Nine million books in Beijing - What's the Deal with Publishing in China?

Ventura Press founder and publisher Jane Curry attended this year’s Beijing International Book Fair, which ran from 21–25 August.

I am writing these words as I prepare to fly home from the Beijing International Book Fair. To be in the heart of a city of 21.8 million people, capital of a country of 1.3 billion, certainly makes you aware of the vastness of the market potential here.

The metrics are impressive. In 2018 the book market turned over 89.4 billion yuan renminbi (RMB) (A$18 billion), up 11.7% from 2017. Online sales account for 48% of the market even with Amazon China bowing out in 2019, leaving the dominant players Dangdang and JD.com.

As head of the Independent Publishers Committee (IPC) at the Australian Publishers Association (APA), I have been a keen advocate of strengthening our relationship with China. This year we had eight publishers on the APA stand: Rockpool Publishing, Big Sky Publishing, CSIRO Publishing, UQP, National Museum of Australia Press, Atlas Jones & Co, Australian Scholarly Publishing and Ventura. Of course, we are there primarily to sell rights, but I strongly believe it is essential to our understanding of the world that we understand China. To do so represents vital cultural literacy. The Frankfurt Book Fair skews towards the UK, US and Europe, but as Australian publishers we need to know more about the vast single-language market of our near neighbour.

This is the third year that the IPC has hosted an Australian stand at the Beijing Book Fair. We receive no funding other than from our own IPC budget, and as a result our stand is extremely spartan compared to other group stands. We look with envy at the stands of France, Germany, Britain, Korea and even tiny Macau. Fortunately, this year Maree Ringland, counsellor for Public Affairs and Culture at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, together with Guo Ying of DFAT, hosted a pre-fair lunch for visiting publishers to meet our Chinese counterparts.

The lunch was very productive as it brought together the actual publishers rather than the figurehead-only chairmen, which is so often the case at more formal events. We were united as publishers talking books, all with a keen interest in literature, retail and cultural trends.

I sat next to Peng Lun of indie press Archipel, the publisher of Sally Rooney in China. He printed 25,000 copies of Normal People, which lasted a month before reprinting—an achievement that puts the ‘othering’ of the Chinese market in context. Also at the lunch was Azia Cheng, the new CEO of Penguin Random House North Asia, who, being young and dynamic, epitomises the new generation of Chinese publishers.

The business side does butt up against the state. Only a state-owned publisher can issue an ISBN, so a small press has to be ‘adopted’ by a state-owned publisher and share the ISBN allocation after the title has been approved. ISBNs can also be ‘auctioned’ as they have a separate market value to the book. And I was informed that in one sweep of the presidential pen the booming children’s market could be closed if it is deemed to allow too much Western influence. There are also cultural sensitivities. Our book Everyday Ethics (Simon Longstaff), which contains issues of abortion, gender and religion has sold into Taiwan but not into China.

But, overall, I can only enthuse about the welcome we were given, the interest in our books and the respect we were offered as fellow professionals. It is an extremely worthwhile adventure both personally and financially.

This was originally published in Books + Publishing.

Q&A with Angela Meyer

A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Readings recently chatted to Angela about ghosts, female desire and blurring the lines of fiction.

Tell us a little bit about your book?

A Superior Spectre is about a man who abuses an experimental technology that allows him to enter the mind of a woman in the past. It’s also about Leonora, a young woman in 19th-century Scotland, who begins to become aware of a strange presence invading her mind…

You’ve said in the past that you wrote parts of this novel while living in George Orwell’s run-down house in Scotland – a place he lived while essentially dying with tuberculosis. What was it like writing a gothic ghost story in such an evocative setting? Did ghosts feature in your writing process? Was your writing informed by your surroundings?

