Press

8 Questions for REJANE DIAS DOS SANTOS, Executive Director, Autêntica Publishing Group
SD Original, November 30. 1999
Dear Mrs. Santos, what have you been busy with lately?
In this moment we are producing the main books that usually arrive to the Brazilian market in the second half of the year, since that is when the movement in the bookstores is higher, and also because of the São Paulo International Book Biennial, an international book fair that will be happening this year. This has been, in the past few years, an event that attracts mainly teenagers and young adults, and Autêntica Publishing Group has a strong presence in this segment, with books by both national and foreign authors. In our Brazilian catalog we have Paula Pimenta, an author who has written many best-selling books for the young public. In addition to our involvement with the 2016 publications, we are also creating a new business branch designed specifically for the international market. Next July we will open our branch – Autentica International – in Santiago, Chile, once we plan to translate and print Spanish titles in Brazil and pieces of classic literature in English for the Latin American market. We are being encouraged in this task by the devaluation of the Brazilian currency – the Real –, the low printing costs in Brazil and the tax breaks for the publishing industry.
How is Brazilian publishing in general doing right now, what are the most interesting trends and developments?
We are going through an economic crisis that is obviously affecting the publishing industry as a whole. However, we believe that it will not last much longer, because it is primarily a political crisis. Just as the Chinese ideogram for "crisis" – which brings together danger and opportunity – we have opened new doors with much enthusiasm, besides investing in our team, exploring their creativity and creating new products that might not have been thought before if we were in another economic situation. In addition to seeking new publishing opportunities, we are also investing in a more efficient communication through the social networks, especially with the young audience. Therefore, we seek innovation every day to explore the faster new waves, new trends, and since Autentica Publishing Group grew 44% in retail sales in 2015, we intend to grow beyond 40% in 2016. I believe that many Brazilian publishers are following a similar path, trying to discover new international and Brazilian authors, venturing into new projects and believing in steady growth in the number of readers in Brazil, especially in the youth segment.
Speaking of new trends, after the strong wave of coloring books that dominated the market in 2015, we are now surfing the wave of children's and youth fiction books based on the game "Minecraft". In addition to the purchased and translated books, we invested in our own project with an author "of the house", Jim Anotsu, who has published two titles of his own. We had our first great experience with the sale of rights of those books to more than 10 countries, to publishers as Bragelone (France), Penguin RH (UK), Fischer Verlag (Germany), Editorial Presença (Portugal). We have no news of any other Brazilian author of youth and children's books that have had such a fast performance and that is so strong in the international market. It's a nice incentive for all of us and it confirms our belief that we are able to carry on a content production project that may be of interest to the international market as a whole. This has become a great challenge at the moment: to get to know more international markets, distant cultures, such as China, and design new products that may be of interest to those markets.
Government purchase plays an important role in the Brazilian market. How far do you think Brazilian publishers are dependent on the government?
In fact, the Brazilian government – municipal, state and federal – is still the main books buyer in Brazil, through various programs that lead the educational books and/or literature to public schools in more than 5,000 Brazilian cities. In 2006, Brazil adopted the PLN – National Reading Plan – and since than has put in practice a genuine public policy directed to reading and to the book itself in Brazil. Of course, I am referring to the winning initiatives, but they must continue to exist so that the access to books becomes increasingly democratic, what is very important to spread the reading habit among children and youth. The Brazilian government purchase, on average 160 million copies a year, which is more than 40% of the consumption of books, including pedagogical and literary books, and the fact is that it represents a large part of the annual results of hundreds of publishers. But, as I said, in the moment we are living an economic crisis and a slowdown in some government programs, therefore, most targeted publishers for this type of business suffer more. On the other hand, many of these publishers recently started paying more attention to the expansion of their catalog designed to bookstores. This happened, for example, with Autentica Publishing Group: in 2011, 41% of our results came from government purchases, in 2014 that number dropped to 30% and in 2015, only 2%. Our estimate is that in 2016 about 8% of our results will come from these institutional purchases.
