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Spread the word

By Zhu Linyong (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-09 11:12

Some children's books such as Adventures of An Ant by Xia Zi and Mischief Ma Xiaotiao's Detective Stories by Yang Hongying, that have sold well in the local market, have also caught the attention of foreign publishers.

"Although my stories are based partly on my experience as a high school teacher and partly on my imagination, the themes they explore have universal appeal," says Yang.

According to Chang Xiaowu of Jieli Press, the Chinese publisher of Yang's novels, French publishing house Philippe Picquier bought the rights of Yang's novel series about Ma Xiaotiao in 2007.

Another highlight of this year's book fair was the 2008 International Publishing Forum, focusing on new trends and international cooperation in publishing.

The theme forum was held at the Tianjin International Exhibition Center along with several sub-forums on science publications, children's books, and popular publications.

The forums reportedly attracted at least 500 publishers, editors, researchers and authors from various countries and regions.

Stephen Bourne, chief executive officer of Cambridge University Press, says that to gain access to a foreign market, the way to go was to create partnership with local companies.

The publishing giant has a string of international partners, but in China, "we have perhaps the most active business partnership program of any country".

He is working with people from the Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press and the Higher Education Press, to develop and distribute English-language courses and academic titles, for which there is high demand in China.

Bourne says he is deeply impressed with his local partners' well-developed distribution networks.

Li Pengyi, vice-president of China Publishing Group, says: "The era of a global village has arrived for publishers. They must create a win-win situation in the global market to ensure sustainable growth for each party."

The veteran publisher with more than 30 years in the business recalls that "when the first foreign publishing delegation, the Publishers Association of the United Kingdom, visited China back in 1979, copyright trade was something unheard of". Their Chinese host took the visit as merely a cultural event, rather than as a business mission.

In August 1980, China signed an agreement with the United States for the translation of the Concise Encyclopedia Britannica. It was the first international copyright deal for China.

This transaction opened the door to international copyright trade but both the number and scale of deals were limited in the 1980s, Li says.

The turning point came in 1992 when China joined the Universal Copyright Convention. Since then, copyright trade has enjoyed phenomenal growth.

Over the past 30 years, the local publishing industry "has played an important role in helping China reach out to the outside world and bring in urgently needed technological know-how and managerial concepts," notes Yan Xiaohong, deputy chief of the General Administration of Press and Publication.

China's long history and rich culture have aroused growing interest among foreign writers to take up Chinese themes, he says.

For example, Alma Alexander, a Czech American writer has written The Secrets of Jin-Shen, drawing inspirations from nushu, a written language circulating in secrecy for centuries among Miao women in southern China.

Her book has been published in at least 10 languages and sold in a dozen countries, including New Zealand, UK, USA, Australia, Germany and Italy.

Yan points out that with increasingly higher economic and educational standards, a huge demand for reading materials will boost the publishing industry dramatically, opening up many opportunities for international cooperation in publishing.

"While Chinese works for export are guaranteed for quality having been tested on a large local market, imported works may enjoy a much larger market share than in their countries of origin," he explains.

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