Japanese publishers are the number one source for foreign titles in Taiwan. They recorded 5,540 deals in 1997, but half of them were for comics. But according to Philip Chen at the Bardon Chinese Media Agency, Japan represents a third of the rights business now, and sales are increasing, especially in fashion and computer games titles.
The bestselling translated author in Taiwan is the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. China Times has all of his books, five of which were among the 10 to China Times' credit on the Eslite Bookstore's top 100 sellers.
"He is practically an industry here in Taiwan," says rights director Joyce Yen. "I think he is more popular here than in Japan."
Why is there not more cooperation between China and Taiwan?
Big Apple, Bardon and now Andrew Cribb, the former US arm of Bardon, who now runs Arts & Licensing International from Brooklyn, New York, have tried for years to bridge the gap and sell rights into both markets. Politically, however, it remains difficult.
The lack of players from China at last February's book fair in Taipei was a typical gesture of official ill will. Having only a biennial international fair of its own, Beijing announced that Taiwan could not have an international fair, since it is not a "nation" but only a small island that is part of China, in China's eyes. Visas were not issued to the publishers of China, so they could not attend, even though rights agreements with Taiwan partners form the largest segment of the industry.
Business flourishes in spite of official politics, however. The traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan are readily converted by computer to the simplified characters used in China, often with just light editing. So publishers on both sides are happy to share the translation costs, usually in more economical China, for a foreign work.
Many Taiwan publishers have fruitful relationships with their counterparts in China. While rights deals in China still tend to earn far less money for US publishers than those in Taiwan, the tendency now is to make two contracts, one for each set of characters, then work together on translations.
Big Apple in Taiwan even has a formal relationship now with the Beijing International Copyright Agency. But many publishing houses in China, all still government-owned and operated, do not like working through Taiwan agents.
They prefer working directly with their overseas counterparts.
Because of the complications of language and finance in China, their most successful efforts to date have been with Taiwan.
A new rights fair in Shanghai was launched this year to encourage better direct trade between Chinese publishers and their foreign counterparts, and the annual Shanghai Book Copyright Exchange Salon may indeed help increase the demand. But until China is a richer book market, most of the world's publishers will prefer to leave details in the hands of their agents, subagents or publishing partners in Taiwan.
Seeing the need for better communications, more players are entering the field.
Two Chinese-born women in the San Francisco Bay Area have focused on bringing US publishers together with their Chinese counterparts: Leying Jiang at Gateway International Publishing and Ning Tao at Tao Media International.
Evelyn Lee of Amer-Asia Books in Tucson, Arizona, started teaching English in China more than a decade ago, after a career in publishing. In the last five years she has developed a service helping Chinese publishers find rights holders and buy the rights for books they want. Last February's Taipei book fair was her first, and the three main things that impressed her were the efficiency and maturity of the publishers, and the number of players.
RSS