A more compact format and considerably reduced expectations combined to produce a better-than-hoped-for international fair-within-the-fair this year. If there were fewer foreign publishing executives on hand, most of the biggest spenders had come—those most likely to bid up translation rights for America's bestselling fiction and nonfiction. Indeed, a BEA that drew Klaus Eck, CEO and publisher of Bertelsmann's German trade group; Lothar Menne of Germany's growing Ullstein; Leonello Brandolini of France's trade giant Laffont; Gianni Ferrari, who presides over the Mondadori trade empire; Brazil's bestseller king, Sergio Machado; and Tetsuya Sugahara of Japan's list-leader Kadokawa, couldn't be all bad.
Foreign publishers with a stake in the U.S. retail market once again established a presence on the floor, chiefly on national collectives. Spanish-language publishers from both hemispheres exhibited side by side under an identifying banner. The French and German exhibiting organizations decided to join forces, also exhibiting side by side, supposedly to symbolize their European affiliation. One participant in the venture, however, immediately saw the downside of that pairing and resolved to bring in other EU members next time—say, Italy and Benelux. Meanwhile the Italians were prominently represented in a collective organized by the Chicago-based Italian Trade Commission; among notable exhibitors on the stand were the expanding children's group Piemme (represented on the floor by publishers Pietro Marietti and Elisabetta Dami) and book exporter Casalini Libri of Florence. A separate Asian sector provided shelf space for the likes of China, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand.
Elsewhere on the floor, individual foreign houses with long-established entry into the domestic market had taken stands alongside their American counterparts. One such was ubiquitous Konemann, now part of what was once Germany's, but is now the world's, Langenscheidt group. Langenscheidt itself, which is firmly based in the U.S. and includes the American Map Corporation, was also present on the floor. So was the Anglo-American triple imprint Larousse Kingfisher Chambers, until recently Vivendi Universal's best foot forward in the U.S. (Vivendi's announced acquisition of Houghton Mifflin produced the most gossip in the aisles this year.) And one must not forget Michelin, now just about as Anglo-American as French.
British publishers such as Bloomsbury and Heinemann were distributed throughout the show via their U.S. affiliates. In all, a record 68 U.K. logos were on hand, under the benevolent eye of their Publishers Association, and in large part thanks to their government's grant aid, which this year was extended to four companies present only at tables in the Rights Center. Canadian exhibitors included Two-Can, which publishes children's and educational print and electronic books in Spanish and French as well as English, and Toronto's Key Porter, one of the best-known independents north of the border.
One growing business that had booked its own stand for the first time was V&R Gift Books (standing for Trini Vergara of the famous publishing family and Maria Riba). Headquartered in Argentina, their company has now opened affiliates in Mexico and Brazil for what is a unique venture in Latin American novelty publishing.
Chicago vs. London
It had become a truism among traders that the London Book Fair—with a rights center second to none—would cast its shadow over Chicago, and indeed it did. Ironically—with both London and BEA being part of the same exhibitions group—the Chicago rights center distributed a flyer promoting London's ("Simply THE perfect opportunity to meet publishing professionals!"). It was noted that the London center last March brought together a record 453 people at 316 tables. One could also remark that because BEA will take place earlier next year (in New York at the beginning of May) the London and New York events will be only six weeks apart, arguably close enough to risk the cannibalizing of the smaller by the greater. If the Chicago rights center had become more compact this year, with some 120 tables in all, they were busy tables, and the somewhat demoralizing empty spaces of the recent past had given way to a brisk business environment. A good many of the agents and publishers who had gone to London let it be known there that they would not be attending BEA this year, and for the most part they kept their promise. New York superscout Maria Campbell found the rights meeting "very reduced," and her own contingent of foreign principals was down. The Franklin & Siegal agency also found only four of its overseas publishers in town (out of a possible 10); chief scout Todd Siegal hadn't made the trip.
