“I’m here trying to discover new, contemporary classics from countries whose literature is not so well known, such as India, China and Turkey. But a personal interest of mine is Italy. I speak Italian and think there are some wonderful books from there that still need to be discovered and translated. One example which we’re publishing is Andrea Bajani’s Se …
Profile: Transatlantic Literary Agency
By Emily Williams Samantha Haywood, agent and rights director for Transatlantic Literary Agency (TLA), lives out the ocean-straddling name of her agency, splitting her time between Toronto, home to the agency’s headquarters, and Amsterdam, where she now lives with her family. Being part of an eclectic team of agents with footholds in Canada, the US and Europe keeps Haywood sensitized …
Could This Be the End of Territorial Copyright?
By Andrew Wilkins Frankfurt’s enduring relevance as an international rights fair is built to a great extent on the principle of territorial copyright—that invisible patchwork of rights territories that covers the globe. But what if there was no territorial copyright to enable publishers to safely invest in intellectual property in their own country, safe in the knowledge that another publisher …
French Books en force
By Olivia Snaije French publishers have weathered the economic downturn comparatively well, and this fall a total of 659 French and foreign novels were published for the inescapable rentrée littéraire (literary season). Many of the books being presented here at Frankfurt have already made the long or shortlist of the numerous French literary prizes that will be announced at the …
Literary Agent Profile: Yasmina Jraissati of RAYA Agency
Based in Lebanon, Yasmina Jraissati founded Raya Agency to represent Arab authors and build more connections between international and Arab publishers.
Rights Directors Aim To Hit a “Moving Target”
By Andrew Wilkins While hardcore digitizers were immersed in the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference at the Radisson Hotel, back at the fair grounds rights managers were congregating to discuss the practicalities of making money from digital content. This year’s International Rights Directors Meeting—the 23rd—was appropriately themed, “Hitting a Moving Target,” and captured the sheer speed of change that has …
What’s the Buzz: Time to Start Talk of the Amazon Book Settlement
By Siobhan O’Leary and Edward Nawotka It’s finally here! Following months of speculation, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon will start shipping the Kindle outside of the USA. The GSM-enabled e-readers will be available in hundreds of other countries starting on October 19th, reports the Boersenblatt. (and virtually every other news outlet). The advertised price is $279, and which …
German Buch News: Book Sales Up 4% in July, Translations Up Too
By Siobhan O’Leary July was another good month for the German book trade, with sales climbing 4% for book retailers, department stores, and online retailers, according to the August Branchen-Monitor BUCH newsletter, issued monthly by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association). This brought overall sales for the first seven months of 2009 up 2.5% over the …
How the Tokyo Book Fair Helps Rights Seekers
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 …
The Woman Who Fought Back
STOCKHOLM: “This will not come to any resolution. There´s too much at stake. All I can do is to write my book about it,” says Eva Gabrielsson, the long time partner of the late bestselling author Stieg Larsson. Gabrielsson’s memoir, tentatively called The Year After Stieg, is likely to generate a great deal of publicity, so much so that Gabrielsson …