I did stay in the beautiful old house on the isle of Jura where Orwell lived while completing 1984. I was redrafting the novel at this point, and had spent a lot of time in Scotland while writing it, too. That’s such an interesting question about ghosts. The novel gives a kind of scientific explanation for a ‘haunting’, but I am very interested in the idea of ghosts, or the resonance of the past in a place or person. I wonder about the capacity of the mind to perceive, process, or create various phenomena. It’s an open question for me. There are many grey areas in the novel, and this is one of them. Did I meet Orwell on the isle of Jura? I felt a strong (and benevolent) presence, certainly, but I also had a lot of time in my own head…

Your novel explores, with grace, the complicated themes of bodily autonomy and consent. What kind of dynamic were you hoping to explore with the challenging relationship between the two main characters, and can you speak a little bit more about that relationship?

It might sound strange now that at first I didn’t realise I was writing about that. I thought it was mainly about empathy (the reader is challenged to empathise with Jeff, and he is challenged to empathise with Leonora). And then I realised that it was about a man invading a woman’s body and mind, having an effect on her, while she is also being pushed in directions she does not wish to be pushed in by the patriarchal forces of her own time and was whole, and happy, before this chain of events. But I wanted it to remain complex. Jeff, her invader, is a selfish man, but he is a product of his environment. He is dismissive of women in many ways, he struggles to truly understand them, while he obsesses, self-flagellates, over pain he may have caused to others (not women). All the men in the novel struggle to see women as whole people, only as how they relate to various archetypal roles, and this is because, past and present (and near future), they are socialised to see women this way. Jeff is a sort of pathetic character because he is given a chance to empathise, and he fails.

But I do want to also say that while I am invoking a binary, here, it is in part to playfully also question it; to open up spaces in between (just as I have with mind/body, future/past, spirit/tech!).

Your novel expertly blurs what should be clearly distinct lines of difference, and employs several narrative and stylistic devices to emphasise this as the novel progresses. Was your use of these narrative devices inspired by or informed by other authors’ work? Are there writers who inspired A Superior Spectre?

Thank you! Yes, I love unreliable narrators, absurd humour, and metafiction, and I’m so glad people have felt stimulated by the shifts the book takes. There are so many books in the background of Spectre but some I’ll note, in regards to these elements, are Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (superb unreliable narrator), Janet Frame’s work (how she blurs planes of ‘reality’ and fiction), The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles (metafiction), The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark (unreliable narrator), Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (different POVs and types of narration as the story unfolds) and then there’s the original high concept show with a little surprise or twist in each episode (and often characters who don’t know if they are seeing through their own eyes!), The Twilight Zone. There are more but that will do for now…

Female desire is a hot topic in fiction and non-fiction at the moment. What are the benefits of exploring the nuances of female desire in fiction? Did you feel any internal conflict by the way Jeff inserts himself and subsequently influences Leonora’s acts and feelings of desire?

I love writing desire in general. A character’s desires and fears are often secret and so that’s where some of the tension can come from. Exploring a woman’s desires can be powerful, I think, because the dominant narratives still favour women as the supporter, the receiver of desire, passive, caring but otherwise out of the way. A woman desiring is beautiful. A woman acting on her desires is daring. Yes, it was hard to write about Jeff’s influence, because it confused Leonora. At the same time it was satisfying to write, because I can relate to it. When I was coming of age, there were influences on my desire that confused me for many years. It took me a long time to find out what was mine, and what was the influence of culture as to what I should like, what I should desire.

And finally, what books have you loved lately? And what is in your to-be-read pile?

I’ve been at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and also Authors at the Fringe and I bought a ridiculous amount of books. I loved A Glass Eye by Miren Agur Meabe, translated from the Basque by Amaia Gabantxo. It’s about a woman processing the loss of a relationship, the loss of her eye, and all of her losses, really. It’s a self-aware piece of writing. I’m looking forward to Crudo by Olivia Laing and also Out of the Woods, by Luke Turner, which is a memoir about bisexual identity set among the trees of Epping Forest (I may not be summing it up well but I saw Luke speak and was very intrigued, I think we need more narratives of bisexuality). I’ve also started Carrie Tiffany’s Exploded View, and the opening is exquisite. And I love, love the stories in Josephine Rowe’s Here Until August, out in September. I’m saving the last one for when I get home. I also have Alice Bishop’s A Constant Hum lined up as the next short story collection. On audiobook I am enjoying Kathy Reichs’ third Temperance Brennan novel. Crime works quite well for me in audio.