Yet New York scout Mary Anne Thompson thought there was something to be said for this more intimate event. She felt that the rights center had been "fortified" by energy generated by the action on the floor; clearly she saw the exhibition hall as a viable business this year—compared to last year when "nobody's here" seemed the leitmotiv. Yet of Thompson's 19 foreign clients only six had come to Chicago (Spain's Grijalbo, Vassallucci of the Netherlands, Piemme of Italy, Macmillan-Picador and Boxtree of the U.K, Kadokawa of Japan). It made for a less hectic fair, allowed more time for exploring the aisles (she herself confessed to having found a few books she hadn't scouted before the show). As always, she had drawn up BEA schedules for her foreign contingent and then for their New York tours before or after Chicago. But "There aren't any BEA books anymore," she explained. "It's a show for relationships, an opportunity to visit small presses—to look at the marketing... to get ideas. The big books were scouted in London, and deals will be concluded by or during Frankfurt."
One of the most civilized areas of the show was undoubtedly also one of the most productive: the large meeting rooms high above the floor booked by major publishing groups for discussions with overseas buyers of books and rights. "Much better to have a cheaper room up here than more stand space down below," a wise show veteran explained. At Simon & Schuster, PW spoke with Cyrus Kheradi, vice president and group sales director in the international division. "The vibe is good," he reported. "We're seeing every customer we expected to see, and all our managers are taking orders. They have found ways to deal with the currency fluctuations that were making trading difficult." In fact, both buyers and sellers had been preparing for these meetings with digital exchanges prior to BEA, and both sides were ready to conclude their deals. "Sales have been good all year," Kheradi added, "and BEA only confirmed the trend."
People and Places
For many show participants, foreign and domestic, Chicago's hottest ticket was the party thrown by Larry Kirshbaum's Warner Books for Jack Welch's Jack: Straight from the Gut; Warner's pub date is September 11 and few of Welch's foreign publishers intend to miss that. One of those planning simultaneous publication is Claudio Rothmuller, president and publisher of Brazil's Campus, who was in Chicago with his top staff. Another was Jens Schadendorf, editorial director of Econ Business, part of the Econ Ullstein List group in Munich. Schadendorf told PW that he hoped to have Welch on hand for the launch and to keep him in Germany long enough for an international "event" during the Frankfurt Fair come October.
But any show veteran could tell you that parties no longer made the show; being on the floor was all that mattered. Shlomo Gafni, whose Jerusalem Publishing House works exclusively as a packager for American, British and other foreign publishers, still finds BEA's exhibition room the best place to establish and to maintain contact with American publishers—and finds it far easier to talk there than at Frankfurt. "Obviously there are fewer editors here than at Frankfurt, but the people who decide are here." He is one of the foreigners who finds a stand more practical than a table in the rights center (then again, his big reference sets would crush any table made).
Daniel Fernandez is another fair veteran—going way back to the years when BEA spelled ABA and he was an editor at Spain's Grijalbo. Now he is publisher of Edhasa, once the Barcelona subsidiary of Sudamericana, now wholly owned by the Rodrigue family (who sold Sudamericana to Bertelsmann), with Fernandez as minority partner. He confesses that in BEA's first days he stayed away because he thought that the London fair preempted the field. So this was his first Chicago show; he had started his U.S. tour in New York but wanted to look at the books on the publishers' stands. What he found was increasing insularity in the best American books; they had lost their "universality." In a word, there was less that seemed translatable. ("They tell me that this one is an Oprah selection. I can only say, 'Who cares?'")
So he spent his time looking at jacket design. He did see some interesting works of history, even some possible sci fi (a traditional Edhasa category), and in the end he expected to buy some of these things. All in all, it was a worthwhile experience for the publisher, and it would even have been a pleasant one had he not had some "horrendous" moments in Chicago taxis, with cheating that he had never encountered during his many New York trips. But after all, he sighs, next year BEA will be in New York.
