Busy BIBF sees 'more discerning' rights buying

A busy Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) is seeing a surge of interest from Chinese houses in lifestyle titles, UK publishers have told The Bookseller. Chinese publishers are also said to be becoming "more discerning" in their choices, and prepared to compete hard for what they see as the key titles.

Meanwhile there's a new appreciation from the UK side of the potential of Chinese authors, following Head of Zeus's success with SF author Cixin Liu.

Pavilion's North America and Asia sales manager Rebecca Lake said that childrens was still the most popular area for rights deals, but drink books were going down very well and there was more interest in cookery than in previous years, as well as in craft, gardening, and the National Trust titles in her catalogue. "I expect 60-70 titles to sell through into China in rights terms," she said. "Offers are up and in childrens, art, craft, drink and popular culture, everything will go to auction."

Orion group rights director Susan Howe said China was "still an incredibly exciting market", with rights deals growing in both number and value, and history, lifestyle, business and self-help all popular. In history, Chinese publishers are keen on city histories like [Simon Sebag Montefiore's'] Jerusalem and [Bettany Hughes'] Istanbul, she said; in fiction the demand is for heart-warming, positive tales, with psychological thrillers failing to take off as a widespread genre.

For Laurence King's Barney Duly, strong areas were childrens, graphic design and art, with gift products such as games now finding a market, with more disposable income available from China's growing middle class. But there has been so much advance demand from Chinese publishers in the past two years, that only around 20% of Laurence King's catalogue remains to sell, he added.

Amy Hawkins, spearheading Yale University Press's first year at BIBF, said: "Everybody wants popular science, popular philosophy, written by academics but for the general reader. The middle class is rising and there is a desire to educated at a higher level." She added: "We've noticed Chinese publishers becoming a bit more discerning, buying less and with more competition for what they perceive as key titles. Five-figure dollar deals have substantially increased."

Gardners international sales manager Ian Roberts said BIBF was "really busy, busier than last year." He said: "We've traded with the major importers for most of our 30-year history, but as the market has opened up and grown, face-to-face contact is very important. Academic, childrens, accessible titles like Pearson Easy Readers, coffee table books, and aspirational lifestyle titles are all doing well. Overall our sales are growing at a very acceptable level."

He added: "There's been a wider range of end retailers present at BIBF than I've noticed in previous years, and also more openness to a wider range of products. Maybe because a lot of buyer contacts at the importers are the first generation to have studied abroad, and come back with a different attitude, they are more open than they have been in the past."

Orion's Howe was very struck by the potential of a two-way rights exchange. "We need to be collaborating a lot more, not just pushing our books out," she said. "We've just had a brilliant meeting with [Chinese publishing house] SF World. We've done a lot of business [selling rights] with them, and we could be doing business the other way too. After the success of The Three-Body Problem, everybody's thinking 'Let's do something from China.'"

Roberts noted: "You are as much sold to as selling, the desire to spread Chinese authors around the world has not diminished. But there is increasing demand in the UK. Some of the retailers in the UK have approached us to source Chinese bestselling titles."

BIBF runs until Sunday (27th August).