thoughts about his title statement in order to prepare a book on that matter to be published later this year by an (Holtzbrinck owned) imprint, Palgrave Macmillan.

Frankly, a good source of information to be in the loop of an interesting, yet highly fragmented debate.

März 28, 2007 In Allgemein

Translation – feedback

The initial essay of this blog on Translation (and the decrease in translations globally) found a nice and critical echo from imomus who – from his perspective: correctly – pointed to the fact that those statistics that illustrate the paramount predominance of English just mirror a classical network and hypernode scheme (one hub – English – and a lot of secondary spikes).

To some extend I agree, as the pattern is obvious, and I pointed to that earlier myself and was approvingly discussed in this respect.

But I guess that this does not explain it all.

What we see is a double (or even multi) layered structure: The simple fact is that people don’t only communicate across books, but on many media levels and channels. The interesting point is to ask what that means for books. My take is that the role of books is changing, and we don’t know yet how, and even why exactly.

That will need some more blogging in those pages, and additional exploration and facts – which will happen on these pages over time. That’s a promise.

März 28, 2007 In Allgemein

What are you reading!

Myself? At the Salon du Livre,I picked up a rather exotic reader (of ‚editions errance‘) „La culture est-elle naturelle?“ („Is Culture Natural?“), reflecting about recent research in early (paleolithic and neolithic) human culture. I was puzzled that Actes Sud who obviously acquired or distributes that series considered it useful to carry 3 copies of such a book to a very popular book festival hoping for an audience (at least, they sold one – to me). This shows how the Long Tail actually works, and not only in cyberspace, but in the real world as well.

It tells us something about us readers: We’re more of a bizarre and fickle flock than we are aware of, I guess.

When I studied (German and French) literature at the university of Graz, Austria, in the 1970s, we had a very localized mindset: We did not ‚German‘ literature, reading hardly any Goethe or Schiller, but Austrian, and by that fact, every new book of a then pretty lively Austrian literary scenery (yet, published predominently by German publishers, but there were a few Austrians, with great pride and zeal!) was really picked up instantly by us – Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard, but also lesser know names, Klaus Hoffer, Peter Rosei, Elfriede Jelinek (unimaginable to expect her, of all writers, to become a Nobel laureate one day, or her mentor, Alfred Kolleritsch, who is still editing that literary magazine of ‚manuskripte‘ in Graz today).

Strangely enough, something hints at a new trend towards such local cultural orientations. The point (and difference, though) is that today’s local pride is inscribed in a context of globalisation.

So at a first glance, our literary world has a very ‚global‘ appearence, not for Dan Brown and Harry Potter, but for all those recent novels like „The Kite Runner“ or the „History of Tractors in the Ukraine“, or, as it all started somehow a few years ago, with that „God of Small Things“ of Kerala born Arundathy Roy which poped up, in 1997/1998 from nowhere and hit bestseller lists all over the world within one year.

But in fact, all those books are only small islands, local peaks, with little secured land in between.

I have no real conclusion at this point. But it is remarkable, I think.

März 26, 2007 In general

Paris reading – or what do you do with a comic book?

It’s a book fair. But most people line up – for someone drawing and painting often entire pages, in ink and bright colour!

Getting back from Paris and the Salon du Livre, happy to have survived aisles jammed by endless cohorts of youth lining up for their favorite comic book stars, I still have a smile on my face. Those comic book heros have been held responsible, in my youth, for an expected decline in reading. Yet today, all across Europe, and particularly so in France, comic books are, in every respect, a foundation of the book market and of reading culture.

Titeuf, that boy with his daring blond hair, is considered to have had not such a strong year in 2006, with ‚only‘ 570800 of his 11th album sold in a country of 50 million (which put Titeuf still on top of the year’s bestseller ranking once again)… Altogether, the French comic book market is growing steadily now for 12 years, and even in 2006, comic books are, with +0.5 %, one of the rare segments of growth.

However, even the dungeon that is French home grown comic book culture, for years has come under huge pressure from Far Eastern contendants, or to put it more simply: Mangas tend to overtake the French heros now more and more often, thereby triggering, according to Livres Hebdo, the serious threat of a ‚bubble‘ of overproduction. In this week’s top 20 bestseller list of ALL books sold in France, „Naruto“ (with vol. 20) is number 2, while a 50th anniverary volume of Gaston Lagaffe is only sixth.

While Europe this weekend was celebrating not only Gaston Lagaffe, but also the 50th anniverary of the European Union (what a coincidence indeed), I must remember, still smiling, as I said, that question of an American friend of mine who was wondering not so long ago: ‚Is there a comic book tradition in Europe‘, he asked.

März 21, 2007 In Allgemein

Kehlmann – at last – not anymore Germany’s #1 bestseller

Bestsellers in Europe are strange these days. Since fall 2005, or for 78 weeks in a row, a novel about two learned men of the 18th century topped all the lists in Germany. Last year in France, where traditions count probably more then anything else in culture, a book written by an American writer (in English) of Polish Jewish origins about the atrocities of the Eastern front in World War II was the main sensation of the season (Jonathan Littell’s „Les Bienveillantes“). And now, in Germany again, every reader’s eyes are on a first novel about the murder of a farmer family and the portrait of a village community as an anti-idyllic place, published – to make the success even more unlikely – by a small press that so far was better known for its post-leftist ambitions (Andrea Maria Schenkel: Tannöd. Edition Nautilus. For a German review see here.)

But at least Tannöd is a crime novel and thus fits into what seems to be the main European reading pattern in the first place: Well researched and written, somehow authentic and always highly localised crime fiction, which can be found in any country and region, from Greece to Sweden.

By the way, so much for globalisation and culture, when every village has its own direct line to fame!

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