International Self-Publishing

This blog is about the joys and challenges of self-publishing worldwide

Happy Birthday, Buecherfrauen!

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It’s Women in Publishing (“BĂŒcherfrauen“) Germany’s 25th anniversary this year. There is a big celebration coming up at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week, and here is my tribute to this great network.

First I woul like to clarify something: I don’t want any men to freak out and think with an organization like this, women want to turn things around and try and dominate you now 😉

Women in Publishing’s motto is: “For women, but not against men”.

Celebrating buecherfrauen networkingThe network was founded because there have always been a lot of women working in publishing, but in the beginning there was no woman at all at the top and even today there are still not that many.

I wrote about the power of networking earlier in another article and Buecherfrauen have certainly been a powerful network for me. Many years ago, I joined them in Germany, I attended events and sometimes helped organizing them as well. I would now like to say thank you to some of the women that I met somewhere along the way:

First of all thank you Marlies for telling me about the network in the first place. Thank you also to my first small local group in the North-West of Germany in the Bielefeld/OsnabrĂŒck area about 15 years ago for welcoming, inspiring and motivating me to follow my passion. Thank you to Inge, who was part of the group and introduced me to a big publishing house. And Inge did a great job last year editing “Pentecost”, the first self-published book that I translated into German. Thank you to Eva for offering to let me sleep on her couch in Frankfurt this year in case I wouldn’t find any other place to stay – it is a shame I can now not make it, but I hope I will be able to attend again next year!

Thank you to everyone whom I have met during all these years. And when I moved to London, it was only natural to join the sister organisation Women in Publishing in the UK – I was part of the committee here for several years and it was great to make new friends and continue networking in a different country, but in a similar way.

Here’s to everyone who has contributed to making the organization a success.

Happy birthday and cheers to you all!
anniversary-157521_640[If you are reading the following dates after October 2015, they will be outdated, but there are other interesting events at the Book Fair each year]

These are the details of the main event at the Frankfurt Book Fair:

There will be an award ceremony for the “Woman in Publishing of the Year”, the prize goes to Frauke Ehlers, long standing member of the network, the laudatory speech will be held by Silke Weniger and a welcoming speech by Federal Minister Manuela Schwesig, followed by the actual party.

Thursday, 15/10/2015
4:30 – 6:30 pm

Reading Zone of Independent Publishers
4.1 C37
Exhibition site

Before this event at the same place from 3.30 – 4.30 pm  there is another one, also organized by Buecherfrauen:

A talk with Indonesian Women in Publishing about literature and the book trade in Indonesia – the country is the Fair’s guest of honour this year.

Participants:

Laura Prinsloo of  Kesint Blanc Publishing

Kartini Nurdin of Yasayan Pustaka Obor

chaired by Eva Streifeneder

 

In addition, you can find Buecherfrauen at their stall 4.1 D55

You might also be interested in the following Book Fair event:

LiBeraturpreis 2015: Madeleine Thien

The LiBeraturpreis is the only German literature prize that is awarded exclusively to women from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Arab World. In 2015, Madeleine Thien will receive the award for her novel “Dogs at the Perimeter” (German title: “Flüchtige Seelen”, Luchterhand 2014, translated by Almuth Carstens), which deals with the repercussions of the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge.

Saturday, 17/10/2015
4.30 – 5.30 pm

Venue:

Weltempfang – Stage, 3.1 L25,  Exhibition site

 

And if you speak German, you may like to read another tribute to Buecherfrauen, written by German author Nina George.

 

Related article: The Power of Networking

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London Book Fair 2015 part 2: Some Industry Trends

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Even more globalisation

At this year’s London Book Fair, Harper Collins’ announced their takeover of publishing houses in various countries. They intend to launch books in different languages simultaneously. Teams in a number of countries will cooperate to leverage the marketing.

I think launching books in different countries at the same time is an interesting model also for international self-publishers for maximum global reach and to make the most of their efforts.

And the general increase in globalisation means more translations are needed as well.

