Picture books have always been the face of the Taiwanese publishing industry, a generalization that's understandable given the popularity of homegrown illustrators such as Chih-yuan Chen and Jimmy Liao. Well, it's time for a reality check: publishing in Taiwan is anything but homogeneous.
Works of literature form the bulk of originals on this island, and names familiar to the Chinese-language world are in no shortage. Exports, naturally enough, are aimed at markets populated by Chinese readers, as well as at non—Chinese-speaking neighboring countries, whose cultural similarities and geographical proximities ease much of the rights-selling and translation pains. However, the maturity of the regional market has fueled efforts to take original works further afield and into other languages. The difficulty—echoed by everybody except the Americans and the British—is in getting the originals noticed in this congested publishing world, where bookshelves are chock-a-block with new titles that are living ever-shorter life spans.
While Taiwan is admittedly still a rights market—where publishers, using their well-honed skills, select titles which invariably head straight for the bestseller charts—original works are flourishing, and they are broad based and designed to compete with the best out there. Here PW talks to 13 publishing houses—the established and the relatively new—to give you a glimpse of what they have to offer in terms of original works and translation opportunities.
B.K. Norton/Bookman
B.K. Norton—a wholly owned subsidiary of Bookman—operates on a business-to-business (B2B) model. An exclusive agent for publishers such as W.W. Norton, Verso, Evans, Rock 'n Learn, and Marshall Cavendish ELT in Taiwan and Korea, it also represents the American University Press Group. "But B.K. Norton isn't just into tertiary and professional titles; we're also acting for Publishers' Services International, which represents a dozen or so publishers specializing in educational books up to k—12 level," notes managing director Jerome Su.
The first professional B2B agency for overseas publishers in Taiwan, B.K. Norton is an ideal solution for those without a sufficiently large market to justify establishing subsidiary offices in this region, as well as for those who prefer to rely on a local company with the market know-how and an established network to promote their publications. According to Su, B.K. Norton's mode of operation is simple: "We do the marketing and the legwork, and we take as commission a percentage of the revenue from sales to bookstores and distributors. To publishers, this is a very straightforward business deal. The more we manage to sell, the more we earn; naturally we work very hard. We can even move backlist titles which have somehow eluded markets in this region, and this is the type of achievement that we're particularly proud of," Su says. And such advantages have resulted in a steadily growing clientele for B.K. Norton, evidenced by the agency's growth from a one-man show five years ago to an operation that handled more than 250,000 copies last year. Its sales represent about 30% of Bookman's total business.
Over at Bookman, translations (mostly of Anglo-Saxon origin) account for one-third of its catalogue. Its 70-plus employees published about 60 titles in 2005, half in Bookman's strongest segments, ELT and humanities/social science. Su says, "We're always looking at new trends and genres. The lesbian/gay studies category, for example, is relatively new to our list. These titles receive more attention in the marketplace because of their novelty, but they aren't bestseller material; we'd be happy to recoup our investment in translation and printing." For Su, the publishing business is as much about the dissemination of knowledge as it is about dollars and cents: "As publishers, we have a duty to the reading public that we must fulfill."
China Times Publishing
The 31-year-old China Times is known for introducing many international authors and bestsellers—fiction or otherwise—to the local market. And one name has been closely linked to this general publisher in recent years: Dan Brown. Says president Amy Mo, "We have sold over 800,000 copies of The Da Vinci Code since its 2004 release. The total sales volume of the three Brown titles—Da Vinci, Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress—has exceeded 1.1 million copies." Other recent bestselling translations include Annie Proulx's Close Range (with 65,000 copies in print), Haruki Murakami's TokyoKitanshu (35,000 copies), the Dalai Lama/ Howard Cutler collaboration The Art of Happiness at Work, Jared Diamond's Collapse and Wayne Gould's The Time Su Doku: Book 1(45,000 copies).
