Kalimat's Translation Exchanges With Quarto, Bloomsbury, Gallimard

On Thursday, the Publishing Perspectives Talks bring industry leaders to Frankfurt’s Business Club on key issues of copyright challenges and the potential in Wattpad Studios content strategies for publishers.

Bloomsbury’s Nigel Newton and Gallimard Jeunesse’s Hedwige Pasquet speak Wednesday in a Publishing Perspectives Talk at Frankfurt Book Fair’s Business Club on Kalimat’s translation partnerships. Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse, Bernd Hartung

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Translation Exchanges, Copyright, Multiplatform Content

A number of events featuring key publishing figures at Frankfurter Buchmesse will be hosted this week by Publishing Perspectives at the Business Club (Hall 4.0).

We invite you to consider these Publishing Perspectives Talks on your Frankfurt schedule, and we’d be very glad to have you join us in the intimate setting of the Business Club Stage.

Each session will highlight illuminating conversation from primary players offering pivotal points about what’s working in international publishing today, along with important alerts to pressure points and challenges ahead.

Toward a Copyright Manifesto for International Publishing
10:30-11:15, Thursday, October 12

Michael Healy, Copyright Clearance Center
Caroline Morgan, International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFFRO)
Glenn Rollans, Association of Canadian Publishers
Jessica Sänger, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels

In the digital era, there’s “no shortage of worrying signs” concerning copyright, according to Michael
Healy, Executive Director for International Relations at Copyright Clearance Center—from Australia to Canada, Brazil to South Africa, and in a changing United Kingdom and Europe, where legislative and regulatory efforts to modernize the EU copyright framework may impact the sector in new ways.

Many of these issues are touched on in Healy’s recent survey of the issues for Publishing Perspectives.

In this session, Healy is joined by Caroline Morgan of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFFRO), by Glenn Rollans of the Association of Canadian Publishers, and by Jessica Sänger of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandelsand (the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers), in outlining the most urgent threats and most prudent responses to ensure that the global publishing community is able to secure proper recognition of copyright’s contribution to the overall creative economy—and of the part that publishers and rights holders play.

Clockwise from left: Michael Healy, Jessica Sänger, Glenn Rollans, Caroline Morgan

Getting the Most Out of Publishing Content: The Widening World of Wattpad Studios
2-2:45 p.m., Thursday, October 12

Ashleigh Gardner, Wattpad Studios
Cécile Térouanne, Hachette Romans

New international partnerships developed by Wattpad—a global multiplatform entertainment company—are leveraging the power of community to turn writers into stars and readers into diehard fans. And in many parts of the world, new Wattpad Studios partnerships are putting publishers’ best titles into the hands—and onto the screens—of new audiences.

In this session, Wattpad’s head of partnerships, Ashleigh Gardner, explains how today’s publishers are working with the platform to shift their best work into higher gear. And you can read more about the partnership between Wattpad and France’s Hachette Romans from its editorial and managing director, Cécile Térouanne.

Each month, more than 55 million users are on Wattpad—90 percent of them on mobile devices. In this talk, we learn how publishers are making the most of this phenomenon.

Cécile Térouanne, left (image: Olivier Dion), and Ashleigh Gardner

Publishing Perspectives will also be participating in several other sessions of key interest at the Business Club, among them:

Behind Closed Doors: How Literary Award Judges Work, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Thursday, October 12; featuring Pierre Assouline, author and editor-in-chief, magazine littéraire; Katja Gasser, head of literature department, ORF TV; Zeynep Oral, author and president, PEN Turkey; and Edmund Wee, founder and CEO, Epigram Books. The event is organized as part of ALDUS –
European Book Fairs’ Network, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union.

What Is Web Content?, 11-11:45 a.m., Friday, October 13; featuring Sejeong Oh, team leader of Bbsiness development, YLAB; Sunyoung “Syd” Kwak, visiting eesearcher, interfaculty initiative in
information studies at the University of Tokyo; Steffen Meier, publisher, digital publishing report; and Eve Jay, brand manager and creative consultant, Eve.Jay.Design. The event is a guest presentation with KOCCA.

And from earlier this week:

Kalimat’s Approach to International Business
10:30-11:15 a.m. Wednesday, October 11

Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Kalimat
Marcus Leaver, Quarto Group
Nigel Newton, Bloomsbury
Hedwige Pasquet, Gallimard Jeunesse

Under the leadership of its founding publisher, Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, the Sharjah-based publishing house Kalimat in the UAE has come up with an ingenious way to get its best Arabic literature translated into many other languages and disseminated across many other territories.

The key is a partnership format in which Kalimat exchanges titles for translation with other major global publishers. This process guarantees not only translations but also sales—every publishing house uses its own channels to promote work from the UAE in its own market, and Kalimat in turn then sells that publisher’s books in the Arab world.

In this session, Bodour and executives from partner publishers including Marcus Leaver of the Quarto Group, Nigel Newton of Bloomsbury and Hedwige Pasquet of Paris’ Gallimard Jeunesse talk about these exchanges and their importance in the field of international rights today.

Clockwise from left: Bodour Al Qasimi, Marcus Leaver, Nigel Newton, Hedwige Pasquet

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.