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Penguin Plans Arabic Books Venture
Pearson PLC’s publishing unit Penguin Group is set to sign a joint venture with an Egypt-based publisher on Wednesday to bring its Penguin Classics to Arabic-speaking countries, the latest in a string of deals that has seen Penguin expand its classic-literature brand through non-English versions in markets including Brazil, Korea and China.
A list of titles—which includes famous European novels such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and Miguel de Cervantes’s “Don Quixote,” as well as some local Arabic classics—will start rolling out to bookstores across the Arab world in the first half of 2011.
Penguin and its Cairo-based partner, publisher Dar El Shorouk, will split the proceeds from the sales.
Ibrahim El Moallem, chairman of Dar El Shorouk, says the deal will make many of the classic Western titles, such as Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” easily obtainable in up-to-date Arabic translations for the first time.
“In Egypt, readership is rising, especially among the younger generation,” says Mr. El Moallem, whose publishing house distributes books to all the countries of the Arab world, including those that are known to censor literary materials. Mr. El Moallem said that presenting the Penguin library as a series of the world’s greatest books may help trump the censorship issue.
In addition, while the books will be launched as printed physical copies, planned digital editions will prove difficult to repress.
“If you have the digital edition, I think it will go all over the place,” he says.
For 75 years, Penguin has sold books almost exclusively in the English language. Many other big publishers, such as Lagardere SCA’s Hachette and Bertelsmann AG’s Random House, have operated significant businesses outside the English-language market.
Though Penguin Chief Executive Officer John Makinson says that the decision to expand Penguin Classics into non-English markets is not “the start of a grand foreign-language strategy,” it does give the publisher a foothold in markets including Egypt, Brazil and China, where economic growth and demographic shifts have been driving physical book sales.
“These are important but early-stage products in markets that offer huge opportunities for growth,” Mr. Makinson says. Looking ahead, Penguin will continue to focus on bringing classics to foreign-language markets “with a growth story” outside Western Europe, he adds.
As part of the joint ventures in Egypt, Brazil, Korea and China, Penguin has agreed to integrate local-language books into the series, some of which will then be included in translation in the English-language Penguin Classics collection.
The classics have been or will be launched in physical editions in all four of the new foreign markets; they are available as e-books in Brazil and Korea, and there are plans to roll them out in digital formats in China and the Middle East.
Mr. Makinson says the digital component for classic novels isn’t crucial in these markets yet. “The physical market in these territories is enough for the idea to work, and I believe those physical markets will be sufficient for sometime,” he says.
In Brazil, Penguin started rolling out its Classics in partnership with local publisher Companhia das Letras in August. The eight titles released since then have sold 49,300 copies at cover prices ranging from 15 to 35 reals ($8.66-$20.21). The best seller has been Niccolo Machiavelli’s political treatise “The Prince,” which was released in a new Portuguese translation ahead of Brazil’s election with a forward by former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Luiz Schwarcz, president of Brazil’s Companhia das Letras says that rising levels of education, government support for libraries and economic growth have enlivened the publishing market. “It’s a very good moment for books in Brazil,” he says, noting that bookstores in the country were thriving, just as they shuttered their doors elsewhere in the world. In Brazil, the classics are also published as e-books.
Penguin began selling its Classics in translation in China at the end of 2007 and in Korea in 2008, partnering with local publishing houses. In China, Penguin has released 30 titles, with 10 more slated to debut next spring alongside the Chinese e-books.
In Korea, the company has sold 400,000 copies of its 90 available titles, the most popular of which is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz-Age Stories.” Fifty-six Korean titles are available as e-books.
Classics accounted for about 5% of Penguin’s £1 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales last year, according to Mr. Makinson, who says they carry disproportionate weight as ambassadors of Penguin’s brand.
Revenue from Penguin’s branded classics increased 11% in 2008 and 14% in 2009, according to the company. About a quarter of Penguin Classics sales come from books that are out of copyright and in the public domain.
Paul Sonne
The Wall Street Journal