This interview was originally published on Readings.

For more info on A Superior Spectre, head here.

What Makes a Good Author?

by Ventura’s Director, Jane Curry.

Writing is a solitary and fiercely intellectual craft that is also a sheer slog. To hand over your work to a third party is an act of deep trust and one that good publishers do not take lightly. A writer becomes an author only when they are published, and because publishers and authors both need each other, ours is the ultimate symbiotic relationship.

So what makes a good author?

Well, the most important attribute is clearly the writing. It should be writing that inspires and transports the reader. It should be stories that you don’t want to finish, as you love the alternative world they create: the imagery, characters, plot twists, pace and revelation. For nonfiction works, it should be ideas that challenge and change our worldview. Good writing creates the lodestar of publishing: word of mouth. Good writing can create the kind of buzz that drives people to bookshops in a way that advertising and publicity alone cannot achieve.

So assuming an author writes well, what else makes a good author?

The answer at Ventura is ‘author DNA’: an expression coined by the wonderful and much-missed Simon Milne during one of our strategy workshops. We had conducted a deep dive into the performance of our titles over the previous 12 months, which included reviewing the genre, price, positioning and author. We found that one of the key factors in the success of a book was the right author DNA.

This means that the author must be the unabashed champion of their own work, with a strong commitment to success and the motivation to support their work long after the launch champagne has gone flat. A healthy ego is also important: if the author is to really shine on the platform we publishers create, they have to enjoy the limelight.

I often refer to publishing as an energy transfer—our passionate belief in the book must be transferred to sales reps, booksellers, the media and ultimately the reader. It is impossible to achieve this without the author being a key partner or, dare I say, a stakeholder. Maria Katsonis, the author of our bestselling book The Good Greek Girl, has gold-standard author DNA. Maria worked every facet of the market upon launch and continues to promote her books many years after publication. We call this the long tail: library talks, book clubs, events, articles—they all contribute to backlist sales and provide a platform for future works.

The book market is flooded with 5000 new titles every month, so much is made of ‘author platform’. What is the author’s background, their profession, their story? What makes them different to the rest? These details can provide the key to achieving cut-through at retail. Publishers seek this information to see if there is a hook on which to hang a marketing campaign or start an author profile. Authors with a strong social media presence provide a ready market for their books and are largely published because of it. But for other authors, social media is irrelevant—it is their very gravitas that impresses.

In small companies such as Ventura we view our stable of authors like our kin. We seize every chance to promote them both here and overseas, whether frontlist or backlist, at book fairs or in impromptu settings. We maintain a very strong sense of alliance and collaboration, and I am convinced this commitment has contributed to our success, as we genuinely believe in every author we publish.

There are some potential authors who do need a reality check, so that their expectations of our publicity campaign are realistic. When meeting a first-time author I always say, ‘I cannot make you famous’ before we sign, and remind them that becoming a household name takes many years. When I published Robin Barker (Baby Love) at Macmillan, sales were slow initially but after I negotiated a monthly column at the Australian Women’s Weekly her name slowly built to become the brand that it is today.

I also say to authors that I cannot dictate to booksellers what books they should stock—it is ultimately the bookseller’s choice. We publishers can persuade with the strength of the concept, the profile, the marketing and the writing itself, but being stocked in bookshops is not an automatic right just because the book is in print—a fact we clearly articulate with authors.

As a career publisher, I can say that the best authors are the ones that submit a stunning and compelling manuscript, take a receptive position on editing and cover design, have a healthy sense of self to cope with the publicity trail, and the stamina to keep going into the backlist years. And a new book every other year please!

This article was originally published in Books + Publishing.

The Rise of #Bookstagram

With 5000 new titles a month released into the Australian market, what publishers seek is cut-through: the ability to stand out from the crowd.

