SELLING BEYOND YOUR LOCAL BOOK MARKET:
NEW STRATEGIES, NEW IDEAS
Atty. Dominador D. Buhain
President, ABPA
Head Delegate, Philippines
(Delivered on the occasion of the ABPA Forum, March 26, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand)
Greetings from the Philippines!
It is not so long ago that we were talking in Brunei Darussalam at the International Book Fair there about enhancing our business through e-marketing.
ABPA as a Co-Publishing, Translation, and eMarketing Arm
Indeed, it is high time that we take our local publishing businesses beyond our national borders. We are now organized to do so, through the ASEAN Book Publishers Association (ABPA) and we will be amply equipped to do so through the ABPA website, with linkages to national websites of the leading publishers and book distributors in the ASEAN member-countries.
For the last three years since the establishment of the ABPA, we have slowly but surely forged regional bonds and publishing partnerships among ASEAN publishers through attendance in various international book fairs particularly in Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Bandar Seri Bagawan, Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore.
The mechanics for attendance to the Frankfurt Book Fair is being studied as well. At the ABPA executive committee meetings and annual general assemblies, fora on various topics, we have discussed areas of common interest and concerns and planned joint action for the solution of common problems and the enhancement of our trade and the development of our countries and peoples.
We are very confident in the strength of our regional trade association, especially through its various working committees: (1) Training and Development Committee chaired by Brunei Darussalam; (2) Marketing, Distribution, ASEAN-Wide Readership Committee under the chairmanship of Indonesia; (3) Membership, Information Technology Committee led by Vietnam to publish the ABPA Newsletter called the Bridge to Regional Understanding, with a Sub-Committee on the ABPA Website Development under the leadership of Singapore, who generously volunteered to shoulder the website cost; (4) Co-Publishing, Translation and Distribution Rights Committee under the leadership of Malaysia; (5) Book Awards Committee chaired this year by Singapore; (6) The Book Fairs, International Fora and Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by the Philippines; and (7) the Legal, Copyright, and Licensing Committee chaired by the Philippines.
Thus structured, our regional book trade association is a very potent force in helping our local book markets to expand beyond national borders and reach an international audience especially the readers of ASEAN.
ABPA Book Awards
We need to actively develop our co-publishing, translation, and licensing programs in order to bring the best products of our industry throughout the ASEAN region. This year, we will launch the ABPA Book Awards for co-published and translated books in three categories: Academic Books, Children’s Books, and General Books.
The purposes of these awards are to encourage co-publishing and translations among ABPA member-countries; to maximize participation of the member-countries by nominating outstanding books produced by their member-publishers; to expand cooperation among member-publishers of ABPA’s member-countries and overcome illiteracy in the region by producing quality books and other educational materials.
Regional Readership and Literature Surveys
The Committee on Marketing, Distribution, and ASEAN-Wide Readership Committee under Indonesia can play a pivotal role in developing ABPA as a marketing tool for our member-publishers. We urge this Committee to help us become more aware of the reading preferences in the ASEAN member-countries.
We need to have a profile and socio-demographic characteristics of the household heads, their education, literacy, media through which reading is done and other pertinent information.
We need to survey also their access to literature and other reading materials and information sources available to them in the bookstores, in the libraries, and in the schools. We need to know whether they can read and do read, what they read, and what they need in terms of useful information and recreational reading, and their purchasing ability.
There may already have been national studies to characterize the reading public that may be useful to most of us. Let us collate such materials and share useful information for our members’ production and marketing programs.
We should develop a good working knowledge of the available literatures in the region – not only for the trade but also for the various audiences of such literatures: the academe, children, and general readers. Librarians should endeavor to describe at least the best and the best sellers in the region as a guide to various segments of the trade and to the users of information.
This Committee should study ways in which ABPA could help our member-publishers distribute their books through the bookstores and perhaps maintain some warehousing or publishing-on-demand services. These are probably best done as bilateral arrangements between partners.
Promoting Regional Authorship and
Creating Regional Literature
Southeast Asian regionalism began in 1945 with the end of the Second World War. Despite a turbulent post-colonial period marked by revolutions, civil wars, territorial disputes, religious and linguistic diversity, and the spectre of communism, regionalism has been embodied since August 8, 1967 as a political organization with economic aspirations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The ASEAN Declaration signed by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand in Bangkok, pledging their governments to seven “aims and purposes”:
1.Economic growth, social progress and cultural development;
2.Regional peace and stability;
3.Economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative collaboration;
4.Mutual assistance in training and research.
5.Collaboration in agriculture and industry, trade, transportation and communications, and the improvement of living standards;
6.Promotion of Southeast Asian studies; and
7.Cooperation with regional and international organizations.
Thirty-two years since the Bangkok Declaration, ASEAN has embraced all of Southeast Asia, with excellent prospects for the membership of the region’s latest country, Timor-Leste. After 40 years, ASEAN has remained alive, “constantly adjusting to changing times… and has served as the hub and manager of a growing number of broad regional enterprises” (Severino, 2008:3).
It seems strange that in the last four decades, the publishers from the countries of Southeast Asia have failed to develop a body of literature that may be called “Southeast Asiana.” Has regionalism been only confined to politics, economics, and finance – but has not trickled to the peoples in terms of culture and society?
Aside from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), established in 1968 in Singapore, no other regional cultural institution seems to have been born from ASEAN, although some Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) research and training centers continue to exist throughout the region. Still, the ISEAS publication program has steered very closely to the focus of the ASEAN.
ABPA wishes therefore to counteract the statement that Southeast Asian regionalism has not invaded the consciousness of the book industry. It is suggestive that ABPA members need to go into joint or group regional publishing as an excellent opportunity to sell beyond local boundaries.
Conclusion
A regional publishing thrust will nurture a Southeast Asian identity and community that is already palpable in the creative works of talented new writers in and from the region as they interpret post-colonial experiences to themselves and for their reading publics.
Another project which could be proposed because of its inherent attractiveness, colorful diversity, commonality of ancestry of the indigenous peoples of the Asean countries is to come up with a compendium thereof with publishers from ABPA members as the co-publishers.
The book entitled Indigenous People of the Philippines published by REX Book Store , Inc. of which I am the President could serve as a prototype.
Thank you very much.
