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Beatnik Publishing’s Sally Greer. Photo credit Laura Forest

The PANZ Mentorship programme, funded by Copyright Licensing New Zealand, allows for business owners or heads of publishing houses to access a skilled mentor over a period of six months. The most recent pair up to make the most of this scheme are Beatnik’s Sally Greer, mentored by former HarperCollins NZ MD Tony Fisk.

The imprint produces beautifully designed books on an eclectic range of subjects from food to cafe culture, fashion to poetry.

Sally, a designer, photographer and illustrator, began Beatnik Books more than eight years ago, as a development of her design studio. She applied for the mentorship via a mention of the scheme in PANZ News. “I’ve been aware that I jumped into publishing with minimal managerial experience,” she says. “I needed access to a higher level of skill. It was a case of ‘I don’t know what I don’t know.’

“Tony’s input gave me a great lift of confidence in running my business.

“His help was not with any particular books but in general business management, breaking things down into parts and finding out what we can do. As a result, we now have a structure and do a lot more planning and forecasting. We bounce decisions around, but make them on more information and there is more organisation.”

Tony Fisk says he and Sally met in person once a month, or by Skype in one instance. “The process was to do a SWOT analysis on the Beatnik business, and this alone threw up some opportunities. I helped Sally develop goals both personally and professionally, and then we planned to achieve those goals, making improvements and developing action plans,” says Tony, who also volunteers in Whangarei for Business Mentors NZ.

“The whole point of mentoring is that you don’t actually do the process for the business or person you are mentoring. You just guide, and the person being mentored has to make decisions and act on them.”

“Beatnik is producing lovely books,” says Tony. The market agrees and Beatnik has received many awards for its books, including the Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book at the PANZ Book Design Awards 2015 for I am Doodle Cat by Lauren Marriott and Kat Patrick. Lining up for their share of the Christmas market are WHOLE: Recipes for Simple Wholefood Eating by Bronwyn Kan, The Game Chef by Angelo Georgalli, and The Caker by Jordan Rondel.

The raw food phenomenon will be Beatnik’s sure success for next Mother’s Day with Olivia Scott’s The Raw Kitchen bringing over 100 amazing recipes to nourish from breakfast to dinner, entertaining to drinks. In the meantime they will be publishing Golden Month by Jenny Allison in February, an invaluable guide for mothers in the crucial weeks after giving birth. For March we can look forward to Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa / NZ Women’s Comics.

Peter Dowling, PANZ Councillor for International and MD Oratia Media Reports

Reputedly the world’s second largest book fair after Frankfurt, the Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL) takes place from late November in sunny Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city. With a population approximately that of New Zealand, Guadalajara is a busy yet not overwhelming hub, and the fair’s location in the Expo Guadalajara complex is handily located and easy to navigate.

Visitors come to the fair from all over Mexico

This year’s instalment ran from 28 November to 6 December, with times dedicated for professionals on Monday to Wednesday. For the 20,000 or so representatives of almost 2000 publishing houses and agencies, these ‘closed to the public’ times are a welcome breather – nearly 800,000 visitors came to the FIL this year.

Lots of libros (books)

The Expo centre sets out a large international hall for exhibitors, an even larger one for Mexican publishers, and a lovely hall for children with an array of book activities and play areas. For professionals there is a meeting area and the Rights Centre where I was one of 120 publishers, agents, translators and national publishing organisations to take a table.

Talking the talk at the Rights Centre

My four days at the FIL, helped by PANZ’s International Career Development Fund, afforded exchanges with a pantheon of book people from around the globe. Among these there was a strong presence of colleagues from the United Kingdom, this year’s Guest of Honour, well eclipsing the surprising light US presence.

Best of British in Guadalajara

FIL is without doubt the place to understand Latin American book markets. I enjoyed valuable meetings with publishers from the principal markets of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, along with the likes of Chile, Guatemala and (still here despite the country’s deep woes) Venezuela.

Just as UK and US multinationals have long dominated New Zealand’s book world, so the Spanish manage Latin America’s big houses. Planeta, Santillana, SM and Océano rank alongside the non-Hispanic leader, PenguinRandomHouse, in holding most market share. It was heartening to see how local independents, particularly in children’s books, have carved out their points of difference.

At the translation support programme seminar on 30 November

Although the most common response to meeting a publisher from New Zealand was ‘Muy lejos’ (How far away!), the positive view of what we represent and a readiness to explore cooperation were universal. I hope that the well-received seminar I delivered on New Zealand’s Publishing Market, and my participation in a lively presentation of national translation support programmes, help to raise our profile another notch or two.

A mariachi band bringing local sounds to the national hall

Kevin Chapman, Director Upstart Press reports

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend, as a speaker, the Independent Publishing Conference in Melbourne 19 – 21 November. The conference is run by the Small Press Network, an independent group that exists to support small presses in Australia. The event was held at The Wheeler Centre, which is located within beautiful building that is the State Library of Victoria.

The conference was organised into three distinctly themed days.  Day one, Thursday 19 November, was titled “Industry Research Day”. Essentially it was filled with papers and discussion from academics who study the book industry, and I wish that had arranged to arrive for this day. But apparently wishing doesn’t make it so. Friday was the “Trade Day”, and this was what I had been invited for. The topic I was given was the difference between running a multinational company from an independent company. After that Shaun Symonds from Nielsen talked about the trends of 2015 and forecasts for 2016. There was a session on the new legal deposit legislation in Australia, and then the rest of the day was broken down so that you got a choice of sessions to go to.  I attended sessions on diversity, offering services to other publishers, indigenous publishing, and case-studies in international sales. There were sessions on consumer reactions to covers, getting to the major booksellers, special sales and more. All of these sessions were at a slightly higher than basic level. That level was the theme for Saturday, which was “Fundamentals of Publishing” day.

Saturday started with an overview from SPN Chair and Aus publishing wise-man, Michael Webster. He talked about key issues and trends. Then it was back to two streams with essentially training sessions on editing, epub, design, marketing, costing, funding, publicity, POD etc. The best session I attended this day was called Publishing Law`101, by a Brisbane-based agent, Alex Adsett. Her fast but comprehensive explanation of copyright was the best I have ever seen. She went on to talk about things like contracts.

This was a very good conference. Well run, and well attended. I think starting publishers or very small publishers (fewer than 10 titles in print) would get a lot out of it. If NZ publishers wanted to meet Aus publishers it would be a great place to go. Staff from publishers as large as Text and Scribe attend.

Recipient of the W.E and M.L Forde  Scholarship to Yale, Emma Radcliffe, Managing Director, Potton & Burton

The competition was fierce with 14 of New Zealand’s top publishing executives in the running for a coveted place at the Yale Publishing course next July.  The scholarship of NZ$13,000, to cover course costs, flights and accommodation is thanks to the generosity of the late Margaret Forde.

The selection panel had a tough decision to make; made all the more difficult by the sheer calibre of the applicants, and the discussion was challenging and robust.

PANZ is delighted to announce that the candidate who stood out both with her experience and for her application and the recipient of the W.E and M.L Forde Scholarship is Emma Radcliffe, Managing Director of Potton & Burton.  Emma comes from a varied and diverse background in sales and marketing overseas and is responsible for Potton & Burton’s day-to-day operations and the on-going relationship management for distribution partners.  She has been with the company for more than 7 years and works in conjunction with the company’s owners, Craig Potton and Robbie Burton, to develop the strategic direction of the company.

Emma says “I am absolutely delighted to have been chosen as the recipient of the W.E & M.L Forde Publishing Scholarship for 2016. My attendance will really enhance my own career progression, as this kind of training is obviously difficult to find in New Zealand and Yale provides the perfect opportunity to immerse myself in a programme designed to encourage new strategies and ways of thinking about publishing. It will also allow me to benchmark Potton & Burton against other international publishers and enables me to bring their best practices back to New Zealand.”

For more details on the W.E and M.L Forde Publishing Scholarship click here.

PANZ President to attend Yale Course

We are also pleased to announce that joining Emma at the Yale Publishing Course will be PANZ President and Allen & Unwin New Zealand, Director Melanie Laville-Moore who is attending in both her PANZ and Allen & Unwin capacities with a contribution from the CLNZ training fund.

We wish both Emma and Mel well on the course and look forward to reporting back to members about their experiences in due course.

After such an astounding response to the Yale Scholarship we would like to remind PANZ members that the CLNZ funded International Career Development Fund of up to $3000 is also available to publishers to attend international courses, internships, conferences and fellowships such as the Yale Publishing Course, Oxford Brookes International Publishing Summer School or the International Publishing Fellowship, Scotland. Check out our website for more ideas and details.

A call for applications and decision will be made in February but publishers are invited to apply at any time.

From left to right: Whitireia graduates Sarah Yankelowitz, Petra Westropp and Holly Hunter.

The Creative New Zealand National Publishing Internships Initiative, managed by PANZ, provides internship opportunities each year for three new graduates of the Whitireia New Zealand publishing course to enter the industry.

Sarah Yankelowitz will intern with Penguin Random House NZ; Petra Westropp with Gecko Press and Holly Hunter with Victoria University Press.

All interns are paired with their chosen roles and the publishers involved are happy with the placements.

Odessa Owens, who is Acting Programme Leader, Publishing at Whitireia New Zealand, says “These internships reward the very best new graduates with invaluable work experience, after a year of intense practical and theoretical study.

“The calibre of this year’s applications was extremely high, and we’re thrilled with the results,” Odessa says.

Publishers who have participated in the Intern Programme praise the initiative. Julia Marshall at Gecko Press says course graduates are the first place of call when she wants to hire. “They are well trained and have all-round knowledge of the basic skills.”

Petra will be Gecko’s fourth intern, and Julia also praises the ability of course tutors to match interns with publishers. “It is fantastic. Since we started hiring from the course, the interns have been better right from the start.”

Petra, Sarah and Holly will start their internships in February.