As China is this year’s guest of honor at BEA’s Global Market Forum, it is fitting to recognize Tuttle Publishing, the largest English-language Asian publisher in the world. Sales and marketing director Christopher Johns notes that the company was founded in 1948 by Charles Tuttle, an American who was part of MacArthur’s reparations effort for Japan’s library system. “[Tuttle] wanted to bring Asian culture to the Western world to expose the positive things about their culture. Back then [the publisher was] focused on Japan, but we have expanded into Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and the Philippines, and smaller countries as well; we’ve been dedicated to bridging East and West ever since.”
In 2010, Tuttle struck up a relationship with Shanghai Press, which has more than 150 active titles in English, including some bilingual publications. This spring Tuttle helped the press release the first English-language edition of a book written by a sitting Chinese leader since Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. The Governance of China by President Xi Jinping is a collection of his speeches, interviews, and correspondence. Another Shanghai Press title just released is The Complete Guide to Chinese Horoscopes.
The Chinese Institute, a nonprofit bicultural organization headquartered in New York City, forged a relationship with Tuttle last year. “They are very dedicated to exposing Western audiences to daily life in China with a focus on what is now called the Palace Museum, but was once called the Forbidden City,” Johns says. “These are fun books exposing kids of different ages to Chinese culture as seen through a place that was the center of all Chinese culture for many hundreds of years.” Two titles in the series debuting this fall are What Was It Like, Mr. Emperor and Bowls of Happiness. “The Chinese Institute really put themselves out there over the last year with book events,” Johns adds, “working with libraries and schools, a huge marketing effort that has impacted our library numbers and our independents.”
Learning Chinese is another important subject for Tuttle. Johns says, “We do the gamut from phrase books—such as Making Out in Chinese [part of the popular Making Out series emphasizing colloquial language], which helps people through rudimentary dating conversations—all the way up to textbooks in basic Chinese speaking and writing. Chinese has definitely been a priority in language departments around the United States.” From Tuttle’s fall list is a major release: Chinese Characters Made Easy. “It’s a wonderful visual guide to Chinese characters,” he notes. “They’re almost impossible to learn, but there are tricks to it, so that you can learn them visually and phonetically. It’s basically a coffee-table book of Chinese characters with fun illustrations behind each one to help you learn the language.”
Looking back over some of the big titles that Tuttle has put out over the years, Johns mentions that the most important series was the Bruce Lee Library. “That continues to be a cornerstone of our backlist because Bruce Lee is still the #1 major martial artist in the world. When he passed away, his widow wanted to find a publisher for all of his journals and technique books. She went to his library and looked at the bookshelves and there was ‘Tuttle’ on almost every other book. So she contacted us.” The biggest sellers are Bruce Lee Striking Thoughts and Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body.
Another key area for Tuttle is Asian cooking. Johns uses himself as an example of how far Chinese cooking has come in America. “We have this idea that we can go out and have Chinese food once a week, but we can’t make it ourselves. Our mission as a publisher is to demystify that. So we have Easy Chinese Recipes by Bee Yinn Low, a sort of ‘Rachael Ray 30 minutes or less’ idea, because we’re all busy and we don’t have time to make two-hour meals. People are surprised that you can find the ingredients you need at your local supermarket—you don’t have to go to a Chinatown or buy it online. I am proof positive that this is true. I didn’t cook any Asian food before I came to Tuttle and now I do some variety of Asian cooking once a week with my family.”
Johns says it’s gratifying to see how the company’s Chinese titles have grown. There are 250 active backlist titles and 20 to 30 new Chinese titles released every year in a variety of categories including fiction, children’s books, current affairs, language, and culture. “We don’t just have one children’s book about China, we have 10. We have 30 Chinese-language textbooks. The national chains like Costco and Barnes and Noble have changed as well, reflecting far more of our titles than they used to three or four years ago. It’s nice to be part of that diversity.”
This article appeared in the May 27, 2015 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
