For the latest in our series of international market reports, we check in on the burgeoning children’s publishing landscape in Taiwan. Read our previous feature on publishing in India here.
Taiwan, a small island located roughly 100 miles off the coast of China, is home to 23.5 million people. About 120 publishers, out of a registered total of 6,000, produce 40,000 new titles annually. (In contrast, China offers only 440,000 new titles, or 10 times more, for its population of 1.25 billion, a market more than 50 times larger). Its recent Taipei International Book Exhibition, which concluded its run on February 21, had 626 exhibitors from 66 countries, 1,706 booths, 875 events, 536 rights tables, and over half a million visitors. The six-day trade event remains the go-to trade show in Asia.
Books for children are a longtime focus at the fair, and many overseas exhibitors have taken note of the stable Taiwanese children’s book market. Foreign rights manager Nicola Lewis of Thames & Hudson described Taiwanese publishers as “sophisticated” whereas for Group Asia sales director Laurence Richard of Bonnier, “dynamic” is the word.
Taiwanese publishers are much more westernized in the business sense, according to Kevin Chapman, director of Auckland-based Upstart Press (and formerly of Hachette New Zealand), which is publishing new picture books by Joy Cowley (the Freddy Bear series) and Donovan Bixley (Flying Furballs). “One can make a business deal right away in Taiwan without having to take a long time establishing a relationship, unlike in mainland China. In fact, for overseas publishers eyeing the big China market, checking out Taiwan first to see what works here will be a good starting point.”
Over the years, Taiwan publishers have continued to buy rights, and by virtue of higher selling prices, offer better advances as well. The market in Taiwan is segmented into smaller houses that don’t often buy rights, larger houses that have small children’s lists, and a few dedicated publishers of children’s books. Major children’s picture book publishers such as Grimm Press, Hsin Yi Foundation, and Heryin, as well as those with sizable children’s imprints like Crown Culture, Linking, Locus, and Yuan-Liou, are producing more titles and increasing their collaboration with overseas authors and illustrators to add diversity to Taiwan originals. PW spoke to two of the major players and one digital publishing company to get a snapshot of the Taiwan children’s book industry.
Reversing Declining Reading Habits, Shrinking Markets
Dual-career urban couples with mostly one child often spend their incomes on sending their children to tuition centers, especially to learn English, and less money on leisure reading, observed executive director Sing-ju Chang of Hsin Yi Foundation, which set up Taiwan’s first publishing house dedicated to picture books and learning materials for young children in 1971. “Modern parents also tend to save up for overseas travels as family-bonding activities while expanding their kids’ horizons, and not so much on book-buying. These have resulted in a shrinking children's book market with declining reading habits.”
But Taiwan’s declining birthrate is not as clear-cut as it seems, said K.T. Hao, founder of Grimm Press, which is known for its original picture books and collaboration with many award-winning illustrators, including Roberta Angaramo, Giuliano Ferri, Dusan Kallay, Eva Montanari, and Igor Oleynikov. “Urban couples with fewer babies over the past decade has resulted in classroom and even school closures in main cities across the island. On the other hand, we have migrant mothers, mostly foreign brides from Vietnam and Cambodia, in rural areas having two or three kids. Some are divorced and many are struggling to survive. Books are a luxury, and Chinese is not their mother tongue.” In fact, nearly 10% of Taiwanese elementary and middle school children have foreign-born mothers.
“Getting books to those children, and getting them to read and learn is a challenge – something that the government has not acted on,” said Hao, who has set up eight learning centers in low-income communities during the past six years to offer access to books and computers. “I have seen kids increasing their vocabulary by 30% within a month, and start forming good reading habits,” he said, adding that each Grimm Press employee mentors one child from these centers, and has a one-to-one weekly online chat and storytime session to further encourage the child to read and learn.
So cultivating a strong reading habit among the young is the priority at both Hsin Yi and Grimm Press, achieved through different methods.
Chang and her team, known island-wide for publishing Eric Carle’s titles and launching the BookStart campaign, have focused on early childhood education right from the start. The Foundation also has an education and training center for parents and teachers of young children. In recent months, its publishing team has produced many nonfiction titles aimed at drawing children to the outside world. “Kids are becoming too self-absorbed while lacking in general knowledge as well as respect for the people around them and the nature. They also lack the crucial skills to adapt and fit into society. Our titles on the environment, industries, and transportation, for instance, are meant to widen their knowledge.”
