Big names, buzzy debuts
W
hile the firstday of theLondon BookFair sawplenty of debut authors drawing interest, abevy of literary heavies seepedinto chatter as well. Just beforethe annual trade show kicked off,word was posted about newbooks from both William T. Voll-mann and Erik Larson – Paul Slo-vak at Viking took North Ameri-can rights to a story collection byVollmann, while Larson’s latest,about the sinking of the Lusitania,went to Molly Stern at Crown.And, although William MorrisEndeavor is not showing here inLondon the manuscript of CalebCarr’s first major new work inyears,
The Legend of Broken
(which Random House will pub-lish in the States in November2012), the agency has the book onits rights hot list, and is expectingto send the work out to interna-tional clients after the showwraps.Outside of those marqueenames, a handful of titles by newauthors were drawing heat onthe first day of the fair. WME’sbig book, which one insider saidhas “interest all over the world,”is Justin Gakuto Go’s debut, The
Steady Running of the Hour
,which sold in the US, before thefair, to Simon & Schuster. For-eign sales have closed in fiveother countries, including Italyand Germany, and WME saidoffers had come in from the UK,France and Israel. The novel fol-lows two converging plot lines:the first, set against the back-drop of World War I, is aboutthe relationship between a Brit-ish climber (who later diesattempting to summit Everest),named Ashley Walsingham, andhis lover, Imogen Soames-Andersson. The second storyline, set in 2004, follows a manwho receives a letter stating thathe may be an heir to Walsing-ham’s unclaimed fortune.Gakuto Go is 32, got his under-grad degree at UC Berkeley, andthen an MA in English from Uni-versity College London.Another project which haspeople buzzing is from Swedishsuper-agency Salomonsson,which is shopping one more bigScandinavian trilogy (see page 4).Sahar Delijani’s debut novel,
Children of the Jacaranda Tree
,reported in yesterday’s
ShowDaily
, continues to crop up as abuzz title. Three mid-six figuredeals closed on the work rightbefore the fair, with Judith Currand Sarah Branham at Atria nab-bing the book in the US, Weiden-feld & Nicolson acquiring in theUK, and Rizzoli in Italy. (It’s alsowell worth noting that in the UKthe acquiring editor, Arzu Tah-sin, worked on such megahits as
The Kite Runner
and
The Tiger’sWife
.) Deijani was born inTehran and went to college inCalifornia at UC Berkeley; thenovel follows a group of Iraniansthrough the country's tumultu-ous recent history. Word comingfrom the floor at LBF is that themanuscript has been gettingstrong reads, and one insiderpegged the book as an earlycontender – though not the onlyone – for the “big book of thefair” designation.
Solitude... starting price $1m
been widely pirated in thecountry, and the eponymousBalcells, 81 – as garlanded asmany of her writers and widelyregarded as the most powerfulfigure in Spanish-languagepublishing – has previouslyrefused to negotiate withChinese publishers. The startingprice?
One million dollars
. LBFhad scarcely opened whenbidding passed $1.5mEstablished in 1956, theBalcells client list includes,beside Marquez, Pablo Neruda,Camilo José Cela, JuanGoytisolo, Eduardo Mendozaand Isabel Allende, and sheis largely responsible for the1960s boom in Latin-Americanpublishing.Marquez once dedicated abook to her, one of manyauthors to do so, and reportedlyasked her over the phone: “Doyou love me, Carmen?” Balcellsreplied: “I cannot answer, youare one third of my revenue.”In 2010 the Spanish Ministryof Culture boughtapproximately fifty years of herpersonal archives for threemillion euros.
I
In an unprecedented move,the Barcelona-based CarmenBalcells literary agency isauctioning a
two
-year license topublish
One Hundred Years of Solitude
in China.The novel, by Nobel LaureateGabriel Garcia Marquez, has
For the latest fair coverage, go to www.publishersweekly.com/lbf and www.bookbrunch.co.uk
17 April 2012
London
Visit us at
Stand G470
Uggie puts paw to paper. See page 6.
Author-Centric, Agent-Enabled.
A digital distribution and marketing service designed to enable professional authorswith reverted or not-in-print works to get their titles to the marketplace.
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Offered via leading literary agencies,
acting as the interface between authors and Argo Navis.