"Translations make up about 60% of our catalogue, and they are mostly of English, Japanese or Latin American origin. For fiction, we have translated authors such as Coelho, Coetze, Calvino and Greene," adds Mo. Nearly 200 new titles will be added to its catalogue this year.
Sales of originals from its catalogue of 5,000-odd titles have been brisk, mainly to Japanese, Korean and Chinese publishers. Manga has provided Mo with another export segment in the past five years. "We publish Taiwan's top three comics/manga authors—Chih-chung Tsai, Yo-siang Ao and Ron Chu—and they're selling very well here and across the straits. Ao's titles, for instance, may sell anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 copies in Taiwan, but the figure jumps to 800,000 copies or even a million in China." She scored a major success in 2001 when Carol Brown Janeway—then v-p and international rights director at Knopf—picked up Xiao-kang Su's A Memoir of Misfortune for $25,000. "This deal prompted us to make a more aggressive effort to produce more originals with export potential. In fact, I have selected 12 originals for the upcoming Frankfurt book fair to showcase at the Taiwan Pavilion."
For Mo, Taiwan's book industry is an energetic market peopled by publishers who don't discriminate against any country or publication. "What we need more is to get overseas publishers to visit us—at TIBE [Taipei International Book Exhibition] or at our booths in international book fairs—and learn more about Taiwan's publishing and book market."
Chiu Ko Publishing
Family-owned literature publisher Chiu Ko is the choice for local talents who want to publish their magnum opus. For owner Wen-fu Tsai, his goal "since day one—and that would be back in 1978—has been to introduce and grow new literary voices; and to help push their works further afield." On average, the company's three imprints—the flagship Chiu Ko for literature, Chien Hsing for mind-body-spirit and Ten Points for translations—release about 150 titles per year, 80% of which are originals. Says Tsai, "Ten Points was established six years ago and it has two new series: detective stories by the likes of Sara Paretsky and Jacqueline Winspear, and chick lit by Sarah Dunn, Carole Matthews and Jennifer Crusie. It also publishes Eoin Colfer, Margaret Atwood, Elfriede Jelinek, Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch." On the children's side, the company has published an original series of 250 children's books—mostly illustrated readers—targeting eight- to 15-year-olds.
Specializing in literature, says managing editor Eunice Tsai, is not easy. "The market has tilted toward bestsellers, especially now that blockbuster translations are so popular. Local authors tend to get sidelined; their titles don't receive as much attention and therefore they get less money. To add to their woes, the ban on publications from China was lifted in 2003, further aggravating the competition," she says. "But we're very happy to see the establishment of the Literature Pavilion at TIBE 2006. We have long felt that original literature is being overshadowed by illustrated picture books, for which Taiwan is known."
Almost all Chiu Ko originals have been sold to China (on one-time fees), and selected titles have gone to Korea and Japan. Says Eunice Tsai, "In recent years, more and more local authors give their publishers only the traditional Chinese rights. So, if previously it was an all-encompassing contract for the Chinese-language market worldwide, now it's split into two separate contracts. For authors, it means additional revenue when they're published in simplified Chinese markets such as China. On our part, we offer our market expertise in acting as their rights agent to make sure they get the best deal—in terms of fees paid and the publishing and marketing support—which will encourage them to write more."
Cité Publishing Group
Recording a 33-fold growth within 10 years of its establishment is no mean feat. For Taiwan's largest publishing group, Cité—now part of Hong Kong-based TOM Group of the Hutchinson Whampoa conglomerate—having 40 imprints, 53 periodicals and 1,300 staff does help. Its five business units—PC Home (IT/ computer), Cité Publishing (general trade books), Business Weekly Media (whose flagship magazine has a circulation of 160,000 copies, Taiwan's largest), Nong Nong (women's magazines) and Sharp Point (teen magazines/books)—share many front- and back-office functions to achieve production and cost efficiencies. A broad-based publisher producing 1,000 titles annually, Cité is known for trendsetting and controversial titles. "In The Warning of Taiwan Straits War, for instance, the author predicts that military conflict would most probably be initiated by China. Then we have titles by Li Ao, Taiwan's most vocal social and political commentator. We were also the first to publish IT/Internet-related and stock market titles," says senior v-p James Yang.
