and French and Germans write good books, but whatever, I’m in business explanation mode now.)
The first is the one that leads to odd conclusions, namely, that it’s much harder to get published in English (for any writers, including native ones) than in another language just because of the sheer competition. This is reached via the assumption that the means of production are the same everywhere and that there’s an equal ration of speakers of a given language to number of books published in that language in any country in the world. (E.g., if there are 10,000 speakers of language X, then 1,000 books will be published, just as 5,000 speakers of language Y results in 500 books.)
Regardless, his final conclusion is something most people involved in translations can agree with:
I have argued that the dominance of English threatens the accumulation of capital in the form of literature. Since publishers need to offset the costs of translation, they tend to confine translations to works that have sold especially well in the original language and thereby to limit their costs of selection. Because of some economies of scale and the signaling value of success in a huge market, the dominant language will capture a disproportionate share of translations. Very significantly too, according to the market analysis, advances in the technology of diffusion increase the advantage of the dominant language in the field of translations.
OK, so the “accumulation of capital” thing is a bit confusing to me, but the basic sentiment that, left to its own economic devises, the publishing industry will trend towards a model where English books are translated everywhere and very little gets translated into English, and that this is unfortunate and damaging to world culture, is something I agree with.
Beyond all the points in this article and details I’m glossing over, it’s interesting that this even exists. Sure, he didn’t really talk to publishers or create a very complicated model of the publishing scheme, but it’s cool that someone out there is thinking about this and identifying reasons for the problem that most of us “literary” folks don’t necessarily think about. At least not in a global, world market sort of way.
Interlude:
Making an
Arch-Nemesis
The one panel from NYRB’s Sunflower event in 2007 that hasn’t gotten a lot of coverage online is the Editors Buzz Panel. Consisting of French, German, and American editors (and Scott Moyers from Wylie—lot more below), this panel was an opportunity to highlight some really interesting forthcoming books.
Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens talked about Marie Darrieussecq’s latest book (which is the subject of a fascinating controversy; Jenna Johnson from Harcourt talked about I Have the Right to Destroy Myself and Michael Zollner from Tropen Verlag presented a book called What We Talk about When We Talk about Doping.
All the presentations were great, but what most got me going was Scott Moyers opening comments about fiction in translation. As someone who worked at Random House, Penguin, and now Wylie, he’s come into contact with a lot of big international authors. And I’m sure he’s a nice guy. But the things he said at the panel were a perfect example of how commercial publishing treats “international fiction” as a pure commodity and basically undercut a lot of the good interactions that happened earlier in the days.
First off, he started talking about W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, and that although Sebald had been “getting his name out there a bit,” this was an opportunity for Random House to put the “stamp of authority” on Sebald as a great European writer. Which is pretty inaccurate. New Directions (and Harvill in the UK) had been publishing Sebald for years and had already cultivated a huge reputation for him. Sebald was by no means unknown when Random House wrested the rights to Austerlitz away from New Directions in what seemed to be a pretty savage business move better suited to Wall Street than literary publishing. But RH saw an opportunity—not to promote Sebald, but to capitalize on him.
The next book he mentioned was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Which is a book with some merit, but not really the “great Barcelona novel” that it was portrayed as. But that’s an aesthetic debate, and it may be because I can name more than a dozen Spanish/Catalan writers that I have a slightly different perspective on where this fits in the Spanish literary tradition than Scott does.
What bugged me though was his insistence that, like with Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, The Shadow of the Wind sent publishers rushing to find other Spanish novelists writing just like him. Even if true, that precisely describes one of the things wrong with American publishing. This sort of pigeonholing, this looking to replicate what “worked” leads to the publication of a lot of pale imitations that are generally uninteresting and create the viewpoint that all fiction from country X is all the same.
All of these events—like everything the French American Foundation, the French Cultural Services, and the German Book Office do—were designed to promote a widening appreciation of literature from other cultures. But this perspective that Scott presented—which actually is pretty dominant in the marketplace—represents the exact opposite. Instead of appreciating art from other cultures, these publishers treat these books as commodities. The Shadow of the Wind is great because it sold well, not necessarily because it’s a great book.
There’s nothing wrong with for profit companies running their business in profitable ways, but in my opinion, expressing such a condescending, somewhat ignorant viewpoint at such a panel designed to celebrate cultural exchanges made Americans look crass and culturally naive.
In December 2008, I was invited by Riky Stock of the German Book Office to give a presentation to GBO directors from around the world about publishing post-financial collapse. Which is a pretty big topic, and one that will probably dominate conversations post-holiday season, especially if the retail sector struggles as much as people are predicting. Anyway, this is an admittedly incomplete, overly simplified look at the industry, the reigning sales models, and what might happen in the next few years. Oh, and it’s extremely long.
Stage One:
Overview of
the Publishing
Marketplace
It’s no secret that publishing folk like to complain a lot and are somewhat addicted to “doom and gloom” prognostications about their industry. Sales are never what they should be (nor are salaries), there can never be enough book coverage for a hot title, everyone is under a lot of pressure to meet unrealistic expectations, and with thousands of over-educated, well-read people entering the work force every year, no one’s job feels safe. See this year’s surprise firing of Jane Friedman, CEO of HarperCollins, in June 2008. Or the fact that Peter Olson stepped down after profits at Random House dropped 4.7%. That’s not to say that publishing people can’t relax, or don’t enjoy the business, but it has—increasingly—become a business, and the strings and complications that go along with increasing profit margins impact all the various aspects of publishing and are altering the industry and literary culture as a whole.
There’s a famous publishing joke that goes, “Do you know how to make a small fortune in publishing? . . . Start with a large one.” Throughout modern times, publishing has been a small margin industry. Rich people got involved because of the glamour, the importance that comes from shaping our culture, the joy of working with intelligent artists. Not to mention the cocktail parties. (Nowadays, you can add free books to that list.) Rarely—if ever—did people start up publishing houses with the idea that this would make them millions. Same goes for bookstores and bookstore owners. In the best of times, these businesses aim for 3% profit margins. As conglomerates took over
