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HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!
Press Release February 6, 2008
CHINA AND THE COOKBOOK TRADE
It is astonishing to realize the facts of Chinas extraordinary development in the cookbook trade.
One objective measure is the percentage of the Chinese in the entry forms that are downloaded from the website of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. There will be 8000 in 2008. In the past 19 weeks, the breakdown by languages shows 15% in Chinese, 36% in English, 18% in French, 17% in German and 14% in Spanish. This also hows the Chinese presence on the international internet.
Eighty different Chinese publishers have participated in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in the past three years. The market leader is China Light Industry Press, CHLIP, with over 15% market share. CHLIP is most active Chinese publisher in cookbook foreign rights. CHLIP president and his team are visiting the London Book Fair April 14-16. Other top cookbook publishers are Qing Dao Publishers and Textile Press.
One unusual publisher focuses on food and health: the powerful Peoples Military Medical Press-PMMP publishes 20 to 25 food and wine books every year among its enormous production of 800 new titles, from its big building in Beijing. Chinas Foreign Language Press has most interesting series of cookbooks, and publishes in 8 languages, which is ideal for foreign rights.
The cookbook trade in China is helped by television. There are food shows on many channels. The quality of the China Food Network is one of the best in the world, with experience now going back for 8 years for its star show. The China Food Network operates from Qing Dao, the sailing Olympic City of 2008, in Shandong. It has over 100 staff at headquarters, and 40 offices around China.
Statistics for cookbooks are difficult to compile, as China and most countries do not separate them from other non fiction such as gardening. However, according to listings that Gourmand has studied in China, it seems that China could now be the number one publisher of cookbooks in the world, ahead of the United States in spite of the many charity cookbooks published in North America, often with no ISBN. From lists compiled yearly by Zhang Ren Qing, the president of Food Cultural Books of China, the quantity of editions of cookbook titles published grows by over 30% every year for the past 10 years, including new books and reprints.
Cookbooks have extensive space in the bookstores in China, which are today the best retail system for books in the world. Foreign authors and publishers are always surprised by the readers in Chinese bookstores, who turn bookstores into libraries, and the incredible activity in bookstores. The new Beijing International Book City is probably the best and largest book trade showroom in the world, of Olympic proportions. Even at the local Post Office, you will find that cookbooks take over one quarter of the books exhibited, as many post office also sell books and magazines.
Gourmand had its first awards event in Beijing in April 2007. In 2008, it has its annual Best in the World event in the next Olympic City, in London. In 2009, China is the invited guest at the Frankfurt Book Fair = you will see more and more Chinese cookbooks in the foreign rights trade.
Edouard Cointreau, President
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
www.cookbookfair.com
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