Wednesday 3 December 2008

Every Book a Gamble: Ten Years of GBO

The Frankfurt Book Fair points out that its German Book Office is celebrating its tenth birthday. Hooray for subsidised translation promotion programmes!

Read all about it here; the most interesting soundbite from my point of view is from Grove Atlantic's Morgan Entrekin, with a titbit of sales information thrown in. I've highlighted my favourite part:

'We have had good success with Night Train to Lisbon and How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone and anticipate success with the Charlotte Roche book Wetlands when we publish it next year', says publisher Morgan Entrekin of Grove Atlantic. The publishing company is expecting net sales in hardcover of around 12,000 copies of Pascal Mercier’s book by the end of this year, and 20,000 of the paperback edition.

Other German authors whose books actually sell well include W.G. Sebald, Bernhard Schlink, Cornelia Funke, Frank Schätzing, Daniel Kehlman, Goetz Ali, and the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin.

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