The seventh edition of the Shanghai Visiting International Publishers Programme concluded last 16 November after six days of intensive activities that brought together an incredible lineup of eleven participants. This year’s “fellows” flocked to Shanghai from every corner of the world, including Australia, Denmark, France, India, Iran, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Ukraine and the USA.
SHVIP offers a tailor-made agenda that brings to its participants a unique overview of the Shanghai publishing scene, through visits to its most representative publishing houses and bookstores. Over the years, SHVIP has become a highlight of the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair. Up to date it is more than 60 fellows—all of them publishers, editor and other publishing professionals— that have taken part in SHVIP, shaping a solid network of international business partners and friends, radiating from Shanghai to the world.
Traditionally, the SHVIP programme starts on the Tuesday preceding the opening of CCBF, with an in-depth visit to Shanghai’s oldest and most specialised children’s publisher—Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House—, which is part of the Shanghai Century Publishing Group. The size of the company justifies a three-hour long meeting where the foreign fellows get their first glimpse of first-hand information on the Chinese publishing market and see Chinese original books for the first time.
All in all, the fellows visited five publishing companies (including Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House, China Welfare Institute Publishing Hosue, Guangxi Normal University Press, Shanghai 99 Readers’ Culture and Hsin-Yi), as well as two bookstores (Shanghai Book City and ZZCTESTAR) in just two days and a half. They also attended the Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature award-giving ceremony held at the Shanghai Baoshan International Folk Art Expo Centre.
ZZCTESTAR
Shanghai Book City
China Welfare Institute Publishing Hosue
Guangxi Normal University Press
Hsin-Yi
99 Readers’ Culture
Another landmark in the SHVIP progamme is the increasingly popular SHVIP Book Pitch Party where the 11 fellows get a chance to interact with publishers from all over the country. Held for a second time at the emblematic Light Space—Xinhua Bookstore. Over an hour and a half, each of the 24 publishers invited to speak presented a single title of their collection in front of an audience of 130 local and international professionals. This event is very likely to result in effective copyright deals for both Chinese and international publishers, and we hope to be able to tell you more about them in the future.
After three days of exclusive activities, the SHVIP fellows merged with the rest of international official guests attending the last edition of CCBF. Once again, the SHVIP fellowship stood out for the diversity of profiles of its members—seasoned publishers experienced in both running large firms and independent companies, younger assets already confirmed as trailblazers of the publishing industry, a literary agent, a digital specialist, all of them representing the finest companies in their respective countries. Quality and diversity are also manifest in the books they were invited to display at the Copyright Great Wall as part of the exhibition “Around the World in 50 Titles”.
More importantly, the SHVIP fellows greatly contributed to the CCBF Official Programme of events. If you attended some of our most important sessions, you might remember the following moments:
Thile Dop speaks about children’s fiction in Europe (“Growing up with Words” seminar)
Cecilia de la Campa speaks about audiovisual rights (“Multi-connected Business around Children's IP” seminar)
Aksel Køie speaks about digitalising picture (“Connected Publishing Today” seminar)
Illustration-oriented publishers sharing their comments with young local illustrators at the Illustrators Survival Corner portfolio review sessions.
This year also, some fellows were happy to join some seminars organised by CCBF’s distinguished exhibitors. Shanghai Education Publishing House showed great initiative in this regard and held a successful event about original creation and how to start a picture book collection, where Mexican fellow Monica Bergna shared her experience as an independent publisher in her country.
The SHVIP fellowship will come back again next year with a brand new group of top-notch publishers curious to discover the great potential of the Chinese publishing market and the best titles it’s got to offer. But before that, we can be sure that the 2019 SHVIP fellows have already become extraordinary friends and they will be eager to meet again in Bologna and other book fairs around the world to remember the great memories and opportunities that Shanghai and CCBF offered them
If you wish to contact some of the fellows please write to: judy.zhang@bfchina.net.