Cut-through can be achieved by many methods but the sweet spot, which is available to all publishers, is the cover. Books that are the same size, the same price and the same specs all have one obvious variable from the outside: the cover.

Like the LP record covers of my youth, a book cover is consumable art that appeals to our sense of aesthetics. The cover of a book positions it in the marketplace; it relays a message about the content and is a call-out to a loyal readership. I am always amused by the publishing maxim ‘Know thy shelf ’—a directive to visit bookshops and observe how different books are displayed—and this is particularly useful when thinking about cover design.

The first role of design is to define the genre. In fiction the big divide is between commercial and literary fiction, and this influences everything from the book’s title to the final typography. There are accepted norms for each genre that are obvious to anyone browsing in a bookshop: thrillers have the author’s name in BIG CAPITALS; crime covers are bold, black and red; motivation books are often white with strong typography; and biographies feature a full-bleed headshot and a title based on wordplay (Shane Warne’s No Spin being a prime example). But ‘knowing thy shelf ’ makes commercial sense too: it is a hedge against getting lost in the vast market. You want the bookseller and the reader to recognise the genre immediately and know they will enjoy the book.

Despite this herd mentality, the best cover designs often don’t follow a trend, and many stand-out examples of this come from the small literary publishers. Giramondo’s spare minimalist covers are worthy of framing; Xoum and Transit Lounge also punch above their weight. Their covers convey the message: ‘I am intellectual and don’t play by the commercial rules. I am special like you.’

Ventura’s most recent ‘instagrammable’ cover: Paris Savages, by Katherine Johnson

At Ventura, before we even start on cover design we hold a positioning meeting where we decide the readership profile for this book—is it literary, commercial or genre? What are the key elements of the manuscript and why do we love this book? We complete a competitive market analysis and produce a mood board of competing titles. We observe the trends, the imagery and typography, as well as the use of cover quotes, shout lines and subtitles. We want our book to reflect its genre, which offers assurance to both retailer and reader, but also to be unique.

The biggest influence on design trends this decade has been the advent of Instagram and the notion of a curated feed. This concept was introduced to me by the wonderful Ventura author Melanie Dimmitt (Special, September 2019). Melanie comes from a digital background with Collective Hub, HuffPost and Mamamia. She arrived at Ventura with her own mood board, a colour palette for the book and social media promotions. It was a complete visual marketing package for the digital age, and I was very impressed.

This trend for curated visuals has given rise to #booksofinstagram, which links Instagram users to a world of stylish books and equally stylish readers. This hashtag is not exclusive, but it is only really effective for books with high design values—they often feature elaborate flat-lays that relay some of the narrative or add to the hygge feeling of curling up with a book.

We ventured into this world when our marketing coordinator Sophie Hodge joined us last year straight from university. Like her peers, digital is in Sophie’s DNA and she has crafted our Instagram feed to great effect. Our covers are very ‘Instagrammable’ as a result. But there is more than sheer aesthetics to this. We have found a small army of Instagram reviewers who ply their craft outside the legacy media, and we have a younger and more active readership as a result.

The rise of Bookstagram also offers an opportunity to extend our franchises through visual merchandising. Even bricks-and- mortar bookshops sometimes seem to sell more non-book paraphernalia than books. We in the book world have traditionally been reluctant to venture into designed objects beyond book covers, but when we do break out it has great impact. I will never forget the sight of the stunning Holly Ringland tote bags at the London Book Fair in 2017—it was a delight to see rich Australian botanicals livening up the dull surrounds of Olympia. Maybe more should follow.

An investment in good design leads to a stronger, more vibrant and diverse book market. We should rejoice in the stunning covers that appear on the bookshop shelves and in our feeds. This way we can find new markets and a new generation of readers.

This article was written by Ventura’s Director & Publisher, Jane Curry.

Originally published in Books + Publishing.