You founded Autêntica Publishing more than 10 years ago. What is the main focus of your program? What are your most successful publications?
In the beginning, Autentica Group's first imprint was involved almost exclusively with publications for the public from universities, mainly for undergraduate and graduate students and educators, a focus of several publishers from our state, Minas Gerais, which is geographically situated outside the major commercial hub of São Paulo-Rio de Janeiro. About 12 years later, when we started investing in entertainment publications for the general public with the Gutenberg imprint, we opened our office in São Paulo and soon after in Rio de Janeiro and began developing a grid more appealing to the trade market. The creation of the Nemo imprint, in July 2011, has expanded our readership further and enabled us to explore new segments, such as comics and graphic novels.
Gutenberg attracted new and important authors, following the trail of the success of Paula Pimenta, our writer, who is also a resident in the State of Minas Gerais and has already surpassed one million copies sold only in bookstores, with two novel series published, some books of chronicles and comics. For the Brazilian market, this is a very significant milestone, because there are few authors who reach the one million sales without the numbers of government procurement.
Finally, in Nemo, besides Jim Anotsu with the Minecraft success, there is a constant search for young talents, and between them some have been published with wonderful receptivity by the public, authors such as Bianca Pinheiro and Lu Cafaggi, who also had their works sold to French publishers.
In the children's segment from Autentica imprint, we are also building a new catalog with more commercial appeal, because this has always been a strong back catalog for school and public interest.
You started as academic publisher. Nowadays, your publishing group also covers fiction, comics and other books of general interest. What was the driving force behind this change?
Adding to what I said before, this change was the result of a wide reflection that showed us the need to get rid of this dependence on government procurement. We found out that we had, and we still have, a young and creative team, very skilled, very up to date and ready to take on new challenges. We feel that Autentica Publishing Group is as a group of miners in search of precious stones all the time.
But what drives us is the desire to grow, to expand our borders. We want to offer books that also represent cultural diversity. That meet the diverse audiences of various age groups, seeking and respecting the eclecticism. We love discovering new authors, never published before, we like to take that risk, and transmit these values to our teams of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In terms of copyright trade and international cooperation, is the Brazilian market an open market for foreign companies?
There is no doubt of that. Brazil is a major importer of content, the number of international publications continues to grow, around 6.000 books a year, although it is still relatively small compared to other markets. In Autentica Publishing Group, for example, we have a great concern in publishing authors from different nationalities. Through the Vestígio imprint, dedicated to detective novels, we published authors from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, United States, and so on. Maybe we can publish Chinese authors in the near future.
Brazil is a totally open market for foreign companies. A proof of this is the presence of international editorial groups in Brazil. On the other hand, it is also true that our country has its own peculiarities, and it is important that these international companies narrow their partnerships with Brazilian companies already established in our territory. As the great composer Tom Jobim once said: "Brazil is not for beginners"...
From your perspective, how far away is the Chinese market to Brazilian readers? And how far away is the Brazilian market to Chinese readers?
We are very excited about this trip to China, specially to understand better this market and to make our own assesments. We want to talk a lot, we want to meet Chinese publishers, and we will love if you make this question again at the end of our stay in Beijing.
Is this your first trip to China? What do you expect from your participation at the StoryDrive conference and your stay in China?
Yes, it's my first trip to China, my first trip to Asia in general, and my expectation is immense. Arnaud Vin and I, director and partner in Nemo and Vestigio imprints, will go to Beijing, first of all, to listen and to observe. We want to get to know the Chinese publishing market, its modus operandi, its characteristics. We want to have more information about the digital universe and distribution by mobile phone, network content, etc... And most importantly, of course, we hope to have the good fortune to experience the famous Chinese delicacy: the Peking duck.
Rejane Dias dos SANTOS(雷雅娜•迪亚斯•多斯•桑特) will be speaking at the StoryDrive Conference in Beijing (29 -30 May 2016).