Press

You can never stop creative people (Part 2)
Dr. Jing Bartz, November 30. 1999
Two days before StoryDrive Asia commenced, Gong Yingxin, the conference organizer and director of German Book Office Beijing, had formulated a plan B in case she might have to replace one of the speakers. Nazli Gürkas from Kalem Agency Turkey, still had not received her Chinese visa, and time was running out. However, when Gürkas finally stood on the stage of StoryDrive, she did not mention her complicated trip from Turkey to China; instead she shrugged her shoulders and said: “As a literary agent you need to be everywhere to get trends!” Thanks to StoryDrive, Gürkas was able to find the direct contact information of Chinese translation funds, and the authors she would like to invite to the Istanbul Tanpinar Literature Festival. Her agency’s success story attracted a lot of attention at the conference: Over the last decade, Kalem sold more than 6.000 Turkish book titles to other countries.
It is also impressive when someone is able to sell 2.000 English titles to the Chinese market in one year. Jacky Huang, the chief representative of Andrew Nurnberg Agency, managed to do so in 2015. However, the reverse, that is selling Chinese rights to the rest of the world, appears a lot tougher. Surprisingly the problem has not always been about “unfamiliarity with the Chinese culture”. Huang’s inside story showed that although many Chinese writers are anxious about the idea that their books will be read in other languages, they do not actually take Huang’s advice of delivering a proposal in English seriously. ”They just send me their whole manuscript. That’s all.” Huang expressed her confusion.
Michaela Röll could help! The independent literary agent is associated with Petra Eggers Agency and recently settled in Beijing with her family. Röll’s topic was titled “How to find and promote bestselling authors”. Almost by accident she discovered a young female medicine student when she was watching an online science slam. This young student had a gift for explaining sophisticated and academic things in an easily understandable and funny way, but this student had never written a book, and was also busy completing her doctor paper. It was one of the most exciting stories told at StoryDrive Asia 2016: Röll had a big hit on er hands with this international non-fiction bestseller - “Gut. The inside story of the body’s most underrated organ” - with 39 rights, two million copies sold in Germany and 1.5 million beyond Germany. How did Röll make it happen? Her “how to” tips inspired many participants at StoryDrive. A well-prepared proposal, for example, is even more crucial for selling books than the manuscript.
How much innovation is required in a digital age? Design Thinking may be one of the most innovative approaches. Ulrich Weinberg, director of School of Design Thinking in Postdam, visited Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time last year. Things happened quickly afterwards. He was invited as a speaker at StoryDrive in Beijing. A few months, ago he ran a workshop with a group of bishops of the Lutheran church. Why are bishops interested in Design Thinking? “Because their work strongly focuses on words.” Weinberg explained, “With Design Thinking, they learnt new visual tools.” After StoryDrive, Professor Weinberg will be welcoming 30 Chinese children in Berlin to offer them a special Design Thinking summer camp.
Joachim Kaufmann is the managing director of Carlsen, a leading German children publishing company; but Kaufmann is also an operator of Design Thinking. “30-50% of my time was spent on digital issues, even though the revenue was always below 5%. But I think it was, and still is, necessary.” With this example Kaufmann demonstrated the big shift towards digital direction. By using Design Thinking methods, he developed and tested new business models for Carlsen. LeYo!, an amazing learning app for children, is one of the successful results.
StoryDrive not only presented stories but also exhibitions. One of these, “Silk Road Gallery”, was a charming illustration exhibition. Curated by Hou Mingliang, founder of IlluSalon, the seventy illustration works were selected from 16 countries along the old Silk Road. Hou intended to set up a platform for international illustrators, and to help them explore their potential for books, as well as for videos and ads.
“New region” was a hit at StoryDrive Beijing, since most market players of the “new regions” have astonishingly limited knowledge of each other. The audience benefited a lot from a “lecture for beginners” about the Brazilian market given by the publishing couple Rejane Dias dos Santos and Arnaud Vin of Autentica Publishing Group. “Don’t get mad!” Peter Schoppert, the president of Singapore Book Publishers Association, warned people, if they go into a bookstore in Singapore and find different English editions for the same title. It does not imply in any way that Singapore has no respect for territorial rules. What Schoppert tried to emphasize was that the Singapore market is extremely open.
“In this sense, it is indeed no surprise at all”, announced vice-president of Frankfurt Book Fair, Claudia Kaiser, “that a new StoryDrive will be held in Singapore in November 2016!” Again in Asia? Well, why not! This is a region of HIP – hyper intellectual property and endless stories.
Dr. Jing Bartz, consultant and culture manager, writer, living in Hamburg.
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