Rights selling has been brisk especially from Grimm Press, one of its children's publishing companies. "Translation activities are equally brisk: over the past 24 months, translations of James Hunter, Ernst Gombrich and Kenichi Ohmae are among our bestsellers. We're in the process of launching another Ohmae title; Storm Dunlop's illustrated title on weather; and Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book," adds Yang.
But market growth is slow, comments executive director and CEO Fei-peng Ho. "While it's not declining, thanks to book lovers, it's flat-ish. Our task is to change that into an upward curve, and one strategy is to venture into e-publishing. We already publish five e-magazines, 40 e-newspapers and 60 e-books, and started building a new distribution channel with a well-known mobile phone company. But growth is limited by Taiwan's small market size. So we intend to leverage on our publishing and marketing expertise to explore e-publishing potential in China. What we need is suitable partners to penetrate the e-book market there." To Ho and many of his industry peers, Taiwan is an ideal launch pad for any publishing ventures involving China. "To publishers in China, their Taiwanese counterparts have the necessary experience in dealing with foreign publishers, while to foreign publishers we have the links to the China market. So we should work together to explore the Chinese-language and China markets."
CommonWealth
The first thing you should know about CommonWealth Magazine Group is that its founder and current chairman, Diane Ying—a former correspondent with the New York Timesand the Asian Wall StreetJournal—was the 1987 Ramon Magsaysay Award recipient, an achievement that went a long way toward establishing the company's credibility. Its book publishing program began in 1989 with The Biographyof Premier Yun-shiuan Sun, one of its all-time bestsellers (at 200,000 copies). "This was followed by a retrospective on the island's 300-year history, Discovering Taiwan, which sold more than 100,000 copies. And in recent times, biographies of Taiwan IT tycoons Morris Chang, Stan Shih and Terry Kuo were bestsellers at both Kingstone and Eslite bookstores," says managing editor Grace Chin.
Meanwhile, translations, which began in 1999, gave the company many runaway bestsellers, including Peter Drucker's Management, Lester Thurow's Fortune Favors the Bold, Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Solution, Seth Godin's The BigMoo, Kenichi Ohmae's The Unseen Continentand James McGregor's One Billion Customers. Translations of other genres include the Mayo Clinic health series, the Dalai Lama's inspirational works and kid/ parenting titles such as Juliet B. Schor's Born to Buy. "We publish about 100 titles per year, with about 70% translations. The newest division is children's books, which was launched in October 2005. But within this short period, two originals, The Funny Tales of Chinese Charactersseries and Nina's Pancake, were showcased at the Taiwan Pavilion at Bologna 2006. We have already sold their rights to Hong Kong and Brazil," says Chin.
Recently, Chin launched Ohmae's latest, Off Course, and an original title on creativity by local playwright/director Sheng-chuan Lai. "We are able to leverage on existing resources from our lead magazine, CommonWealth—long regarded as the equivalent of Fortune in the U.S.—for our original publications. Take Lai's book as an example: the magazine did several in-depth reports on him, and we took advantage of that relationship to ask him to write the book, which is now one of our current bestsellers." In Chin's view, the rather stagnant book market should not dampen a publisher's outlook. "Our economy and the arts and culture scene are still vibrant. As long as a publisher keeps pace with societal changes and publishes accordingly, the readers and the market will be there."
