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A “busy and focused” Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) kicked off yesterday (26th August) with a record number of exhibitors, the biggest-ever UK contingent and many fair-goers saying the current Chinese stock market turmoil would do little to dent their future publishing plans.
BIBF organisers said there were close to 2,400 exhibitors, eclipsing last year’s 2,200. In addition to stands for British-based multinationals such as Pearson, Penguin Random House UK and Oxford University Press, the UK Publisher’s Association collective stand boasted 23 companies, including Bloomsbury, Jessica Kingsley and first-time exhibitors Gardners Books.
Gardners commercial director Bob Jackson said that while the distributor has sold into China for 25 years, its increased portfolio, including music, DVDs and e-books, has meant that it was time to explore closer partnerships with the Chinese trade. He said: “What we’re doing here is trying to forge relationships and talk to the end retailers. And our e-books offer is attractive [to potential Chinese partners]; we have 1.2 million digital titles, that market is taking off in China and exporting them to China has obvious logistical benefits.”
The Chinese stock market plunge was not a major concern at the moment, Jackson said. He added: “These ups and downs are cyclical things. But the real issue from a British perspective would be currency exchange. If you start to get big fluctuations, then you have a problem.”
Most Chinese publishers, while reluctant to speak on the record about the Chinese economy, talked of “a stock market correction”. One said: “We are looking for cultural exchanges, expanding outward. Yes, there will be occasional difficulties like [the current stock market troubles]. But we are looking at the long-term, big picture.”
Bloomsbury Academic and Professional rights manager Liz White has attended BIBFs since 2006. She believes there is an "increased focus" from Chinese publishers this year. She said: “They used to not really know what we did, weren’t really sure what books they were looking to acquire from us. But now they have done their research and know exactly what they want.”
White added: “Interestingly, there seems to be a real opening up of what content is being bought. Chinese editors are buying in things like Western philosophy and history, subjects that used to be quite difficult to publish in China.”
The London Book Fair is running two four-hour forums at BIBF tomorrow [26th August], one on rights trading in and out of China, the other on “books and brands in the multimedia age”. The latter forum has had significant attention from the Chinese media as its guests including hip, young Chinese writer Feng Tang and Alan Lee, the illustrator of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings who also collaborated on the Peter Jackson Tolkien films.
LBF director Jacks Thomas said: “I have been really impressed at this year’s BIBF. The children’s area has been fantastic and they have done an amazing job with the Country of Honour [United Arab Emirates] space and programme. [BIBF] gets bigger and better each year. And the UK publishers are all saying they have been incredibly busy.”