LBF 2015 lecture in Tech Theatre scaled

London Book Fair 2015, lecture in Tech Theatre

Content is vital – form can change

We saw the introduction of ebooks and audiobooks in the past, and new options like interactive content are now becoming more widespread. When signing contracts, you should bear possible future developments in mind, which can mean technical developments that do not currently exist. So it is actually a good idea to be prepared and stay up to date with technical innovations, whether you intend to use them or not.

Shorter forms are becoming increasingly popular

As I mentioned in my article about the London Book Fair and literary translations, there is a trend towards micro-payments, for example reading and paying for individual book parts and being able to stop buying more at any time, if you want. I have started reading a book in this way via Pigeonhole, the company that I wrote about last time, and I am enjoying it.

And especially when it comes to non-fiction,  the so-called Millenial generation seem to prefer shorter books even more than other age groups.

I must admit that I like shorter non-fiction books myself, which do not repeat certain aspects again and again, just to fill the pages or to remind me of something that I read earlier in the book. I would actually love more shorter non-fiction that contains the information I am looking for in a more compact way that doesn’t take so long to read. I think this is actually a good trend for self-publishers who have an advantage since they do not need to write a book of a certain length for a publisher, but can concentrate first and foremost on the value they intend provide for their readers.

 

Related article: London Book Fair Part 1: Literary Translation

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London Book Fair 2015

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Part 1: Literary Translation

 

London Book FairLondon Book Fair took place last week and as it was on my doorstep, I went all three days. My obvious first place to go was the Literary Translation Centre and one of the events I attended was called:

“Meet The Innovators”

The panelists were representatives of small British publishing houses that publish books in translation. One of them said he didn’t speak any of the languages they were dealing with and the language barrier was a problem which had led to legal problems. They were sued due to libel and copyright infringement. Now they are asking their translators to alert them to potential problems. At the end of the day, however, translators are not responsible for any legal matters. The whole issue did not surprise me and is one of the reasons why I believe that self-publishing could help to get more books translated into English. Some of the panelists were wondering why they had even been invited to this event in the first place – maybe because literature in translation itself is still regarded as innovative in English-speaking countries?

There was one true innovator on the panel, though: Anna Jean Hughes, the co-founder of The Pigeonhole. Her company was not even a year old and had already been nominated for the London Book Fair’s International Excellence Awards. The Pigeonhole call themselves “Your Global Book Club” and specialize in book serializations. You can subscribe via micro-payments for parts of a book, read them as you like, e.g. on your computer, via Kindle or iPhone app, and discuss the content with other readers and the author if you like. By the way: micro-payments are one of the new trends in publishing that I will write more about in my next article.

At The Pigenonhole, you get additional benefits like author interviews, audios and other material that is supposed to immerse readers in the world of the book. They take on books in English and foreign languages, which will be translated into English and the translations are funded by grants. Anna said they had 6 different native speakers among their staff, therefore I suspect they have fewer problems with language barriers than other companies. The book groups will be in various languages as well. Anna said books will only be published in hard back once they have reached a minimum of 5000 subscribers, which cuts out the risk. They work on a 50/50 royalty basis with authors and if a translation is involved, the publisher gets 40 %, the writer 40 % and the translator 20 % in addition to their translation fee. Sounds interesting to me.

And here is an interview with Pigeonhole’s other co-founder Jacob Cockcroft at the London Book Fair:

Another event that I attended at the Literary Translation Centre was the following:

“What Works In Translation?
The Critics’ Perspective”

First the panelists talked about something obvious and vital: a translation needs to promise commercial success, otherwise publishers won’t take it on. And the book should read smoothly like an original, but with some foreign flavour. If a book was not written at roughly the same time as the translation, the translator shouldn’t even try to translate into an old language version, it’s not doable. I agree, but I think you can still add a little flavour of the other time to the translation, similar to the way contemporary authors tend to write historical fiction.

Dialects are very tricky in translation. Everyone acknowkledged that they are actually untranslatable, but there are nonetheless a few cases out there, where people tried to translate for example Scottish English into a dialect of another language and the result was simply dreadful. So here is a word of warning for authors whose books contain a lot of dialect: it will be lost in translation, because even a flavour of the original dialect is difficult to achieve in translation.

