Wild About
Warsaw
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (JULY 2002)
The
Warsaw Book Fair has evolved from a business-only mixer
to what sponsors are now billing as an east-meets-west
literary lotusland. Brenda Segel, VP Director of Subsidiary
Rights for HarperCollins, contributes to this report
from the front lines.
As a first-time visitor to the Warsaw Book Fair,
I found myself very pleasantly surprised. This busy,
productive fair took place from May 15-19 at the Palace
of Culture (a huge edifice hated by the Poles because
it was a gift from Stalin), and it has become a rollicking
Warsaw tradition. The first two days are for professionals
and media only, and the next three days are open to
the public, who swarmed the gates in such numbers (36,000
visitors hit the fair) that they reportedly had to wait
nearly an hour to buy a ticket on May 19. Publishers
are there to sell books to the public, and booths were
well staffed. (Janusz Folger, the new chairman
of fair sponsor Ars Polona, said more than 500
exhibitors from 24 countries were in attendance. Though
this figure is down from 800 in recent years, Folger
told the press he’s dropping the “artificial statistics”
and only counting “serious exhibitors.”) Though this
is not a rights fair, I and my colleague Lara Allen
made appointments with publishers at their booths, and
also worked in quality time with our agents in Poland.
(The fair’s actually a nice warm-up for the Moscow
International Book Fair on Sept. 4-9, and for Moscow’s
new Non/Fiction Book Fair, on Nov. 27-Dec. 1.)
Clearly, Poles are avid readers, and while you’ll find
lots of brand-name bestsellers (Harry Potter
was Poland’s bestselling title in 2001), there’s even
more literature, from the classics to new voices. I
was amazed at how far they’ve come from the Stalin days,
in terms of packaging and marketing. Granted, this is
not the best moment for Poland’s economy. The Polish
News Bulletin reported that though the nation’s
book market grew 7.7% last year, the collapse of three
major distributors — Liber, Kwadro, and
Swiatowid, which together controlled some 11%
of the market — has set off industry tremors. The number
of titles published fell by 5% last year to about 149,000,
Poland’s two largest wholesalers reported losses, and
retailers were said to be dumping stock at cut-rate
prices. Still, you’d hardly know it from the book fair
or the book stores. At the big Empik chain in
both Warsaw and Crakow, the aisles were crowded. There
are generally three floors of books, which are nicely
displayed on tables, in corrugation and endcaps. You’ll
find everything from new releases to travel and children’s
books. I was especially happy, of course, to see so
many HarperCollins and Morrow authors
in translation, from Joyce Carol Oates, William
Kowalski, Wally Lamb, Rebecca Wells,
and Isabel Allende to John Gray, Marilyn
Manson, and Eminem.
©2002
Publishing Trends