You can find Ventura’s instagram here: @venturapress__

What You May Not Know About Your Editor

By Zoe Hale, Ventura’s Managing Editor

In the editorial industry there are a lot of common stereotypes you may have heard about – we’re often (but not always) female, we’re cat people, tea people, book people, and we’re cardigan wearing, glasses wearing grammar Nazis. And if we ever went to war, it would be over the oxford comma. A lot of those stereotypes prove true, while others, well ... we like to think of ourselves as a little more diverse.

That said, if you are new to publishing, a first-time author, or are about to engage an editor for the first time, here are some things you might not know about your editor.

1. We’re on the side of the reader

Editors read a manuscript with the end reader and target market in mind. They are constantly asking the question – will the reader understand this? And especially for fiction – will the reader believe this? An ego during the editorial process, from either the author or the editor, is the worst thing that can happen to a book. Each side must be prepared to let go of firmly held beliefs about the text and serve the potential of the work and reader, whether the reader is a 16-year-old girl browsing her school library, or a middle-aged father receiving a birthday gift.

2. We like collaboration

The editor is not out to get you, or itching to slash your work into a million pieces. Most editors, myself included, see the editorial process as a partnership, one that concentrates on bringing the book to its full potential. This means an editor won’t be rewriting passages that don’t work, but may make suggestions. It also means the author needs to take ownership of their work and consider each editorial suggestion seriously, before deciding whether to accept or reject that suggestion. Simply accepting or rejecting all suggestions without considering them, or asking the editor to write something else that works, is not collaborative and goes against the spirit of editing.

3. We can’t tell you if your book will sell millions

If we are working on your book it means we believe in it. We believe in the power of your story and the importance that your work goes out into the world. But we can’t tell you how many people will buy it, if it will be the next Harry Potter or if you will be the next Liane Moriarty. And if you are engaging us privately, we can’t tell you if it will be picked up by a publisher. How many sales a book will make is a task undertaken by the marketing and sales and PR teams of a publishing house, and for a self-published author, the author themselves. We are gradually reaching the point where there will be more writers than readers, and in an increasingly competitive market, excellent content or writing is not enough to make a book sell. Sales and marketing lie outside of the domain of the humble editor. We will help you craft the content to be the most compelling it can be. After that, the baton is passed to marketing.

4. It’s all about style

Sometimes whether or not to use that contentious piece of punctuation, the oxford comma, comes down to a matter of style. Style is the instituted punctuation and spelling decisions taken on a piece of writing. Every publishing house will have their own house style – a handbook that says whether it is ‘focused’ or ‘focussed’, ‘aging’ or ‘ageing’, oxford comma or no. Us editors love consistency in style; so much of our job at the microlevel will be to make sure the text conforms to the chosen style. Australian publishers and editors tend to prefer the Macquarie Dictionary spelling, but each publisher will have a slightly different style for how they prefer to list references, or whether or not to have a spaced en dash or unspaced em dash, and even whether or not to use the oxford comma.

5. Pet peeves

Every editor will have a grammatical or language usage error that sticks out to them and rubs them more than others. Mine is the use of eggcorns. What’s an eggcorn, you ask? An eggcorn is the misspelling or construction of a common idiom. A common one is ‘For all intensive purposes’, rather than ‘For all intents and purposes’. Or, ‘the crutch of the situation’, rather than ‘the crux of the situation’. I find these faults in language simultaneously fascinating and headache inducing. In my experience though, they aren’t too common – you might find only one or two in entire first draft. If you’re interested in finding out more about eggcorns, there’s a great database here: https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ 

How To: Create the Perfect Book Title

You may be surprised to read that the title of your book is one of the most important marketing strategies you have as an author. The title is most often how a person will hear about your book for the first time. It has the power to lure the reader in, capture their imagination, or let them know what lies between the pages.

In that moment it doesn’t matter if you’re an unknown author, whether your book is hardcover or paperback or digital, if the genre is unfamiliar, or the price is expensive. A title that successfully captures the essence of your book will help overcome all those obstacles, which is why you need to spend as much energy crafting and editing your title as you would the rest of your manuscript. The last thing you want to do is underrate your book with a poorly crafted title!