Éditions du Flâneur
Human science is six-year-old Flâneur's business. Founded by Tsun-shing Cheng, an associate professor at the National Tsing Hua University, it kicked off its program with the translation of Vocabulaire de la Psychoanalyse in December 2000. "We have published about a dozen titles, mostly French translations. Lately we have been looking at publications from various university presses around the world, and one which will be published soon is Leviathanand the Air-Pump from Princeton," says Cheng. With a catalogue that lists Burning Your Boats, MagicToyshop, Nadja: Les yeux de Clerambault, Freud andthe Non-European, Black Hamlet, Savage Freud and La pensee du dehors, it would seem that Flâneur caters mostly to field practitioners, postgraduate students and rather high-brow readers. But three forthcoming titles—Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, E.M. Cioran's A Short History of Decay and Tsurumi Shunsuke's An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan, 1931—1945—reveal a different story. "We're branching out into works that are related to Taiwan and the Taiwanese people. Shunsuke, for instance, talks about the impact of war on the people involved. It's a very timely publication, given the present sentiment in this region about Japan's role in World War II and its past military aggression in Asia."
Explains editor Yi-zheng Zhou (Cheng's former student), "Our familiarity with the field has definitely been beneficial to our publishing program. We have a clear blueprint of what needs to be published or translated—i.e., essential readings and latest findings—and what to add to those already in the market in order to provide a more complete reading list in the field of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis."
At Flâneur, rights negotiation is quite a personal affair. "There's an advantage to being in the field and knowing the authors and the publishers. We get more flexible rights arrangements and, in most cases, lower charges. On the whole, European authors and publishing houses are more eager to get their titles published—wider dissemination of information being their main concern—and would accept a nominal fee to cover their expenses." The average fee paid by Cheng is around $1,200. "But, of course, some of the titles we bought aren't from the frontlist and, no doubt, cost less," Zhou adds.
Grimm Press
Bridging the East-West divide is the underlying theme at Grimm, says publisher K.T. Hao. Its long list of collaborative efforts between local and overseas authors/illustrators (such as Robert Ingpen, Roberta Angaramo and Giuliano Ferri) is one major aspect that differentiates it from other children's book publishers. Such collaborations, as would be expected, have earned Grimm numerous accolades and awards, further elevating its stature in the Asian picture-book scene. Take TheSnow Queen as an example: at Bologna 2005 its illustrator, Paval Tatarnikov, received the Emperor's New Illustration award for his illustrations inspired by H.C. Andersen's stories. This year, two of Grimm's illustrators, Eva Wong (Big Bad Auntie Tiger) and Gianni de Conno (The Brave Tin Soldier), were selected for the Illustrators Exhibition.
This mixed authorship also means wider acceptance among overseas publishers. Naturally, among its most exported titles are Marco Polo and Pinocchio (both illustrated by Ingpen), Sinbad (illustrated by Amelie Veaux) and One Pizza One Penny(written by Hao and illustrated by Ferri), all available in five or six language editions. "Our most successful title to date is Jimmy Liao's Separate Ways, which has appeared in English, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Polish, German, Danish, Greek and French," Hao says. Since its inception 13 years ago, Grimm Press (part of Cité) has published more than 800 titles and plans to add another 100 this year. About 70% of its titles are originals and some 295 titles have been exported. As for new major titles, The Trouble Maker (illustrated by Angaramo), Who Did This?(illustrated by Norberto Bernatene) and Something Forgotten (illustrated by Ferri)—all three written by Hao—will be out within the next few months.
"In general, picture books face tough challenges from competing media; alas, a universal trend. Sales per title are falling, and we need to shore them up. So besides producing higher-quality titles that stand out above the rest, we're also working on reversioning our titles—mobile phone download is one possible format—and creating new revenue streams," says Hao. "At the same time, we're looking out for new sources of talents, one of which is China. By leveraging Grimm's established publishing connections and Taiwan's geographical proximity, we hope to have the first pick of the creative brains there when the time is ripe."
