Visitors to the Beijing International Bookfair earlier this month were pondering two striking facts: the Chinese market for English language books is at last shaking off the torpor of the state-run supply chain; yet the Americans hardly showed up. In contrast, the Brit pack presence looked positively bullish — both at the UK Publishers Association stand, where exhibitors have doubled year on year for the past three fairs, and as individual exhibitors.
So what is it that keeps the Americans away? A population of 1.3 billion, nearly 1,700 universities, and a booming consumer sector should represent some sort of an opportunity for publishers. Are they fearful of bad debts, SARS, Al Qa’eda, or just sceptical after more than two decades of mostly unfulfilled promise? For sure, many a bright-eyed publisher on both sides of the pond has predicted ‘big things’ from this market before. On the face of it, the current import volumes of English language product are still relatively low — around $270 million. However, there are real signs of life across STM and academic, children’s, reference, art, and general trade sectors, as a fresh wind of entrepreneurial spirit begins to blow through the supply chain.
What is the key to success in China? Like anywhere else, it pays to show up. The former international head of the UK Publishers Association’s, Ian Taylor of Ian Taylor Associates, knows the ropes — and the folks. “I’ve been coming here for nearly 25 years, two or three times a year. Various people I know in the book importers have asked me to help them source a wider range of English-language titles — particularly from American publishers,” he says. According to Taylor, the Chinese book buyer is starved of choice when it comes to English-language books. “The market for academic books and journals is dominated by Reed Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, with McGraw and Pearson catching up. There is now real hunger for a wider range of publishing lines,” he explains. Taylor is creating a new business model that offers smaller and medium-sized publishers the same strategic platform as the most successful multinational. “That means having a local presence handling all aspects of the business — imports as well as foreign- and English-language reprints — and building links with the state importers that enable you to promote direct to end users. The real prize for publishers is to get the inside track in a market that is moving away from the old model of state control. The state sector is becoming more professional and entrepreneurial and there are new private sector entrants into the market.”
Taylor also points out that though library budgets have been squeezed by the pressure of journals’ prices after the government’s copyright crackdown in December 2001, government funding for universities is continually on the increase, and library requirements are becoming more varied. Combined with growing consumer affluence, this will lead to continued and substantial growth in the market for English-language books. This situation has already prompted some of the major foreign publishers in the market to rein in their reprint licensing deals and look more closely at export opportunities.
Taylor is already linked with Andrew Nurnberg’s successful Beijing rights sales office and is now planning to set-up representation and distribution for US and UK publishers. “There now really is a tremendous opportunity for American houses to grow in China by working with an end-to-end marketing and distribution service,” he says. The buyers here are moving from buying language and reprint rights to buying publishers’ original stock. And, he points out, UK book exports to China rose 45% in February 2003, and “our projections suggest that it will be a $500 million book market within two years.”
Taylor can be contacted at +447711168580 and found at the IPG stand at Frankfurt 8/A937 or email iantaylor@iantaylorconsulting.co.uk.
PT thanks Barney Allan for contributing this story. Allan, a London-based marketing consultant, can be emailed at barney.allan@zoom.co.uk.