One new Hsin Yi title, Hiromi Sugita’s A Day in the Life of 12 People, is about the interrelatedness of people within a community and their roles in the society. Timothy Knapman’s Soon, on the other hand, tackles the issues of confidence, courage, love, and survival for the young while Yao Jia’s The Reason for Being Late (winner of the Hsin-Yi Children’s Picture Book Award for 2015, and selected for Germany’s White Ravens prize) addresses anxiety and honesty about misconduct.
For Hsin Yi, it goes beyond reading. It collaborates with Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra to address the lack of music education in young children. “NSO offers a classical music interpretation of our bestsellers, such as Chih-yuan Chen’s Guji Guji, Bagel’s Good Morning, Ani. Good morning, Abu – both local works – and Hervé Tullet’s Press Here, a Bayard translation. We sponsor these concerts where there are book signings, animation screenings, and various music- and art-related activities. Such cross-industry cooperation is a novel way to promote both books and authors,” said Chang, whose team organized seven concerts last year, with each attended by around 1,500 children.
A new Hsin Yi location, comprising of an indoor playground, children’s library, parent/teacher education center, organic grocery shop and cafe (with special sections teaching kids about food, numbers, calculation, and buying/selling), mini-theater and bookshop, was launched on February 22. “Safeguarding children’s only childhood is our motto, and we continue to publish and provide activities that help in the development of children and their well-being,” said Chang.
Over at Grimm Press, the better-than-expected sales last year is both strange and inexplicable. “This is akin to not smoking any less but the lung, illogically, feels much better. Well, perhaps the sales growth of 8–10% is due to having some good luck with our latest batch of picture books.” Recent Grimm bestsellers include Hao’s Hotel Opening, Giuliano Ferri’s Little Red Riding Hood’s Sister, Elsa R.’s Where Are the Characters? and another Hao title, Who Is Faster? (Hao has written 66 titles since founding Grimm Press in 1993; its catalogue has over 1,000 titles.)
“The way our publishing program is going, we are catering to the young – 12 and below with picture books and nonfiction titles – and those 45 and above with repackaged classics and limited editions. But what about the middle group? The implication is not good, and we are working to plug this hole,” Hao added. “We are also going downstream, publishing for toddlers, hoping to form a strong reading habit at a very young age. And what does that say about the current state of reading habits then? I’m not being negative. I believe in being pragmatic to find solutions and better understand situations on hand.”
Collaborating on Animation and Digital Content
As for digital publishing, apps, animation, and videos for children, Taiwan – the land of high-tech brands like Acer, Asus, BenQ, and HTC, with many avid digital device users –is surprisingly conservative. “The demise of Flash technology, which many local publishers had adopted for their publications, has derailed many digital plans,” observed CEO Jean Liu of Moker Corporation, whose company specializes in transforming picture books into animation and apps, and extending the life of such titles beyond its printed format.
“Local publishers are mostly reluctant to digitize their picture books despite worries of declining print book sales and out-of-print lists, Liu said. “But they know that kids love to watch television and use digital devices, and ensuring that the best picture book titles are also out there in digital format for them to enjoy and read makes perfect business sense,” she added, pointing out that “reluctance in adopting the new format means that soon the publishers, authors and illustrators will lose their content and the opportunity to be relevant to kids in the digital world.”
But most publishers do not see the immediate profit in doing animation or apps, which is a tedious process involving considerable investment in time and money, said Liu, whose team has worked with companies such as Albert Whitman & Company (on its Wells of Knowledge series and Cornelia Maude Spelman titles), Brolly Books (Natalie Jane Parker titles), Charlesbridge (Aggie series and Fiona’s Luck), Hachette (Start Reading series), and Mathew Price (Betty to the Rescue).
Moker has produced about 1,000 animated titles, mostly in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English, distributed through BookTeller.com, since its inception in 2006. “We started going to the Bologna Book Fair in 2008 to directly negotiate for digital rights. We were the first to do that, and it was a big turning point in that we offered publishers a new concept to reach a wider audience using the same content,” said Liu, whose team collaborates with broadcasting corporations in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and works closely with teachers and parents to train them on proper ways of using the apps and animation – in a supervised environment – to teach children. “Publishers should promote their content in different ways, not just in print, and conservatism has no role in our fast-changing digital world.”
