Asia Comes To BookExpo in Record Numbers

BookExpo is a unique amongst the leading global book fairs in that that it moves all over the U.S. from year to year. This assures that one show is never the same as the last which is a good thing and a challenge all at once, but what it does guarantee is that every show has it’s own personality. This year in L.A. we will see a much larger presence from Asian publishers and service providers, particularly from China and Singapore. This is in part thanks to the shorter flights because we are on the West Coast, but just as much it’s a about a strategy we set forth a few years ago.

I’ve now spent several weeks in Beijing meeting with Booksellers, publishers, and governmental agencies and our new Director of International Affairs, Ruediger Wischenbart has also made a trip to Beijing (this is the first time referring to Ruediger by his news title! He’s been a long time consultant on our team and we are just now giving him an official title!) all this means that the Global Market Forum that we launched last year will be an intense market study on China and one that is truly world class.

So why does this matter? Our industry, like all is getting smaller, yet larger, local yet more global. BEA in L.A. will certainly have a focus on California booksellers and publishers and to continue that focus we’ve gone halfway around the world to build relationships and we are now seeing it come to fruition in the form of unprecedented Chinese participation at BEA.

In total, three panels will be featured and the Forum will be co-sponsored by the leading Chinese trade publication China Publishing Today. The seminars include:

Panel 1: Chinese Reading: Success stories between China and the West. Books and issues that have opened the doors to the China publishing market.

Panel 2: Chinese Publishing: Mapping the market and extending the partnerships.

Panel 3: Chinese Retail: Bookshops, chain stores, and imports & exports in China.

The speakers from China will include the following top companies and representatives: the successful trade house Changjiang Press Group (who launched Wolf Totem); Chinese publishing wizard Larry Lu Jinbo (who is the brain behind the explosive growth of young adult fiction and many innovative internet ventures); China’s largest trade and educational publisher (Higher Education Press); and the innovative China Youth International (which is about to set up offices in the U.S.).

We have hundreds of Chinese booksellers and publishers planning to attend BookExpo this year, I hope it will prove to be a watershed year in BookExpo highlighting the Asian publishing and bookselling community – after all, we are all part of the same community.

I hope you'll join me in celebrating the global book community in L.A. next week and in welcoming our Chinese counterparts to BookExpo America!

-L