Heryin Publishing
A relatively young publisher to the picture-book scene, Heryin nevertheless makes a big impact. Its publications have consistently appeared in the five annual best children's books lists compiled by the China Times and United Daily newspapers since 2000. "Last year, The Little Stone Lionwas on China Times's list, while Kamishibai Man appeared on United Daily's. At the same time, three titles—My Four Seasons, Imagine and KamishibaiMan—were selected for the Taipei Public Library's Good Books Award," says owner and publisher Yih-fen Chou. This year, Willie the Wheeland Summer Nightwere nominated for the Golden Butterfly award; the former won the prize. Another title, The Featherless Chickenby Chih-yuan Chen, won the Golden Tripod award—Taiwan's only book award for original works—thus adding another feather (pun intended) to Heryin's cap.
With such award-winning titles, it's not surprising to note that nine-year-old Heryin has had its own booth at Bologna book fair for the last two years. "It's an expensive exercise, but it's well worth the space, as it raises visibility and allows us to better promote our titles. Of course, in the first place, you need to have good books to sell," adds Chou. And good books she seems to have plenty of: its originals TheBest Christmas Ever, Artie and Julie, The LittleStone Lion, Homes and TheFeatherlessChicken are now available in French, Japanese, Korean, English and Chinese. "As an editor, what I care most is the quality of a book: good story and exceptional illustrations. The nationality of the author doesn't figure in my consideration of a manuscript for publication. I firmly believe that as long as the quality is good, everything else—marketing, rights sales, distribution, awards—will fall into place." Translations still make up 30% of Heryin's catalogue, although the number is dwindling. "While there is a conscious effort to promote original works, I'm not ignoring the potential of translations to balance our catalogue and provide variety," Chou says.
All Heryin originals are available in both English and Chinese versions. "For every picture book that we translate, the process invariably involves three native-speaker editors. Others may think it's overkill, but we feel that this is crucial to maintaining the quality that we hold so dear," Chou notes.
Hsin Yi Foundation
The motto "To safeguard the children's only childhood" permeates all activities at Hsin Yi. Established in 1971, it was the first publisher to specialize in picture books and toys for preschoolers, and was credited with much of the groundwork in promoting local talents and elevating quality in this segment. It set up the Picture Book Award in 1987 and Little Kangaroo Storytelling Troupe seven years later to encourage everybody to be a storyteller to children. "Our target audience has always been the very young, specifically the 0—6-year-olds. We operate on the premise that, once they learn to read and develop a love of reading, a whole new world would open up to them and it would set the path of their growth as individuals," explains executive director Sing-ju Chang.
So far, Chang has launched over 50 titles by Picture Book Award winners; among the most popular is Chih-yuan Chen's On My Way to Buy Eggs and Guji Guji; rights have been sold to the U.S., Korea, Japan, Spain, Thailand, Greece, New Zealand, Australia and France. Publishing about 30 titles per year, Hsin Yi's catalogue is split 50/50 between translations and originals. Titles by Carle, Burningham, Lionni, Zavrel, Watts and Sano are featured alongside originals like I Love Durians and Memories.
"We also publishes the monthlies Preschool Educationfor parents with children aged 0—6 and Little Sun magazine for 1—3-year-olds. Both are firmly entrenched in the latest theories and tools promoting early childhood learning and mental development. We also have one parenting Web site and one community portal, which get over seven million page views monthly," says Chang, who is heavily involved in the biannual Hsin Yi Infancy Conference, which she started in 2000 to introduce theories, research and findings on brain development and early childhood learning to educators and parents. The fourth conference was held last June, with guest speakers Patricia Kuhl (co-director of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences), Kim Plunklett (head of Oxford University's BabyLab) and Ovid Cheng (v-p at Academia Sinica). Chang also launched the BookStart Campaign at TIBE 2006, marking yet another exciting milestone for Hsin Yi and for children's publishing and early childhood education in Taiwan.
