Vom 4. bis 19. Oktober 2008 besuchen 16 Fellows auf Einladung der Frankfurter Buchmesse die Verlagsbranche in Frankfurt, München und Berlin. buchmarkt.de stellt Ihnen täglich einen der Teilnehmer vor.
Janie Yoon ist Lektorin bei House of Anansi Press in Toronto, einem unabhängigen Verlag, der Autoren wie Margaret Atwood und Michael Ondaatje publiziert www.anansi.ca. Eine Schwierigkeit des kanadischen Buchmarkts: Kanadische Autoren konkurrieren mit tausenden „importierten“ Schriftstellern aus Großbritannien und den USA. Eine weitere: Kanada wird von einer großen Kette von Buchhandlungen dominiert, die rund 50 Prozent der Inlandsumsätze auf sich vereinigt. Unabhängige Buchhandlungen haben einen Marktanteil von 20 Prozent.
buchmarkt.de: Bitte beschreiben Sie uns Ihren Verlag …
House of Anansi Press is a distinguished, award-winning independent Canadian publisher known for producing high quality, cutting-edge fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that sell internationally and win numerous awards. House of Anansi was founded in 1967 and originally operated as a small press.
It quickly gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Northrop Frye. French-Canadian works in translation became an early and important component of the list, with novels and poetry by Roch Carrier, Anne Hébert, and Marie-Claire Blais.
Anansi now publishes 25 to 30 new titles and 10 to 15 trade paperback editions each year. We are committed to publishing fiction and poetry that reaches readers interested in intelligent, cutting-edge writing that combines engaging narratives with literary quality and unique insight into our lives. Our nonfiction titles address social, political, and cultural issues in innovative ways. Our mandate is to reach the globally aware, well-read person, as well as the educational market and a young, savvy, intelligent demographic.
In addition, Anansi is proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures, which are co-sponsored by CBC Radio (Canada’s national radio station), House of Anansi Press, and Massey College at the University of Toronto. The series was originally created by Vincent Massey, former Governor General of Canada, and was inaugurated in 1961 to provide a forum on radio where major contemporary thinkers could address important issues of our time. While The Massey Lectures invite Canadian authors only, in the past international thinkers had taken part in the series, including Noam Chomsky, Charles Taylor, Martin Luther King Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, and Doris Lessing, to name a few.
Since 2003, Anansi has widened its international scope. In 2008, „De Niro’s Game“ by Rawi Hage won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and has become an international bestseller, winning numerous awards and published in multiple countries throughout the world. Other award-winning authors on Anansi’s list include Peter Behrens („The Law of Dreams“), Margaret Atwood („Payback“), Ronald Wright („A Short History of Progress“), Stephen Lewis („Race Against Time“), and Gil Adamson („The Outlander“). As well, Anansi has bought rights to publish works by Misha Glenny (U.K.), A. L. Kennedy (U.K.), Helen Garner (U.K.), and Jim Harrison (U.S.).
Mit welchen Schwierigkeiten haben Sie auf dem kanadischen Buchmarkt zu tun?
I think there are X main difficulties to point out in Canada’s book market:
1. The Canadian book market is stagnant, and some would suggest in decline, which means incredibly slim margins for publishers. Some would argue that books have to compete with all of the other forms of entertainment available to the Canadian consumer, and also there is the perceived notion that books are considered an expensive form of entertainment.
2. Canada has one major national book chain that accounts for about half of domestic book sales, while Independent bookstores account for a 20% market share, non-traditional retail accounts for 20% of the market, and online retailers about 10% of sales.
3. Books by Canadian authors compete with the thousands of imported titles coming in from the U.S. and the U.K.
4. There is more and more product competing for readers’ attention in bookstores and online. Bookstores and online retailers offer to the consumer up front a mix of frontlist titles and bestsellers, and other valuable front-of-store or home page real estate is devoted to products like stationary, gifts, magazines, DVDs.
5. Recently, the appreciation of the Canadian dollar has created a situation in which price adjustments on imported books and domestic books (somewhere in the range or 11% to 12%) has further squeezed margins for publishers and booksellers.
Welche Erwartungen haben Sie an das Fellowship-Programm und die Frankfurter Buchmesse 2008?
I feel honoured to be invited to participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair Fellowship Programme. The programme will allow me the opportunity to meet with German publishers and to learn about the German publishing industry, which I am fascinated with.
In addition, it would be a thrill to be able to attend the world’s most prestigious book fair, where I would be exposed to all international book markets, and hope to meet publishers and editors from around the world. Overall, I hope to come away with a deeper understanding of the international book market, and to connect with my peers from around the globe.
Das Fellowship Programm wurde anlässlich des 50. Jubiläums der Frankfurter Buchmesse 1998 ins Leben gerufen. In den vergangenen zehn Jahren hat sich ein enges Netz innerhalb der internationalen Verlagsbranche gebildet. Über 165 Teilnehmer aus 45 Ländern konnten bereits von diesem Programm profitieren. In diesem Jahr wird es von Martina Stemann von der Frankfurter Buchmesse organisiert und vom ehemaligen Fellow Laurenz Bolliger vom Berlin Verlag begleitet.
