Spice Bazaar Exporting to Turkey for Canadian publishers Mariusz Prusaczyk/iStockphoto/ThinkStock
Exporting to Turkey for Canadian publishers Webinar presented by Nermin Mollaoğlu February 28, 2013
Nermin Mollaoğlu Literary agent and founder of Kalem Agency, one of the most important copyright agencies in Turkey Participant 2007 Frankfurt Fellowship program Winner of the 2009 British Council Young Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year award for her entrepreneurial ability in the development of the publishing sector in Turkey Nermin Mollaoğlu
Turkey by the numbers Area 783,562 km 2 Population 74 million GDP growth 8.9% (2011) 1st in Europe 3rd in the world, after China and Brazil Literacy 90%
A young population on the move Age structure 65+ 7% 0-14 25% 1 million university graduates per year Only 2% of the population have been to a library in their life 15-64 68% More then 20 million people have moved to another city within Turkey in the last 30 years
Market 8,150 publishers by ISBN 100 publishers produce 90% of all publications 6,000 bookstores 1,521 libraries 145 libraries in Istanbul
Publishing and publishers There is no school where you can study publishing Changing jobs is common. Most of the people in publishing are from very different backgrounds Owners, or someone who speaks a foreign language, usually deal with copyright and translations The person asking you for sample copies could be the neighbour or a distant relative of the publisher
English or French? The foreign language of business is English for people below the age of 45 French is spoken by older people
Left and Right There are two types of publishers: left wing and right wing This does not mean they are democrats or conservatives Left and right refers to whether they live and work according to Islam or not
1920s Turkish Republic established by Atatürk 90 years ago Alphabet changed from Arabic to Latin overnight Those with money and education learned foreign languages and studied abroad These were the first publishers, authors, translators They are the Left
1980s Resurgence of Islam gave Islamic people the opportunity to make money in a number of diffrerent businesses This brought education, fashionable clothes and international vision Islamic publishers began publishing translations Two of the top five publishers are from the Right They have created a strong distribution system in eastern Turkey, where national income is very low
1995-2005 Turkey not an important player on the world book publishing market until the late 1990s Inflation and political problems made life in Turkey difficult Publishing considered an intellectual pursuit Turkey signs the Berne Convention in 1995 Current top 10 publishers were shaped by this period
An improbable success story Adam Fawer, The Improbable April Publishing established in Ankara by young editors Fawer unknown in his native USA 1 million copies sold in 1 year Still a bestseller
Distribution 3 major distributors: Final (www.finalpazarlama.com) Nobel Tip (www.nobeltip.com) Alfa (www.alfakitp.com) Cover 75% of the market 150 small distributors
Booksellers 1. NT (yeni.nt.com.tr) Largest bookstore chain 140 shops across Turkey 2. D&R (www.dr.com.tr) Owned by Doğan Media Group 3. Remzi (www.remzi.com.tr) 4. Inkılap (www.inkilap.com) 15 shops, mainly in shopping malls Publishers as well
Online retail Two big players Idefix.com Kitapyurdu.com
Translations Of the total new books published, an estimated 45% to 55% are translated Percentage increasing every year French 15% Other 15% German 20% English 50%
New titles 43,190 26,000 29,312 31,414 35,775 13,177 2000 2005 2007 2009 2010 2011
Book market Books produced in 2011 Trade 289,193,982 Textbooks 204,275,661 Total 493,469,643 Average price Trade 6 to 7 Textbook 2 Academic 7 to 8 VAT on books 8%, recently reduced to 1% on religious books No fixed price
Book market Small advances Royalties paid on sale, not publication Key issue is translation time
Book market Istanbul is the capital of publishing in Turkey More than ½ the books are published and sold in Istanbul After Istanbul, most publishers are located in Ankara and Izmir Market keeps growing and changing: new houses and imprints are announced frequently
Piracy Approximately 40% of all books sold are pirated Produced by means of facsimile, photocopy and Internet Security forces and professional publishers associations work in coordinated effort to combat piracy Significant results in recent years
Independent publishing Only one publisher, Doğan, belongs to a foreign group (Egmont) Three other big groups, rest are independent Two of the top 10 publishers, Kultur and Yapı Kredi, are owned by big banks
Promotion Publishers usually don t have sales representatives Only way to reach booksellers is through advertising in national newspaper book supplements Radikal and Cumhuriyet both have effective, weekly book supplements Five other newspapers publish monthly supplements
Categories and formats Turkey is plugged in to the world; whatever is being discussed abroad is being discussed in Turkey You can sell everything to Turkish publishers, but be careful about religious issues The traditional trade edition is a good quality paperback Mass market paperbacks (pocket books) are not popular Audio books never became popular A few small clubs, but not very successful
E-books Market still very new and cautious Five major publishers are investing aggressively and requesting e-books in new contracts Advances not yet affected by inclusion of e-book rights The government will distribute 15 million free tablets to students in 2014
Turkish literature abroad 2005 Orhan Pamuk receives prestigious Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade) 2006 Pamuk receives the Nobel Prize in Literature (the first Nobel Prize to be awarded to a Turkish citizen) 2008 Turkey is the guest of honour at Frankfurt 2009 France celebrates the Rentrée littéraire turque (Turkish literary season) 2010 Istanbul designated European Capital of Culture 2013 Turkey is the market focus of the London Book Fair
TEDA program Translation support grant program Grants are given before translations are started Over 1,000 grants awarded in 7 years www.tedaproject.com/en
Teşekkürler Thank you Nermin Mollaoğlu, Kalem Literary Agency www.kalemagency.com nermin@kalemagency.com
To watch videos of our previous webinars, visit /webinars
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for this project.