Linking Publishing
With 26 Golden Tripod awards on its shelves, Linking—a subsidiary of the United Daily News Group—has been credited with introducing local talents (such as Jia-tun Li, Li-hong Xiao, Ray Huang and Yang Gao) to the reading public, as well as popularizing them outside Taiwan. And then there's Nobel Literature Prize winner Xing-jian Gao—Linking has published seven of his titles since 1990. Linking also operates six retail outlets that distribute magazines and books for other publishers; this accounts for 75% of its business. One outlet, Shanghai Book Store, sells only Simplified Chinese titles (mostly imported from China). "Its February 2005 launch was hailed as a watershed development in the history of Taiwan's book market. Prior to July 2003, books from China were banned here," explains editor Jessica Chuang during a tour of the store.
On the publishing side, along the course of its 32-year history, Linking has translated major works on Western thought (Plato to Lévi-Strauss), business and economics (One Minute Manager, e-Brands), mind-body-spirit (works by the Dalai Lama), fiction (The Lord of the Rings trilogy and visual companions) and children's books (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little). Right now, fiction lovers are reading its translations of Michael Connelley's The Poetand The Closers. "We launched these titles last July, and the plan is to publish two or three at a time, until we have all eight titles in the full series. Next on our to-do list are P.D. James's novels," says publisher and editorial director Linden Lin. "We have about 1,500 active titles, over 25% of which are translations, and we add 130 new titles each year. Export-wise, we have done about 200-odd titles, with the majority going to China." Counterparts in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have also been buying rights from Linking since 1990.
For Lin, Chuang and the rest of the Linking team, there is an urgent need to time the publication of the Taiwanese editions as close as possible to that of the original editions. "That way we can leverage on the initial publicity generated by the marketing campaign for the original. What we need to do now is to forge closer working relationships with our overseas partners."
Locus Publishing
Publishing distinctive titles encapsulating the slogan "Future, Adventure, Culture" was what Rex How set out to do when he founded Locus. Ten years on, its showroom displays a mixture of fiction and nonfiction titles that deliver on that vision, such as Straight from the Gut, Freakonomics, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and White Teeth. "Of the 70 new titles we publish annually, about one in three is translated, many of them becoming bestsellers. Mitch Albom's titles, for instance, continue to sell well: Tuesdays with Morrie has sold 600,000 copies, while The Five People You Meet in Heaven, 300,000. We're also known for quality literature from the likes of Marai, Hrabal, Ishiguro and Naipaul," says How, who has already bought the rights to the yet-to-be-published memoirs of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.
"We recently released Elizabeth Kostova's The Historianwith a 15,000-copy first run, and within 10 days of the launch we went for a second printing of 10,000," adds editor-in-chief Levin Liao. "We are also releasing Vladimir Nobokov's Pale Fire, Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, Fujiwara Masahiko's The Character of a Nation and Ben Schott's Schott'sOriginal Miscellany, besides the much-anticipated Chronicles: Volume I by Bob Dylan."
So far, two imprints have sprouted from parent Locus: one is Net and Books and the other, Dala. The first concentrates on trendy topics, with a focus on avant-garde design concepts as well as new versions of classics such as Xavier De Maistre's Voyage Around My Room; Dala specializes in sex-related publications and comics. "We plan to bring in more European comics, which have a totally different flavor and are in much larger formats," says Dala editor-in-chief Aho Huang, who has published a graphic novel based on Marcel Proust's work and Enki Bilal's NikopolTrilogy. A new series, East Graffiti, focusing on Asian cities, is just out.
Meanwhile, Locus's most famous author/illustrator, Jimmy Liao, has arrived in America. "We sold Sound of Colors to Little, Brown and we hope to do the same with his other titles such as TheBlue Stone, which is a bestseller," adds How, who is launching two new titles from Liao soon. "Our publishing program is a balance between blockbusters and creative and provocative works that may not be as commercially successful but would enrich one's reading experience."
