By Edward Nawotka “Japanese publishers don’t have a lot of experience selling rights, so we did what we could to make it easier,” said Eiko Han, spokesperson for the Tokyo International Book Fair, which opens tomorrow and runs through Sunday. “We’ve made it so exhibitors and visitors can put their rights information online. Businesses can search and, if they are …
Bonus Material: The Godzilla of Japanese Online Shopping
By Edward Nawotka If this were a Japanese monster movie Mothra would be played by Amazon.co.jp. Amazon in Japan has always been a contender, but one that is too often on the losing side of the fight. (Recently, for example, the company was asked to pay $119 million in overdue Japanese taxes after being accused of failing to properly report …
Will 360 Million Chinese Boycott the Internet?
By Edward Nawotka BEIJING: Today is the day China turned off the internet. Or at least that is the hope of artist Ai Weiwei. Weiwei called on China’s 360 million internet users to “stop working, reading, chatting, blogging, gaming and mailing” to protest the Chinese government’s demand that computers users have to have installed its controversial Green Dam Youth Escort …
Bonus Material: The 2009 Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens
By Edward Nawotka Ai Weiwei’s call for protest coincides with circulation of the 2009 Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens, a protest document that criticizes the Chinese government for having “deprived your netizens of the freedom of speech.” The anonymous group then claims “we are going to launch our attack worldwide on your censorship system starting on July 1st, 2009.” The …
Bonus Material: Ed’s Beijing Blog
All this week our editor-in-chief Ed Nawotka will be blogging from Beijing, where he’ll be meeting with publishers and writers in advance of China’s appearance as Guest of Honor at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. A literary tourist, Ed will also be visiting local bookstores, meeting with literary critics, agents, bloggers, as well as taking in some of the sites. …
Harper UK’s Lucy Vanderbilt on Chinese Opportunties
By Roger Tagholm LONDON & BEIJING: At a time when ‘flat’ is the new ‘up’ in the UK, publishers are eager, some might event say desperate, to find new markets – and as relatively untapped markets go, none comes bigger than China. HarperCollins has been quick to realise this and is already reaping the benefits. At last week’s British Book …