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ITALIAN PUBLISHERS PREPARE FOR THE 14th BEIJING BOOK FAIR
Sixteen Italian publishing houses are ready to take on China on the occasion of the 14th Beijing Book Fair (www.bibf.net/bibf/
index.jsp), scheduled to run from 30th August to 3rd September. The Italian Trade Commission (ICE) will lead the delegation into one of the most important international events in the publishing rights business. The objective is to promote copyright sales between Italian and Chinese publishing houses and co-publishing initiatives. Last year's edition saw the participation of over 1,700 exhibitors from 50 countries spread over a 27,000 exhibition space, attracting 220,000 visitors.
China's potential for Italian publishing houses is certified by hard numbers. In a country of 1.3 billion people, household expenditure on education and culture is second only to primary needs expenditure (food, housing and clothing), while the publishing market has an average annual growth of 7%, compared to the 1-2% registered in Italy. On the whole, there seems to be a strong interest in China for foreign literature, as the figures on copyright sales - made possible by China's entry in the WTO in 2001 - can testify. The Chinese market opened to the world and in little more than half a decade it has become the second biggest - after the English speaking one - for German and French publishing industries.
The opportunities for Italian publishers, therefore, are great, especially since the Chinese industry still has a long way to go before reaching maturity: in the same year there were 11.746 deals for publishing foreign books in China, while only 1.362 Chinese publications were exported abroad. A ratio of 9-to-1. The biggest sellers of publishing rights in China are the USA and the UK, followed by Taiwan, Japan and Germany. The figures for France, Russia, Canada, Singapore and South Korea are smaller.
As far as Italy is concerned, a recent market research commissioned by ICE shows that nearly all of the Chinese publishing houses, universities, libraries and major publishing corporations that were included in the survey are interested in buying rights for Italian publications and in developing links with Italian publishing houses. The most popular genres are Art, Design and Architecture, Comics and Children's literature, books on Italy (especially travel books) and on the Italian way of life (beauty, cosmetics, fashion, cooking), Medical publications, Language books for foreigners and Educational books on music.
The Italian publishing industry has a foothold in all these sectors. In 2005 its turnover reached 3,621 million euros (+0,4% compared to 2004), with a catalogue of 53,000 publications. Frontlist titles represented 63,5% of the total, rising to 66% for the 'Various adult and children' category: a testimony to the amount of investment put forward on supporting new authors, developing new collections and publishing initiatives. In 2005 the value of Italian book exports was 39,5 million euros, 78,4% of which came from 'Various adult' category. Children's books only represent 2% of exports.
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