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OzCo announces eight delegates for New York Publishers Program

Eight Australian publishers, rights managers and literary agents will travel to New York City from 4 to 8 June this year as part of the Australia Council’s New York Publishers Program 2018.

The eight successful applicants selected for the program are: literary agent Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Publishing Services; Allen & Unwin publisher Annette Barlow; Fremantle Press CEO Jane Fraser; Giramondo commissioning editor Nick Tapper; Pantera Press rights manager Katy McEwen; literary agent Gaby Naher of The Naher Agency; Hardie Grant Egmont publisher Marisa Pintado; and Text Publishing rights and export coordinator Khadija Caffoor.

The delegates will participate in a five-day program of industry meetings, marketing briefings and networking opportunities.

Wenona Byrne, director of literature at the Australia Council, told Books+Publishing the program is designed to help Australian publishers and agents broaden their networks and gain knowledge of the North American market, with the ultimate aim of increasing North American rights sales for Australian authors. ‘The specific program of activities has been designed with the needs of the individual participants in mind, to help them navigate and access the world’s largest book market,’ said Byrne.

As part of the program, the delegation will visit major publishing houses including Flatiron Books, where the group will meet with executive vice president Amy Einhorn. Byrne added, ‘the group will be attending one-on-one meetings with publishers and editors based at the offices of Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Melville House and Europa Editions, with more meetings still being finalised.’

Pintado described the program as a ‘fabulous opportunity to connect face-to-face with US agents and publishers’. Hardie Grant Egmont has already successfully sold rights into the US for a number of titles, and Pintado said this opportunity ‘will ensure that we can continue to create a publishing program that centres the Australian reader but is relevant to the US market. This is increasingly critical in sustaining our book business, and an important part of being able to support Australian authors and especially new voices.’

For Fraser, the North American book market offers great opportunities despite being difficult to penetrate for small independent publishers such as Fremantle Press. ‘Our budget just doesn’t stretch to travelling overseas for trade fairs at the moment so we rely on the representation by our agents in Europe and Asia … I’m really keen to seek out North American-based agents to work with in the same way,’ said Fraser.

Adsett said she will use the opportunities from the program to ‘continue establishing myself as an agent on US publishers’ radar’, as well as to visit Book Expo America and the inaugural New York Rights Fair. ‘I’m very much looking to the US as a key market for my authors,’ said Adsett. ‘Although I represent a broad range of titles across all ages and genres, a core part of my list is crime, speculative fiction, and romance, and the biggest market for these is the US.’

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the Australia Council announced the inaugural New York Publishers Program in late 2017.

 

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions