From: NJSawicki at aol.com <NJSawicki>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:48:19 EDT

As a former publisher of children's books and someone who began publishing Australian children books in the U.S. in the late 60s, starting with Ivan Southall, the Americanization of Australian books required much soul searching on my part. Unfortunately, the librarians one meets at ALA, as well as teachers who attend IRA, etc., do not dominate the market place when it comes to buying children's books. The thinking is often more sophisticated, and philosophical.

When a U.S. publisher buys the rights from an Australian publisher to publish a book in the U.S., the U.S. publisher will ultimately be judged on his/her ability to "sell books," by the Australian publisher as well as the author. One gains a reputation for being able to sell books well, or not, which determines what is/is not offered to a particular publisher. In many instances, if one believes a book will sell "north, south, east, west, as well as in urban areas and small communities," there is no doubt sales will be helped if the text is Americanized...one sees it in the sales figures. But if a book is for "special readers," meaning smart kids, and the market is in more sophisticated communities, Americanizing a text may not matter because those kids will "get it." I equated, and still do, selling books, with books being read. They ultimately mean the same thing so I have never thought of sales and marketing as a "criminal activity," or something to be ashamed of. For the most part, writers do not discuss how they feel about sales/money publicly, nor should they, but writing is a form of communication and writers want their work to be read; some writers leave one publisher for another because of sales/money. Sometimes there is a trade off, and not one the American publisher necessarily prefers but one that will enable a book to reach a larger audience. Very few writers are able to earn a living writing children's books (and adult books, for that matter), and when a book sells well, everyone is happy, with perhaps the writer being the happiest of all bec ause he/she has much riding on that one book compared to the publisher who has a whole list of newly published books that can generate revenue.

It should also be said that American publishers publish far more books from other countries than the reverse. Very few American books are published in Australia, or in Great Britain. Our books are "too foreign," the reason one is usually given. Now that many publishers are international in scope, the American editions are more easily distributed in English-speaking countries by the American publisher.

Last but not least ... friends in Australia believe Australian children's books can have wide audience in the U.S. because our histories are similar. More Australian children's books are published in the U.S. today because many have been wonderfully successful and publishers who would never have considered a book from Australia are happy to do so now. American publishers now compete for some Australian books. And Harry Potter, while originating in Great Britain, has broken, in a powerful way, the stereotypical rules about
"foreign" books. One wishes the reverse will be true in the not too distant future because an American book that is distributed into a foreign country does not get the attention it would receive if it were properly "published" by a publisher in that country. Sorry to have been so long winded but the intelligence, and concerns shown in many of these discussions does not represent the children's book buying community as a whole which is unfortunate and regrettable; one learns that from sales figures. Norma Jean
Received on Thu 11 Jul 2002 02:48:19 PM CDT