The panelists went on to say that authors and translators should ideally be a good match and translators are almost like writers. A few translators are actually sometimes writers and vice versa. Just think of this famous example: Mark Twain translated several German books into English. I can even imagine the author-translator model as a great way for self-published authors who translate someone elses’s book if they happen to be fluent in that language and have an affinity to the author’s voice. In addition, I can say from my own experience that translations are good exercises for developing writing skills.

Finally, the panel mentioned that footnotes were no longer popular to explain something that is hard to translate, especially in fiction, because readers want a smooth reading experience.

And here are some legal aspects from:

“Please Sign On The Dotted Line”

In my last article about retrieving translation copyrights I assumed ebooks and print on demand would make it more difficult to retrieve translation copyrights from out of print books. There is a solution, however, that was mentioned at this event: just state in the publishing contract what out of print means, for example under 200 copies sold over a 12 month period. This addition can be important for translators’ and authors’ contracts alike. It was said, however, that smaller publishing houses tend to be more flexible if they are asked to adapt contracts than bigger ones.

When it comes to royalties, 25 % are common for authors and of this a translator should get 5 %. I have to say that unfortunately from my own experience and that of other German translators that I know, contracts often contain clauses that state, the percentage of the translators will decrease substantially or they still don’t get any royalties in case a book becomes a bestseller.

Last but not least, the panelists talked about the same issue as mentioned before: difficulties due to a lack of language skills at publishing houses that result in legal problems and translators are asked to help out. I would like to add, however, that nobody can speak gazillions of foreign languages and this means that to a certain extent publishers have to rely on translators in any case – or they translate only from “bigger” languages, which seems to happen a lot. As I said earlier, therefore I believe self-published translations could solve this problem.

 

 

In my next article (London Book Fair part 2) I will tell you more about new developments in the book industry.

 

 

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London Book Fair 2015: Free Tickets For Industry-Related Bloggers

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The London Book Fair 2015 takes place from 14 to 16 April and like last year, there will be interesting events for self-publishers. Did you know that you don’t have to pay for your ticket, if you are blogging about something that is related to the book trade?

Register as a member of the press

You can save a bit of money and register as a member of the press, if you can prove you are blogging about something that is relevant to the industry, and I got my ticket yesterday. In order to receive a press accreditation, go to this page, scroll down, click on the link and insert your details. In case you have a long URL like me, it might not fit into the provided box, but no worries – once you have registered, you will get a contact email address – just send them your full details.

New main venue: Olympia

I made a mistake many years ago and went to the wrong venue. It can be confusing, as they changed it various times. When I went to Olympia one year, they had moved to Excel and during the past few years it was Earls Court. When I got it wrong, some people where handing out leaflets with directions to the right location – I wasn’t the only one! It is of course much easier and faster to find the right place straightaway and I am not sure whether they will have this service for disorganized people again 😉

And if you go by tube, you always have to change at Earls Court underground station, as there are no other direct trains from anywhere else. You can also use an Overground train, though. Check Transport for London for more information and have a look at the website of the London Book Fair for everything else.

Please note that the London Book Fair press accreditation is for the Book Fair itself. There are special events that still require a separate ticket.

 

And here is a little flavour in advance:

 

Maybe I will see you there?

 

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Impressions from the Buchmesse 2014

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As usual, there was a lot on offer at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book fair in the world: gazillions of publishing houses and other companies with stalls plus anything else related to books including an increasing number of self-publishing events and suppliers.

Frankfurt Book Fair Poppy J. Anderson Marah Woolfe Frankfurt

Poppy J. Anderson and Marah Woolfe: “Connecting To Readers” for self-published authors

I attended several events for self-publishers in the German language area. The picture shows two successful German authors, Poppy J. Anderson on the left and Marah Woolf in the middle. They discussed how to connect to readers and both speakers are very much in touch with their audience. Apart from strategies like social media, Poppy mentioned one of her quirky ideas: she once hired a handsome male model who dressed up as an American Football player since her books are dealing with this topic. Her apporach seems to work since several of her books are ranking high in the Kindle charts.