Find out more at
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Visit us at the Constellation stand X735in the Digital Zone of Earls Court 2
3
17 APRIL 2012
LONDON SHOW DAILY
W
ill today’sexisting con-glomeratescontinue todominate thefuture of publishing? Or, willtechnology enable a rising tide of upstarts and independents toforever change the publishinglandscape? That was the ques-tion at the heart of The LondonBook Fair’s Second AnnualGreat Debate, which put forththe following resolution: in thefight for survival, outsiders andstartups are taking on today’sheavyweights and will ulti-mately deliver a knockoutpunch.Arguing for the resolution:Allen Lau, CEO and founder of Wattpad, and Bob Young, CEOand founder of Lulu.com. Argu-ing against the resolution, EvanSchnittman, soon to be Chief Marketing Officer at Hachette,and Fionnuala Duggan, Manag-ing Director (International) atCourseSmart.The audience seemed willingto accept there was a new worldorder in store for the publishingindustry: the pre-debate pollrevealed 88 for the resolution;37 against; and 82 undecided –then the fun began.Will the upstarts win?“We already have,” noted agleeful Bob Young. He citedWikipedia’s rise, and thedecision of the centuries-oldEncyclopedia Britannica tocease printing, and noted thatjust decades ago, there was noAmazon, or Google.“We adapt,” rebuttedHachette’s Evan Schnittman.From indy bookstores to chains,from Amazon and Google, tothe Kindle, publishing has facedchallenges, and these challengeshave made them stronger, andmore efficient. “Disruption,”Schnittman said, “makes usstronger.”Wattpad’s Allen Lau went forpublishing’s jugular. “Newplayers always win,” Lau said,“And it’s no exception for thepublishing industry. The inter-net has already created newheavyweights.” For the first timein history, he noted, anyonecould share stories directly withanyone else, anywhere in theworld. And he noted the chang-ing economics, taking a playfuldig at the major publishers’ legaltroubles in America. “Marginalcost of creating copies is nowBDS has won the contract tosupply data for the BritishLibrary’s Cataloguing in Publi-cation (CIP) Programme in ajoint bid with Nielsen Book.BDS, which has held the con-tract since 1995, will supplyindustry-standard cataloguerecords for books published anddistributed in the UK and Ire-land and lead the process of introducing new internationalcataloguing standards. Nielsen’sexpertise in managing publisherrelations through the ISBNAgency for UK & Ireland andprovision of analytic informa-tion through its Nielsen Book-Scan service about the UnitedKingdom’s publications will beintegrated into the process.BDS and Nielsen will ensurethat the maximum number of titles are claimed for posterity,and represented in the BritishNational Bibliography (BNB).“At a time when all organisa-tions are seeking the bestsolution for outsourcing require-ments it makes sense for the twomajor players in the biblio-graphic data supply industry inthe UK to collaborate to providean unbeatable service to theBritish Library” said LesleyWhyte, MD of BDS and leaderin the bidding process forthe two companies. “We areconfident that by workingtogether for the British Library,libraries across the country andthe nation will benefit.”The award of the newcontract runs for two years, withyearly options for the BritishLibrary to renew for three yearsthereafter before re-tenderinghas to take place.zero,” he said, “price fixing ornot.”Duggan anchored the pub-lishers’ argument, noting thatwhile it was true that anyonecould publish these days, allthose writers who do self-pub-lish successfully ultimately windup with traditional publishers.“We’re in a perfect storm of innovation,” she posited, “andthe publishing industry hasresponded magnificently. This isa hallelujah moment for publish-ing.” In her closing remarks, shereferenced the value added bypublishers, asking Lau if he’dever go to a movie theater towatch an hour and a half of YouTube Clips.The final verdict? A stirringcomeback for the publisher side,who turned the crowd around:41 supported the resolution, 147opposed, 13 undecided.
The Great Debate – publisherscome from behind
BDS and Nielsen win BritishLibrary contract
FAIR DEALINGS
Bookseller Blackwell’shas appointed Ingram’sVitalSource® as its ebookssolutions partner.“As the UK’s largestAcademic Bookseller, ournetwork of campus andonline bookshops has alwaysprided itself on ensuring thatthe right book is in the rightplace at the right time,” saidDavid Prescott, ManagingDirector, Blackwell’sBookshop and Online. “Theeducation community is nowlooking to us to provideinnovation in the digital age,and with the VitalSourceplatform, we have theresources to deliver a varietyof comprehensive e-textbookofferings to the students andinstitutions we serve.”Content contracts, orders,and financial managementremain completely inBlackwell’s control.
Blackwell’schoosesVitalSource®
To contact the London Show Daily at theFair with your news, visit us at the PublishersWeekly stand G470
Reporting for
BookBrunch
by
Nicholas Clee and Liz Thomson
Reporting for
Publishers Weekly
by
Andrew Albanese, Rachel Deahl and Jim MilliotProject Management: Joseph MurrayLayout and Production: Heather McIntyreEditorial Co-ordinator (UK): Marian Sheil
To subscribe to
Publishers Weekly
, call 800-278-2991or go to www.publishersweekly.comSubscribe to
BookBrunch
via www.bookbrunch.co.ukor email editor@bookbrunch.co.uk
London Show Daily
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