The long ordeal of the 33 trapped Chilean miners is finally at an end – and the buzz about book deals and film rights to the men’s dramatic story has already begun.
The miners themselves are reported to have made a pact to collaborate on their own book, but in the UK the first book was signed up on Monday, before the rescue had even begun. Freelance journalist Jonathan Franklin, who has covered the dramatic story for the Guardian from day one, is to pen an account of the saga, provisionally titled 33 Men, for book publisher Transworld.
Franklin, who is an American but has lived in the Chile’s capital Santiago for 15 years, spoke about the book on his mobile phone from Chile, after 48 sleepless hours covering the emotional scenes as the miners emerged.
“This is one of the great rescue stories of all time,” he said, admitting he himself had wept as the first miners were released on Tuesday night. “It’s the reason we all want to be reporters: a remarkable story of the world coming together for a good reason. It taps into human altruism, the desire to work together, perseverance, faith that good things happen, never giving up.” The early chapters of the book, he said, were already written.
As a journalist, Franklin had had “a backstage pass to the whole thing. I was allowed to tape record the psychologist talking to the [trapped] men, I spent last night in the hospital talking to the [newly freed] miners.” He intends his book to reveal the characters of the miners themselves (“You could probably do a book on every one of them”) and reflect their black humour: one of the men played dead, for a joke, during the first 17 days spent in the collapsed mine without food, while another attempted phone sex with the nurse who was attending to him 700m above.
The publication date for the book is still to be confirmed. “It’ll be sooner rather than later, but I don’t want Franklin to compromise the depth and breadth of the story by making it a rush job,” Scott-Kerr said.
Literary agent Annabel Merullo at Peters, Fraser and Dunlop, who is handling the book, said it had also sold to France and Germany, with self publishing film interest from the US.
“It’s happened so quickly,” she said. “When the story broke, we talked about it at the agency and said, ‘Is there a book in it?’ We decided there only was if we could get someone really good to write it. Jonathan’s coverage was so much better than everyone else’s. He has incredible access at the mines and he’s covered the story from day one.”
Is it a book? Is it a film? Is it a game? Or all three? Publishers and authors at the world’s biggest book fair are battling to entice a new generation of readers with the latest multimedia products.
That the electronic book reader has turned the book publishers industry on its head is well known. Younger readers are no longer content to thumb through a printed book. The 21st century iPad generation wants interaction and variety.
But talk of the “ebook” that has dominated the Frankfurt Book Fair in recent years has given way in 2010 to excited chatter about the so-called “enhanced ebook”, a mixture of the traditional book, audio, video and game.
“In five years, books will be more often crossmedia products: with embedded sound, animated pictures, Internet links and … possible a gaming component, like alternative reality games,” said Juliane Schulze, from peacefulfish, a consultancy.
Some of the book world’s most celebrated names are already embracing the new format.
Ken Follett, one of the industry’s hottest authors, is expected to present a “multimedia-enhanced” version of his bestseller “The Pillars of the Earth” at this year’s fair.
At the touch of a screen, iPad readers of the “book” can see excerpts from the TV series based on the book, watch interviews with the author and actors and track interactions between characters on an “interactive character tree.”
This year’s fair has a special section devoted to digital, which Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German book publishers and booksellers association, said could soon account for 10 percent of the market, from one percent today.
Qbend, a firm that helps publishers develop their digital offering, expects 42 percent annual growth for the ebook market between 2010 and 2012.
The enhanced ebook is mainly sold in the United States and Britain at the moment, but it is about to go global, said Andrew Weinstein, vice-president of US book wholesaler and distributor Ingram.
“While ebooks have not finished growing in the United States, they are set to explode in the global marketplace,” he said.
Cornelia Funke, one of Germany’s best-known authors of books for children, put it this way: “It all starts with a book. The love of reading starts, probably around the age of three, when you first pick up that favourite book.”
“In ten years time, that book may well be a screen.”
But the counter-revolution is already starting, with advocates of the traditional format saying that people like to have bound books as a keepsake, in the same way they print out and frame favourite photos from their cameras.
“Take the digital watch,” said Gordon Cheers, an Australian book publishers who presented what he said was the world’s biggest book at the fair — as far from a mobile multimedia offering as could be.
“In the 1980s, everyone said the digital watch would be the end of the traditional watchmaker. Sure, some did go out of business but then analogue watches came back and everyone these days wears one.
“The same will happen with the book. Leave it five or 10 years and books are bound to come back into fashion.”
Funke said: “I speak to loads of 16-year-olds who say they only read things on their electronic readers.”
“But then they tell me that, for the ones they really love, they go out and buy the book.”
Rumours of the death of the book have perhaps been greatly exaggerated.