One of the best ways to start thinking about your title is to research what makes a good title. Think of a title that has tempted you into picking up the book or clicking on the cover – what was it that sparked your curiosity? What was it that made it memorable for you? A strong title should be distinctive but not distracting. Some titles we love here at Ventura include:

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

• Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain)

• The Museum of Modern Love (Heather Rose)

• Paris Savages (Katherine Johnson)

And just in case you weren’t convinced yet, here is further evidence of how important titles are. Consider what these well known books could have ended up with as titles.  

• The Great Gatsby could have been Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires

• 1984 was suggested by Orwell’s publisher, but it was originally The Last Man in Europe

• To Kill a Mockingbird was simply Atticus

• Pride and Prejudice could have been First Impressions

• War and Peace was originally titled All’s Well that Ends Well

• Of Mice and Men was originally Something That Happened

• Gone with the Wind was Tomorrow is Another Day

• Lord of the Flies was originally Strangers from Within

EVERY GOOD BOOK TITLE SHOULD: 

1. Be unique and personal to your story. The easiest way to tell if you have an original title is to Google it. While titles aren’t subjected to copyright, and in theory you could name your book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it’s probably not a good idea.

2.  Be memorable. Your title should be one that readers will never forget, so that when they want to recommend it, or have it recommended to them, they remember what they are looking for when they get to the bookstore or are searching for it online. A good tip here is to select precise nouns and strong active verbs.

3. Provide insight. Many readers consider your title twice: once when they pick up the book, and a second time when they finish reading. What can the reader expect from your book? Provide a glimpse into the world of your book, something that will become clear as the reader comes to understand the characters, the plot, or the argument of your book.

HOW TO ACHIEVE TITLE GREATNESS:

1. Relax. Stress inhibits creativity and won’t help you. If you haven’t yet finished your manuscript, then focus on that. The telling of the story or the finishing of your argument may uncover the perfect title in the process.

2. Brainstorm. We recommend a minimum of five titles, but don’t feel you have to stop there. Keep going if you want until you reach 20 or 30, or even 50 titles!

As you brainstorm, try to think of you book in different ways.

Who is the book about?

• Rebellious Daughters (Edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman)

• The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)

• My Cousin Rachel (Daphne Du Maurier)

What is the book about?

• The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

• The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)

• The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

When does your book take place?

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell)

• The Last Anniversary (Liane Moriarty)

• Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez) 

Where does your book take place?

• Camino Island (John Grisham)

• The Light Between Oceans (M. L. Stedman)

• Black Rock White City (A. S. Patric)

Why should someone read your book?

• See What I have Done (Sarah Schmidt) – What has she done?

• The Many Ways of Seeing (Nick Gleeson with Peter Bishop) – What are the many ways of seeing?

• A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing (Eimear McBride) – What is a girl only half-formed?

Also as you brainstorm:

• Don’t forget voice and point of view – make sure your title is consistent with the point of view in your story. For example, if your crime fiction book is written in third person, don’t call it My Encounter with A Killer.

• Avoid sabotaging your plot with your title – if your book is a mystery or suspense, don’t give away the ending on the cover! By the same token, don’t take your title from the first or last lines of your story as this can dampen the curiosity for your potential reader and also comes across as trite.

• Make sure your title matches your story. This is the most important rule of coming up with your title. If you crafted your title before you finished your story, or even think of a great title during your brainstorm session, it’s critical that you can clearly state how this relates to your story.

• If your non-fiction book is part of branding, make sure this is worked in to the title, for example, Impact Press author Renee Mill uses her brand Anxiety Solutions in her book, Anxiety Free, Drug Free.

EDIT IT!

Your title, just like your manuscript, will need to be edited and polished. The team at Ventura will help you come up with the best title that will have the most cut-through in the market, will have the most appeal to readers, while still successfully reflecting the content of your book.

Good luck!