PsyGarden
For PsyGarden, its specialization in psychology and related disciplines is a labor of love, largely because all its 26 shareholders are practicing professionals in the field. Six years after its inception, PsyGarden has published 130-odd titles running the gamut from the practical (self-help books and survival stories) to the professional (Melanie Klein's texts, Irvin D. Yalom's groundbreaking works, Al Alvarez's The Savage God). "We also introduced Marianne Legato's Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, along with a selection of well-chosen holistic titles such as Pema Chodron's When ThingsFall Apart," says editor-in-chief Doris Wang.
But it's not just publishing that is happening at PsyGarden. Wang says, "We have started a series of free talks, forums and activities in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of Freud's birth. At the same time, we bought a series of his case notes from S. Fisher Verlag and made them available for the first time to Taiwanese readers. We feel that it's important for readers—whether they're practicing professionals or otherwise—to understand how Freud diagnosed paranoia, infantile neurosis, phobia and other illnesses of the mind that are now common in any society. Given the stigma attached to such illnesses in Eastern cultures, the role of these titles in educating the general public takes on an even greater significance." Close collaboration with organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association has also ensured the timely publication of titles addressing issues such as love addiction, self-harm and depression among adolescents, as well as books promoting personal growth and self-care. Additionally, it cooperates with local associations such as My Heart Foundation, which subsidizes some of PsyGarden's titles and promotional campaigns.
Wang has witnessed many successes of PsyGarden originals, which are rated highly by newspapers and periodicals. For instance, The Power of Space and Farewell,Darkness! were among United Daily's and China Times's best books of the year, as well as Eslite bookstore's top 100 best titles, and they were also highly lauded by Asiaweek magazine and the online store Bookonline.com. "We canvass practicing professionals to write for us and share their views on the many societal issues surrounding us. At the same time, carefully selected translations are added to achieve balance and diversity in our list."
Yuan-Liou Publishing
To fulfill its promise of "schools without walls," Yuan-Liou publishes about 300 new titles annually in print, audio, CD-ROM and online formats, and distributes them through various channels, including its online bookstore, ylib.com. Founded by Jung-wen Wang in 1975, it was first thrown into the spotlight when it was selected by the then-president Teng-hui Li to publish his two books and again when it formed a strategic alliance with Encyclopaedia Britannica to tap into the China market. What ensued was the creation of The Concise Britannica (print and online editions) in July 2003, followed by the Chinese edition with a full database. A sister division, Wordpedia.com, was formed to develop its Internet-based publishing and encyclopedia products.
At Yuan-Liou, where half of the new titles are translations, translating bestsellers such as Melissa Muller's Anne Frank, Tom Peters's A Passion for Excellence, Jim Collins's Good to Great and Gavin Menzies's 1421 is something of a tradition. As for originals, historical novels are its specialty; the most successful is the 36-volume collection of Jin Yong's kung-fu romance novels, which have been sold to every corner of the Chinese-speaking world and made into TV series, movies and online games. In 2002, Yuan-Lu began translating the 156-year-old ScientificAmerican magazine, offering an online English—Chinese version that allows cross-referencing. As for readers with a taste for mystery, its Murder Shop Library offers 101 selected vintage detective novels as well as all of Agatha Christie's 80 titles. "We also have a category called Infowin comprising titles that afford a glimpse into the future of the Information Age, such as Bill Gates's The Road Ahead, Gina Kolata's Clone and Charles Murray's The Supermen."
For Wang, the most valuable gain of cooperating with foreign publishers is the exposure to different publishing methods and strategies. "Through TIBE and our participation in international book fairs, we learn about the art of rights trading as well as how to design our publications better, how to improve on our printing quality and so on. With the formation of TBFF [Taipei Book Fair Foundation]—of which we are one of the founding members—we further leverage on the cumulative experience of 18 major publishers to offer overseas counterparts a platform to connect and interact with each other, and a base to explore new markets."