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 10/1/2008
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Canadian Library Month~ Canada
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read~ ongoing until Oct 4, USA
International Children’s and Youth Literature Festival~ ongoing until Oct 4, Berlin, Germany
3rd Annual CYBIL (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) Nominations Open~ Oct 1 - 15
National Young Writers’ Festival~ Oct 2-6, Newcastle, Australia
Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 3, Boston, MA, USA
21st Yukon International Storytelling Festival~ Oct 3-5, Whitehorse, YK, Canada
2008 Ceremony of Best Books~ Oct 4, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Américas Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Winners Ceremony~ Oct 4, Washington, D.C., USA
Orange County Children’s Book Festival~ Oct 5, Costa Mesa, CA, USA
Children’s Book Week~ Oct 6-12, United Kingdom
13th Annual New England Conference on Multicultural Education~ Oct 8, Hartford, CT, USA
School Library Journal Webcast: Capturing Struggling Readers and Reluctant Readers~ Oct 8
Book It! Cheltenham’s Children’s Literature Festival~ Oct 10-19, Cheltenham, United Kingdom
18th Monterrey International Book Fair~ Oct 11-19, Monterrey, Mexico
YALSA’s Teen Read Week: Books With Bite @ Your Library~ Oct 12-18, USA
“Multicultural Bites” with authors Mitali Perkins, Coe Booth and An Na (part of ReaderGirlz’s celebration of Teen Read Week)~ Oct 13
Ubud Writers and Readers Festival~ Oct 14-19, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Frankfurt Book Fair~ Oct 15-19, Frankfurt, Germany
55th Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 17, New York, NY, USA
IBBY Ireland Conference: Green Gables to Globalization: Crossover, Canada and Children’s Books~ Oct 18, Dublin, Ireland
SCBWI Tokyo Writers’ Day~ Oct 18, Tokyo, Japan
Children’s Literature Council Fall Gala~ Oct 18, Santa Ana, CA, USA
Vancouver International Writers Festival~ Oct 21-26, Vancouver, BC, Canada
The Big Picture Party: Celebrate the Power of Picture Books~ Oct 27, London, United Kingdom
Book Week~ Oct 27-Nov 9, Japan
Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 30, San Marcos, TX, USA
28th Santiago International Book Fair~ Oct 31-Nov 16, Santiago, Chile
STATUS: I need a good neck stretch or back massage. But TGIF!
What’s playing on the iPod right now? WHAT’D I SAY by Ray Charles
I spent the day working on getting my foreign rights co-agent ready for Frankfurt (which is just a few weeks away).
So what have we been doing? Well, first we establish the list of the clients/titles that will be shopped there. Basically we just make sure that any project we hold World rights for is on the list. We also make a list of projects that the publisher holds World for. We’ll certainly field interest for those clients so we make sure we have the Publishing House’s contact person so we can share with interested parties at Frankfurt.
But the rest of getting ready is making sure that our co-agent has all current info in hand.
On the checklist:
1. Final cover and final flap or back cover copy of any featured title.
2. Final manuscript—in page proof PDF if we have it yet but most often it’s the Word document—final sans copy edits.
3. All reviews, praise, and latest news for any client title. This is the most time consuming. Sara has been putting that together all week but there were literally events happening as of this week—like a film deal I just concluded for one of my YA authors.
I needed to make sure that info had been disseminated.
4. Confirmed release dates for all upcoming titles.
5. Made a list of foreign rights already sold for each title.
6. Made sure the marketing plans for all titles had been forwarded on as well.
There’s probably something more that I’m forgetting but that pretty much sums it up.
Frankfurt here we come.
The August issue of the Frankfurt Book Fair Newsletter includes an interview with Overlook Publisher Peter Mayer. Peter speaks about his time as CEO at Penguin International in the 1980s and 1990s, and offers his views on how the Frankfurt Book Fair has evolved over the years. Now in its 60th year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will be held October 15-19, 2008.
like the Hammering Man, a large kinetic sculpture created by Jonathan Borofsky that stands at the foot of the Messeturm. The black sculpture, which seems to be hammering at a constant pace, symbolizes the working man. It is made of steel and stands 21.5 meter (71 ft) tall. The Hammering Man was erected here in 1991 at the occasion of the completion of the Messeturm. The sculpture is part of a series; other Hammering Man sculptures can be found in cities such as Seattle, New York and Seoul.
Inside the fair jumbo-sized items were also evident if it was the Darth Vader made out of Legos at the DK booth,or the largest book of all time, At the Millennium House booth one could view the world’s largest book, the platinum edition of Earth. Opened it measures 6 by 9 feet. It showcases the craftsmanship of more than 100 international cartographers, geographers, and photographers. Only 31 copies will be produced, so one should place one’s order quickly. The retail? Only $100,000…
Frankfurt is a great place to...change planes. But I did like being in the millieu of the Book Fair for the years I was there. If you have the energy for going around town in the evening, Sachsenhausen is fun.
Yes Heidelberg is neat. Two of my daughters were born there. They have a fireworks display monthly in the summer called the burning of they castle or they used to. Basing a visit to Germany on seeing Frankfurt is like standing in the middle of a forest and saying you saw the forest. You did but not really...Hope you made some friends and contacts out of it all.
I love the beer.
I'm glad you got out and about. My birth certificate says Heidelberg, though I was actually born on the Autobahn. As both an Army brat and spouse, I have spent more than a few years of my life in Germany, so perhaps I am biased when I say there are plenty of charming and romantic places there. On the other hand, I would not put downtown Frankfurt on that list, either.
Frankfurt - I went there on a business trip, alone, about 15 years ago. I hated every minute of it. Worse city I ever visited in my life.
I've only been to Frankfurt twice and I didn't find the city particularly ugly. (Perhaps because I had a great time there, meeting some old friends and making new ones?) It's a perfectly ordinary city where people go about their ordinary lives. It certainly isn't picturesque in that tourist-attracting way some other cities have, but "picturesque" can be a real hassle if all you want is go about your daily business. Try going to Uni in Heidelberg and you'll know what I mean. (Must have been great in the 19th century...) Or live and work in Heidelberg near the city centre where from spring till autumn, there's one street festival after the other and more tourists than residents. Some days, it's just insane. If I ever had to choose between living in Heidelberg and living in Frankfurt, I'd choose the latter.