Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. During the Singapore Writers Festival, (SWF) which is on now, and
runs through until November 8, daily posts will offer a flavour of events in
the Lion City.
So: Day 5...
This was day 2 of the publishing
symposium jointly organised by the Singapore Book Publishers Association (SBPA)
and the Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) - for fuller details of the symposium see the
post yesterday.
The focus today shifted towards
efforts by regional publishers to create an ASEAN community of readers.
Accordingly there were market briefings on Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and the
Philippines.
Indonesia was this year's guest
of honour at FBF. It is also the guest of honour at SWF.
Indonesia’s literature is little
known even in its near neighbour, Singapore, let alone in the rest of the
world. To begin to redress this, SWF has asked speakers such as Indonesian man of
letters, Goenawan Mohamad, to explore Indonesia’s aspirations; to
consider how 252 million Indonesians think and dream; to trace continuities
between the literature of ancient Indonesia and the up-to-the-minute literature
of contemporary Indonesia.
The market focus on Indonesia at the
publishing symposium thus fit well with the broader aims of SWF. The session was introduced by Claudia Kaiser, Vice
President, Business Development, FBF - she is based in Jakarta and has special
responsibility for South East Asia. She
told me yesterday that Indonesia at Frankfurt was a great success, and made a
big splash.
The presentation was given by
Laura Prinsloo, of the Indonesian Publishers Association. She was Vice Chief of
the Book Committee for Indonesia as the Guest of Honour at FBF 2015.
Laura kicked off by showing a
video of the Indonesian pavilion at Frankfurt. I can't find the video she showed, but there is another, similar one here.
After the video, Laura explained
she is a numbers woman, before launching into a blizzard of figures. She told
us, for instance: that Indonesia has 726 local languages, but only 1 official
language, Bahasa Indonesia; that the country has 70,000 libraries; that
literacy is not a problem, as shown by the fact that 88 million Indonesians use the
internet; that despite the high rate of literacy, according to the U.N., only 0.1% of the
population shows an interest in reading books; that the average print-run for
books across all types - textbooks, children's books - is 3,000 copies; that of
book readers, 68% are women, and 32% men.
She then presented some
depressing statistics showing that book sales in Indonesia are falling.
Gramedia is the country's largest book shop chain - with 113 stores. In 2010 it sold more books than non-books -
meaning stationary, toys, cards, and so on. But by 2014 47% of its sales came
from books, and 53% from non-books.
Still, things then turned more
cheerful: Laura began to talk about the legacy of Indonesia's experience at
Frankfurt. She said she thought that the international exposure had led Indonesian publishers to think they must up their game: "They realise they've got to produce fewer, better quality products. To get the marketing right. The packaging right. The cover - people do judge a book by its cover."
Laura then revealed her final number: as a result of attending FBF, Indonesian publishers
are now in negotiation to sell foreign rights in 406 home grown titles: "Indonesian authors and publishers have gained confidence from their
exposure at Frankfurt. It's very exciting. They are all busy with new
products."
