Point of View
POINT OF VIEW
Going global: Why export sales, so often underestimated, are essential for post-Brexit Britain
WORDS Belinda Ioni Rasmussen
L
AST YEAR MACMILLAN Children’s Books had another record year in rights and co-edition sales, with the international reach of our titles growing for the third consecutive year. Our co-edition sales earned 25% more revenue than in 2016 and it was a record-breaking year for sub-right sales, up 18% on the previous year. In total, close to 800 co-edition deals across more than 40 languages were concluded, and almost four million books were printed for publishers around the world. One new language, Azerbaijani, and two dialects, Schwabisch and Kölsch, were added to the 75 different language editions of The Gruffalo. The later provides an excellent pub-quiz question: “Where exactly is Kölsch spoken?”
Growth was fairly consistent across most territo- ries, but it will come as no surprise that we have seen the most spectacular growth in Asia. As per a recent news report about Chinese children’s books, and according to Renee Huang, founder and publisher of Everaſter Books, China is booming, growing at the rate of 10%–15% a year. Our sales in Asia have nearly doubled since 2014. These are very pleasing figures for the P&L, but there is a bigger picture too. In these times when we are trying to articulate the value of our industry to the government, rights sales are a good indica- tor of an exportable creative strength of UK publish- ing. International publishers are looking for projects that are unique and that they would not be able to develop in a financially viable way in their own publishing houses. An average picture book with a simple story is not enough. On the other hand, Gemma Merino’s The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water sold in 24 languages due to the humour, the clever twist and because the story can be read on more than one level. It was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Prize.
A strong focus on the financial success of projects comes with all four-colour printings. The econo- mies of scale generated by co-editions enable us to maintain our high production and design values. We can only keep up this qualit—and fully express
our creativit in paper, die-cuts and foil—because we have such confidence in our global publishing partners combined with belief in the exportabilit of our books and authors. The purple edges of Chris Riddell’s Costa Prize winner Goth Girl are a real eye- catcher, but the additional cost was feasible only due to the strength of our international relationships. This investment has been repaid; Goth Girl has now sold in 22 languages, with Afrikaans and Azerbaijani the latest additions. Having said that, rights and co-editions are not an easy business opportunit to pursue. The exchange rate drop and price increases have made four-colour printing more expensive. Most rights people will say they spend as much time solving problems as sell- ing, but the positive side of that are the very strong relationships cemented across the world. There’s nothing like finding a solution to the issue of trans- lating signs in the Hundred Acre Wood illustrations of Winnie-the-Pooh from English into Norwegian for establishing excellent, long-lasting relation- ships across borders. Lead times for sell-in for rights are extremely demanding and require the whole team to provide focus and support for this area of our business. Ideally, the programme needs to be in place two years in advance. Finally, it’s crucial to invest in the right people. Our rights team speaks 15 languages, including Greek, Danish, Korean and Punjabi. In 2017, they visited more than 40 cities in over 20 countries.
The rights and co-edition business is a very successful area for many publishing houses in the UK, and it oſten contributes to annual results in a quiet and unassuming way. Of course, rights are not just about books, but also about stage shows, anima- tion, films, merchandising, and that bigger enter- tainment world out there that ultimately boosts UK sales while adding a welcome bonus to the botom line. The value and potential opportunities of Intel- lectual Propert are enormous. In a future when we may have to focus more on
export, perhaps we should give more atention to this oſten underappreciated side of publish- ing. There is nothing as exciting as a big rights deal closed out of the blue, adding a surprise injection to the year’s results—or a smaller deal from a lesser- known destination. By the way, I trust you know that Kölsch is the Ripuarian dialect spoken in and around Cologne. ×
Belinda Ioni Rasmussen is Macmillan Children’s Books’ publisher. She was rights director at Egmont from 1999 until 2006, and m.d. of Carlton Books prior to joining Pan Macmillan.
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11th April 2018
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