VISIT US AT THE 16TH BEIJING INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR
3 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2009
HALL 8B STAND B14 - 16, C14 - 16
ITA is established as the leading publishers’ representative in the China market. We were the first independent sales organisation to make this type of investment and since opening in 2005, we have greatly increased our capacity for both end-user and channel-based promotion. ITA operates from an office, with substantial showroom space, in Haidian District, the heart of Beijing’s university and book trade area. Importers and international school teachers frequently visit the show room to view titles and meet with ITA staff and receive product briefings.
ITA has recently taken on two new members of staff Li Beiyang (Aaron), formerly with EBECO, As marketing Manager with responsibility for academic and digital sales and Vivian Deng, marketing Assistant with responsibility for database development and sales.
What to expect from BIBF:
Beijing International Book Fair 2008
Ian Taylor’s report of the 2008 BIBF for The Bookseller
15th Beijing International Book Fair at Tianjin 1st – 4th September 2008
The 15th Beijing International Book Fair held, by requirement of the authorities, in Tainjin, was always going to be an oddity and something of a blip in the strong upward growth curve of this event’s history. The Olympics had already bought China’s Beijing-centred publishing industry to a virtual standstill for half of July and all of August and since regulations forbade any other public event from being held in Beijing until after the Para Olympics had ended, BIBF had to find another home. Beijing publishers’ reluctance to meet increased travel and accommodation costs, rather than fierce civic rivalry, ensured that the event would be held at Tianjin rather than Shanghai, though the latter would have been much preferred by foreigner exhibitors.
Arriving in Beijing after the Olympics, might be a bit like arriving a day late for the party of the year, but though the temporally abandoned Bird’s Nest looked a bit forlorn, the city looked incredibly clean, quiet and most of all green. The latter effect created by a massive army of peasant labour, allegedly paid less in real terms than mill workers in the industrial revolution, which had planted mature trees along every available road verge and open space. Beijingers seem a bit surprised to have enjoyed the Olympics, even though most were unable to get tickets. China’s vast hord of gold medals combined with a real pride in the success of the event was enough to suffuse the city with a glow of pleasure and goodwill. But there was also a feeling that there was time to kick start business again.
The question for the fair authorities was whether the ‘get back to work’ spirit be enough to bring the industry to the new fair site. To some extent they already knew the answer because domestic stand bookings were down on the previous year and there was no doubt that the fair looked smaller. The foreign exhibitor presence was also reduced and apparently foreign visitor numbers were further limited by the more protracted, ‘Olympic period,’ visa procedures. Yet Tianjin should be better known to foreigners than it is. Not only is it the third most important commercial centre in China, but as the former ‘Treaty Port’ of Tientsin, it was once one of the five foreign concession cities in pre-revolutionary China.
Foreign and domestic participants covered the 120 kms from Beijing in a 250 mile an hour bullet train, provided they could get a ticket and early arrivals were able to attend the International Publishers’ Forum on the Saturday prior to the Monday opening. This was also a case of ‘if you could get a ticket’ and only partly because, unlike previous years, it was free. The fair organizers had made a major effort to produce a more stimulating and interactive agenda and the industry’s young professionals, quite as much as august visitors, produced a generally interesting series of discussions.
The fast train service ensured that Beijing publishers were able to get their staff to the fair without needing to put them in hotels and astonishingly Peking University Press, a major publisher, but not one of the biggest, sent 100 editors by train to the fair on the opening day. There were complaints that the fair lacked buzz and it was certainly not quite the normal BIBF.
Jo Lusby, General Manager of Penguin’s China office admitted that it was a quiet fair for her and that this was only partly due to the location. Jo pointed out that the Olympics hiatus had made normal fair preparation impossible, setting back some projects and that the tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake had also put back marketing initiatives for Penguin Classics in Chinese promotion. However she was confident of a very lively autumn and year end. Luc Kwanton, of Taiwan and Shanghai based rights agent Big Apple Tuttle-Mori Agency, pronounced himself “underwhelmed” with the Tianjin venue, which he found difficult to find his way around, but in the run up to the fair he was pleased to have sold Peoples Republic of China (PRC) Chinese language rights for The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch for US$100,000 and got the same figure for Taiwan Chinese language rights. He was also pleased that Chinese publisher CITC had bought the new Richard Branson book for $50,000 on a one page proposal.
There was undoubtedly a lower level of aisle buzz, for what is normally a noisy fair and certainly a lot fewer parties. The annual party given by Mr Li Pengyi’s Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, did not make the transition to Tianjin, though the Publishers Association/UK Trade and Industry party did and was much appreciated. On the Palgrave Macmillan stand Clare Hodder, Head of Rights and Malgosia van de Westelaken lamented the lack of parties but took comfort from the fact that they had sold Chinese language rights to the 8 volume Dictionary of Economics to Economic Science Press for a £50,000 advance.
Despite the reduced numbers most foreign publishers present reported a good fair with high quality meetings and some advantages in being around when competitors were absent. Stephen Bourne, Chief Executive of Cambridge University Press was present, alone amongst the big China player CEOs and CUP is thought to be having a particularly strong year in China. To be in Tianjin also seemed to signify seriousness about the China market that was valued by Chinese publishers.
Despite the many restrictions that the Chinese government still places on their activities, foreign publisher involvement in the China book trade is also of course much more of an all year round activity than the BIBF only appearances of former years. Besides the big company English Language Teaching, academic textbook and journals publisher presence in China, there has been growing interest in Chinese authors and particularly Chinese authors writing in Chinese, rather than expatriates writing in English.
Whilst there were no announced deals at this year’s fair to equal the £100,000 paid by Macmillan in March for World English Language rights to Beijing author Yu Dan’s attempt to explain Confucius to the modern world, there are increasing reports of foreign publisher and agents searching for the next Ma Jian, living in China rather than London. There is a reported shortage of capable translators but Eric Abrahamson and other Beijing based translators have set up a website (www.paper-republic.org ) to offer their services, both as translators and author-finders. The Bookworm (http://www.beijingbookworm.com ) also provides a year round centre of the Beijing literary scene and a route to Chinese authors.
International and domestic publishing confidence in the China market was shaken by the abrupt closure of Bertelsmann Direct’s China operation in April and the repercussions are still being felt, but this event and a slightly quieter than usual book fair are not seen by serious observers as more than and temporary corrections in a strengthening and diversifying market. China is after all, increasingly part of the international publishing industry, with all that entails.
Special lists of books from ITA publishers:
Hodder Arnold International Student Editions.xls (57.00 KB)
BPL key reference titles 2004-2006.xls (2.40 MB)
Blackwell Chinese Interest.xls (55.00 KB)
Blackwell Sports Titles.xls (69.00 KB)
Blackwell Texts.doc (148.50 KB)
Ped tips.doc (67.50 KB)
Penguin reference list 1.doc (47.00 KB)
Facts on File bestsellers.doc (958.00 KB)
Facts on File STM titles.doc (42.50 KB)