At another event, Sophie Schmidt of Berlin-based Epubli came up with some predictions regarding the future of self-publishing for the year 2020. Here are two of her assumptions:
– Format will not be important anymore, content is king, and there will be more and more interaction with content.
– Many joint projects with more than one creator will come into being.

Interesting stuff for thought, and both points are positive for self-publishers including those who are into international self-publishing because cooperating with people in different parts of the world is so easy these days.

Then I attended an event with self-publishing service providers Tom van Endert of Ruckzuckbuch and Sönke Schulz of  Tredition. Both websites are only in German, though. Sönke Schulz mentioned if you really want to have a chance to get into German bookshops, it is not just important that your provider makes sure it is in the “Verzeichnis lieferbarer BĂŒcher” (list of German books in print), but you need to get your books to wholesalers, too. Both Tredition and Ruckzuckbuch provide this. Theoretically, German bookshops can also order from “Verzeichnis lieferbarer BĂŒcher”, but it involves more hassle for them and they prefer not to. Tredition and Ruckzuckbuch are cooperating with each other, and whereas Tredition have more experience dealing with digital, the people of Ruckzuckbuch have a print tradition using eco-friendly resources and they offer a personal customer service plus a free paperback book with lots of information on self-publishing in general and their service in particular (only available in German).

I had a lot of disscussions with translators in Frankfurt as well, and some of those that I met had already worked with indie authors. There are three models: The majority are being paid a fee, a tiny minority are doing a royalty-split with the author, and then there is the hybrid model, that is receiving a fee, but doing a bit of marketing as well. For authors who want to have their book translated on a split-royalty basis, the platform Babelcube currently still seems to be the most promising way forward. Even after the Fair, I am now still discussing with translators and authors the best possible ways of cooperating with each other.

It didn’t come as a surprise that translators who are native speakers of English are the ones who have been approached by indies more often than anyone else – having a book in English is popular (See also my previous article). I learned about an extreme example in Frankfurt: one author had not been able to pay for a translation into English, but was so desperate to achieve this that he offered the translator to share not just the royalties of the translation, but the royalties of the original book as well!

I also talked with authors at the Fair, and one of our topics was the fact that a lot of English-language books are now written with American spelling using American words, even though the authors are British, because authors usually have more American than British readers. There is another group, however, who feels strongly about keeping their Britisch conventions. I am curious to know from everyone who is reading this: does it really bother you whether you are reading books in “English English” or “American English? And there are even more options, for example Australian and Canadian English…

If you would like to read more about the Fair from the perspective of self-published authors, I recommend the excellent article  Frankfurt For Indies – An Abundance Of Abundance  by Nerys Hudson of the Alliance of Independent Authors.

And here is a picture that is representative of the last couple of days at the Fair. It hosted the German National Cosplay Championship that made everything more colourful and fun – you could see many young people in fancy costumes, which is the whole idea of “costume play”: to dress up like characters from books, films etc. (Look at their ears ;-).

Young people in fancy costumes at Frankfurt Fook Fair

Cosplayers at Frankfurt Book Fair

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Frankfurt Book Fair: New Programme For International Self-Publishers In 2014

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If you have never considered attending Frankfurt Book Fair as a self-publisher, you might want to think again.

Apart from being the biggest book fair in the world, it is also the most important one when it comes to foreign rights. And this year there is even more: on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 October, they are offering a new international self-publishing and author programme in English. If you speak German, there are 5 days packed with events for self-publishers. As for the programme in English, you can find more information on the book fair‘s website

It is always advisable to book a hotel room as early as possible, because there is usually a shortage in the end due to the masses of fair visitors.

In case you are used to the size of, let‘s say the London Book Fair, you might be in for a surprise. The area in Frankfurt is so huge that they use shuttle buses to take you from one hall to another. I would advise women who love wearing high heels to think twice whether you really want to torture yourself – I saw ladies suffering badly in the past because they underestimated the long ways.

Due to the dimensions in Frankfurt, I would not advise to just go there to stroll and look whatever you can find. To make the most of it, I would plan ahead. Therefore I think the programme for self-publishers and authors is an interesting one and I intend to visit the fair myself.

 

 

 

Related article:

Impressions from the Buchmesse

 

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