PRECIS OF VOLUME 17 ISSUE 4
- How does one of the world's largest and most successful capitalist publishers establish itself in the world's largest communist country? The inside story of Bertelsmann in China, published for the first time in this issue of LOGOS, is an object lesson in both diplomacy and pragmatism. The author, Qianqiao Gu, writes from the dual perspective of an insider and international observer.
- A second major story on China, told from a completely different angle, sees the invasion by foreign publishers through Chinese eyes. Occidental publishers view China primarily as an enticing export market, into which they can sell books, journals and language rights, with the help of Chinese publishers as partners in joint ventures. The result is that China buys more than ten times what it sells. Yet, as Paul Richardson, a distinguished British publisher who recently rounded off his career as director of the Oxford Brookes Centre for Publishing Studies, makes clear, China produces many books which have a world market, but which the Chinese have not exploited. They are now announcing strong efforts worldwide to adjust this imbalance of trade.
- The third piece is by Joseph J. Esposito, US publishing consultant (he calls himself "Portable Executive"), who, as LOGOS readers know, is adept at spirited attacks on the status quo. His target this time is state of university presses in America, which he claims are being underutilized for no good reason. He then sets out precisely what they are not doing, what they should be doing, and why they are not doing it.
- The enormous influence of the Dutch on international book publishing has often been the subject of comment and wonder. Their latest invention is a website which not only identifies sought-after titles-searchableby author, publisher and price-but also tells the user in which bookshops and in which libraries each book can be found. "Boekbalie" (book counter) can be used by booksellers, librarians and individuals. How it has been devised and what it plans for the future are described by an officer of the Dutch Booksellers Association, Adriaan Langendonk.
- Canadian author Roy MacSkimming has long been famous for his indignation over US domination of Canadian publishing, and his defence of government subsidies to bolster Canadian publishing. He now presents some good news and reveals a slight change of heart under the self-explanatory title, "Canada's writers shine and its home-grown publishers stay resilient-in an industry still dominated by multi-nationals". The new edition of his book The Perilous Trade will be reviewed in our next issue.
- LOGOS readers come from every profession connected with books and publishing. The one thing that they all have in common is that they are book lovers, which is the theme of our series "The personal library as doppelganger", the latest contributor to which is doyenne of indexers in the UK (and indexer of LOGOS from Volume 1 Number 1 onward) Hazel K. Bell. She has also become a publisher. Having acquired six ISBNs (you cannot buy fewer), she is publishing six (short) books, all written by herself.
- The issue closes with a review of the latest edition of Lynette Owen's standard work on rights, by copyright expert Graham Cornish.
- Editor-emeritus Gordon Graham in his "Last Word" column defends himself against readers' complaints that he is biased against fiction, taking refuge in the "sophistic argument" that there's no real difference between fiction and non-fiction.
Precis of Volume 17, Issue 3 >>