Sharjah 24: Rethinking content to resonate with the younger audience will set the base for the publishing industry to grow and thrive, according to experts who led discussions on the concluding day of the 12th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) Publishers Conference.
Organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) at Expo Centre Sharjah, leading professionals at the three-day conference commended the global publishing industry's efforts in driving sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and highlighted the need to encourage language exchanges.
Translations: ‘Beautiful mosaic of cultural communication’
Demand for stronger collaboration and cooperation between cultural stakeholders of nations was underlined at the session titled, ‘Promoting a Nation’s Literature for Translation’.
Opening the floor for conversation, session moderator Catriona Ferguson, Director, Publishers Association of New Zealand, said: “Translated book titles make authors feel themselves as first-time writers. It helps cross-cultural understanding and increases awareness.”
Discussing the collaboration with foreign publishers, Zanete Pasqualini, Literary Projects Manager and agent of the Latvian Literature Platform, said: “We have a dedicated 200,000 euros fund to support foreign publishers interested in translating literature. Quality is our prime focus and we had a lot of interest in classics during the pandemic.”
She added: “We are a tiny country, but our culture is strong and literature is diverse with strong female voices. Our contemporary novels still reflect our strong history and desire for freedom.”
“Experimentation is the key word in improving our industry,” said Sarah Hemens, Project Director of New Books in German, while talking about her initiative of translating German fiction to English. “We have set up a dedicated easy-to-navigate website for international publishers to find and collaborate with us as we seek to improve and increase our title numbers. The platform is organised with detailed summaries and genres, and translation fundings are guaranteed once we sign contracts.”
Gvantsa Jobava, Editor and Head of the International Projects, Intelekti Publishing, Georgia, said that the translation grants are particularly important for a small country like Georgia. “We are still largely an undiscovered country, and are working actively to attract foreign publishers to experience our literature and make it more visible in the global realm.”
Remote collaboration building stronger networks
At the concluding panel session on Day 3, Seth Russo, moderated a session titled ‘Global vs Local’ which detailed how full-fledged locally anchored markets are increasingly working as independent decision-makers.
Kevin Hanson, President at Simon & Schuster Canada, said that more than 60 per cent of the Canadian readership rely on imported content. “The publishing world is a collection of people exploring authors and readers. As a firm publishing locally, we tap into the curiosity and create engagement with our consumer readership. We build long-lasting relationships with agents, create strategies to promote them and also have independent engagements with the authors,” he said.
“Our readership is hungry for international content. Looking at the distribution portfolio as a local publisher, I am aware of the content being pulled into the Canadian market. Informational flow and connectivity with counterparts in different offices is key in understanding readership trends. Today, more power lies within the author. As publishers, we are less direct and more responsive to the consumer markets,” he said.
Well-defined territorial rights are key to building successful consumer-defined markets, said Ananth Padmanabhan, Chief Executive Officer, HarperCollins Publishers, India.
He said: “India has one of the largest and fastest- growing English language readership markets with a 250 million potential market which represents just a quarter of its population. If we focus on the diverse local reader habits, the right pricing, there is still space for enormous growth.”
The HarperCollins CEO added that although more than 70 per cent of titles at bookstores in India are from international publishers, indigenous publishers are also a big part of the country’s distribution network. He added: “Understanding local culture and realising that books that have the potential to resonate with larger audiences are key in such a diverse market. While social media can gauge the changing trends, it also constantly reminds the publishers that we don’t know our consumers well enough.”
Advanced technologies to address supply chain challenges
The panel discussion titled, ‘The Future of the Supply Chain’, explored the multiple challenges impacting the publishing industry from a lack of paper supply and increased freight and printing costs. The session held earlier in the day and moderated by Ashley Gordon, Publishing Market Development Manager at HP PageWide Industrial Division, USA, explored the options available to publishers to overcome these obstacles.
At the session, Hassan Ali, Business Development Manager, Lightning Source Sharjah, highlighted the benefits of print-on-demand services to overcome challenges in supply chain logistics while Dr. Shereen Kreidieh, founder of Dar Asala Publishing, Lebanon, highlighted the gaps in production and selling costs of children’s books which make use of high quality paper and colours. Italian publisher Francisco Crotti, urged publishers to invest in advanced technologies to minimise costs in both printing and logistics services.
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