China: the market for academic titles Lynette Owen, Copyright and Rights Consultant IPG Academic Dinner June 11 th 2014

Licensing as a channel to market Low purchasing power means that licensing is the main strategy for making books available on a large scale Licences may be for translation into Mandarin Chinese (simplified characters) For some subject areas, there is a demand for low- price English language reprints; courses taught by visiting faculty in the major universities

A relatively new rights market First PA delegation to China in 1978 – (mainly academic publishers) China was not a member of any international copyright convention until October 1992, when it ratified the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention; before that western books and journals were translated and reprinted on a large scale without permission or payment China joined the WTO in December 2001 China ratified the WIPO Copyright Treaty in June 2007

Who are the main publishers? Main licensees are the traditional official publishing houses e.g. Higher Education Press, Commercial Press, Science Press, Peking University Press, Tsinghua University Press, China Renmin University Press, Publishing House of the Electronic Industry, China Machine Press, China Financial & Economics Press, China Social Science Publishing House, China Economics Publishing House as well as more specialist publishers and regional university presses. Distribute through official channels e.g. Xinhua bookstores and via amazon.cn (formerly Joyo)

And? In addition to over 550 official publishers, there are thousands of “second channel” private publishers, also known as cultural studios, working with official publishers in order to access ISBNs Most are more interested in publishing trade titles, but some publish in areas such as business and computing

Making contact The major Chinese publishers regularly attend international book fairs such as Frankfurt, London and BookExpo America; they also send staff on study tours to key markets. China was the guest of honour at Frankfurt in 2009 and market focus country at LBF in 2012 The annual Beijing International book fair (late August/early September) is a major rights venue with a wider range of Chinese publishers than would attend Frankfurt Visiting China (not once but regularly) demonstrates serious interest in the market

Licensing: the hard facts Print runs for translations of western academic titles are usually modest – copies, with no guarantee of more printings. Print runs for English language reprints are usually lower Book prices are still low – a translation of a title published in the UK at £60 might be priced at the equivalent of US$7-8. Authors may expect print runs to be in the millions…..

The sales territory Translation licences should specify Chinese (simplified characters) for sale in the mainland PRC excluding Hong Kong and Macao. These are Special Administrative Regions of the PRC and use traditional (complex) characters, as does Taiwan – those rights can be licensed separately English reprint licences should also carry market restriction notice – Hong Kong and Taiwan can well afford to buy the original edition

The financial models Most licences are on the basis of an advance against royalties on the local published price For small print runs at a low price, a lump sum equivalent to the total royalty on the first print run may be preferable Some multinational publishers now depute their regional office to handle licences, with licensees paying a royalty on an agreed unit price for a specific print quantity

Market features (1) Need to decide if licensed editions will use licensee’s imprint only or joint imprint Censorship remains an issue, especially if content touches on recent Chinese history or politics, or local business practice Chinese publishers may have difficulty understanding the need to reclear permission and pay for third party content Size can be a problem – for large textbooks, Chinese publishers often ask to cut text for reasons of price. Offer them Essentials of… editions if available

Market features (2) There have been instances of poor translation quality, especially in subject areas using specialist terminology Publishers may fail to meet required publication deadline – problematic if a new English edition is imminent Thus far, most publishers have not requested parallel e-book rights for textbooks. They have problems dealing with local administration of companion websites

Market features (3) Regular sales statements and royalty payments can be problematic and have led to some western publishers requiring total royalty on first printing as advance Payments remitted will be subject to 10% withholding tax (which most UK publishers can reclaim against corporation tax) and 5% business tax (not reclaimable); suggested move to 6%

Market features (4) Chinese government is keen to redress the balance of rights trading – at one point Chinese publishers were buying 10 times more rights than they were selling. Incentives for local publishers to license their rights and subsidies for foreign licensees

Questions?