The Presses
Perk Up In Israel
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2002)
The
phrase “market volatility” takes on a whole new meaning
when you’re publishing books in Israel. As part of PT’s
continuing look at the book business overseas, Efrat
Lev, Foreign Rights Director of the Harris/Elon
Literary Agency in Jerusalem, profiles the Israeli market
and parses the nation’s current bestseller list.
Reports
from New York indicate that 2001 was not the best year
for books, and much the same could be said for publishing
in Israel. The political instability in our region has
affected all walks of life, and amid the terror attacks
and threats of war, we are constantly reminded of how
badly our economy is doing — with still more clouds
looming on the horizon. But incredibly, perhaps, not
all of the news is bad. Israeli publishing has fared
better than the battered tourism and entertainment sectors,
for example, and many publishers have even reported
an increase of 15% to 20% in book sales over the previous
year. (These days, it seems, many of us prefer to simply
stay at home and read.) Moreover, the usually sleepy
Israeli publishing industry has seen a flurry of activity
in the last few years, most recently the New York–style
merger between Zmora Bitan, a venerable family-owned
publishing house, and Kinneret Publishers, a
large commercial house. This merger has been the talk
of the town for insiders, and may precipitate a joining
of forces between Zmora/Kinneret’s existing chain of
discount bookstores and another chain of general bookstores
— creating stiff competition for Steimatzky’s
bookstore empire, which has dominated the market for
many years.
By American standards, however, that market is a small
one. Though Israel has a population of about 6.5 million,
deducting from the count those who read in Russian and
those who read in Arabic, as well as non-readers, brings
the number of regular book buyers down to about 100,000.
Hence the very small (and careful) print runs of about
1,500 to 2,000 copies for an average fiction or non-fiction
title — from small or large publishers alike. About
4,000 titles are published annually, distributed to
between 200 and 400 bookstores (the counts vary), which
are mainly chain bookstores where titles live a relatively
short shelf-life. Books are expensive in Israel, ranging
from $11 (small format) to $20 (trade size), including
17% tax. The vast majority of books are trade paperback
originals.
Given the market size, what makes a bestseller? The
number of copies needed to capture a spot on the bestseller
list has been steadily dropping. A translated title
that sells over 5,000 copies within a year is already
considered a winner; a huge seller is one selling from
20,000 to 50,000. For an Israeli work of fiction, sales
of 10,000 copies ranks the book as a success, though
the really big names can approach 100,000 copies. In
nonfiction, on the other hand, anything over 2,000 will
satisfy the publisher.
As is clear from the Israeli bestseller list (included
in this issue’s bestseller chart on p. 5), successful
titles come from a variety of genres. Harry Potter
and Lord of the Rings have been selling very
well in conjunction with the release of the movies.
Some international bestsellers do well here (Amy
Tan, The Girl With a Pearl Earring), yet
most bestselling titles are still Hebrew originals.
A.B. Yehoshua and Sami Michael are the
current big names on the list, with the former’s work
The Liberating Bride capturing the fifth spot
this month. Yehoshua, one of Israel’s leading literary
fictionists whom the New York Times once called
“a kind of Israeli Faulkner,” is published by Hakibbutz
Hameuchad, and a number of his works are available
in English, including A Late Divorce (Harcourt,
1993). Meanwhile, the Baghdad-born Sami Michael is on
the list this month with Water Kissing Water.
Published by the prestigious house Am Oved, the
book tells the story of Joseph, an immigrant from Iraq
in the 1950s who makes his assimilation to the new Israel
via two complicated love stories. The book has sold
almost 50,000 copies, with rights soon to be sold in
Holland (Vassallucci) and Germany (Berlin).
Before the invasion of the Tolkien books, Yael
Hedaya’s novel Accidents and Batya Gur’s
mystery Murder on Bethlehem Road also made strong
appearances on the lists. And new works by Amos Oz,
Aharon Appelfeld, David Grossman, and
Meir Shalev promise fierce competition in the
lists of the coming year.
Translations of fiction tend to stay near the upper
end of the genre, and such works of literature are well
received. Consequently, the percentage of translated
titles on a publisher’s list can be anywhere between
40% and 60%, depending on the publisher. José Saramago,
the Portuguese Nobel Prize winner, is an annual
visitor to the list (Blindness spent most of
2001 on the charts), and Ian McEwan, Paul
Auster, and J.M. Coetzee also do consistently
well here. Yet hardly any translated thriller or mystery
can sell as well as the local titles. Tom Clancy’s
The Bear & The Dragon, for example, only
made the list for one week in November.
‘Morrie’,
Zen in Hot Demand
As
for recent nonfiction, while the rest of the publishing
world rushed out titles bearing any connection to September
11, Israelis saw very little in the way of tomes on
terror and Islam. This is quite possibly because terror
is such a part of our daily reality. Books serve more
for escape rather than information. Hence bestselling
current affairs titles will deal most likely with local
politics, society, or a recent Israeli historical event.
(Although surprising bestsellers have been Stalingrad
and Fermat’s Last Theorem.) Other topics that
appeal to our readers are alternative health, spirituality
(Eastern religions and practices rather than Jewish
spirituality), inspiration and self-help (Who Moved
My Cheese? was a big hit, while Morrie in his
Own Words is still on the list), and plenty of cookbooks
by local chefs (including one from our agency’s director,
Beth Elon’s Mediterranean Farm Cooking).
Children’s bestsellers (other than HP, that is) include
regular stars, mainly Spot and Felix.
Olivia has also visited the list recently, as
has William Steig’s lovable ogre Shrek,
briefly.
It could be assumed that this multitude of translations
has improved the professional standards of work in translation,
but unfortunately this is not the case. Much has been
written here about bad translations which are not edited
properly. Leading literary publishers continue to uphold
the quality of their translated books, but the more
commercial houses seem to prefer cheap labor and shorter
production processes, with appalling results. Publishers
and agents abroad are well advised to take notice as
they sell rights to Israeli publishers. It is a shame
to see so much fine literature lost in translation.
©2002
Publishing Trends
