Brits buoyed by Beijing boom

The Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF), which kicks off today (24th August) has supplanted BookExpo America (BEA) to become the third most important event on the international publishing calendar, with many British publishers attending this year’s event encouraged by better deals for rightsholders and an expanding retail market in China.

Jonathan Atkins, international sales director at Pan Macmillan, said: "BIBF is definitely becoming one of the most important fairs of the year. We all focus on Frankfurt and London Book Fair, but now it’s Beijing too. In the past we would have needed to consider going to BEA, but it’s dropped off for the UK’s international salespeople, because so few customers visit [BEA] from Asia and Europe . . . it is also close to LBF in terms of timing, and it’s perceived more as a domestic fair.”

China itself is a burgeoning market for many publishers. Alex Elam, Penguin head of rights for UK, East Asia, Brazil and Italy, confided that China was Penguin Adult’s third biggest market for rights—“and four years ago, it would have been between our seventh to 10th biggest”. Elam added: “I’m excited to go to this year’s BIBF as the market has grown incredibly since I was last there, in 2013. We did twice as many deals in 2015 with Chinese publishers than we did in 2013 and the value of these deals have grown fivefold.”

Octopus director of foreign rights, Ros Webber, said the illustrated publisher has seen “growth in nearly all topics—especially food and drink and popular science” in the Chinese market. She added: “There is so much untapped potential. The types of products, formats and subject areas [that can be sold into China] are all expanding. Crucially, retail prices are rising as consumers become more sophisticated and expect higher-quality products—and they are willing to pay more for them.”

Webber’s points about value are echoed by Bloomsbury Academic and Professional rights manager Elizabeth White. She said: “One of the most positive developments over the past decade has been recognition in the Chinese trade of the value of academic Intellectual Property, with much-improved advances and royalty agreements.”

White added that it has taken time to crack the market, “but every year there are closer ties . . . everybody is learning about each other and what the parameters are. There is more and more focus every year—it’s clearer what Chinese publishers want and don’t want.”

Challenges still abound; Atkins said one was making complicated importation processes as simple as possible. “But I don’t think any [UK publishers] are tapping fully into the market because of the size of it,” he said. “There is always more business to be had.”