One Australian Publisher's China Book Wishlist
By Bruce Humes, published June 1, 2009, 11:53p.m.
An Australian publisher just visited my web site, Chinese Books, English Reviews and very kindly took the time to tell me what s/he is hoping for in a potential China author/book:
1) Quality writing
2) Adds to one's knowledge of contemporary China in an interesting, challenging way
3) Would sell many copies
4) Author could be invited to Australia as a guest at writers' festivals
5) Global English rights available.
Comments
That certainly sounds fair. Did she say which publishing house she represented?
Yes, but it would be inappropriate for me to cite it since this is excerpted from a personal communication.
Just wanted to put these five points up here for the benefit of translators and aspiring translator-agents.
I find two points interesting:
1) This publisher wants a talking head who can interact with the English-speaking public, and
2) A China angle is not enough. The writing needs to be "challenging." That's good news for those of us who want to translate, publish and promote books that are quality writing but not necessarily "easy" to grasp.
Bruce Humes Chinese Books, English Reviews
Only #2 is really China-specific. The rest of the five points sound like ideas you'd get from any publisher. Having an author available provides an additional avenue for promoting the book - I know that "Does he/she speak English" is a question I get asked every time I casually mention an interesting title to an agent.
Listing criteria is easy. Actually finding that challenging book that will sell a lot of copies is the hard part.
I also suspect that "challenging" may mean something quite a bit different to the average publisher than to a translator.
jdmartinsen, June 2, 8:39p.m.
Certainly positive that australian publishers are interested in chinese litterature. Australia has excellent writers of chinese/ malaisian origin as Hsu-Ming Teo writing directly in english and first class teachers/translators as Mabel Lee. Publishers in Sydney like James Joyce Press, are even able to take the risk to have a book by Chi Zijian translated and published "Figments of the supernatural". They open to chinese writers, Murong Xuecun was in Sydney for the festival a couple of days ago.
The marketing is important but the major issue is What is published? Is it providing a better understanding of chinese culture? The quality of what is published on contemporary China is questionnable except from Yu Hua or Chi Li and a few others; so I understand the prerequisite from a publisher. But I am not sure that there is a positive answer even if many younger writers are not known to us because they are not translated not to mention the explosion of internet litterature which at present is nearly unknown territory.
Bertrand Mialaret, June 3, 3:41p.m.
Makes perfect sense to me. Not much different from what other publishers want and what readers really need. Guess I better get working on my book.
Chinamatt, June 3, 6:37p.m.
Australia has been a good market for Chinese books in translation. I think authors, agents and translators tend to pitch China-related projects to American or British publishers first, but we're missing some opportunities. I hope to learn more about Australian publishing houses, literary journals and book festivals.