Malaysian market a key focus at Singaporean publishing event

Readng material: Locally-written English-language fiction doesn’t fare as well as imported books. If homegrown publishers and writers are to survive, we need to build a healthy Malaysian and regional market. — File photos

A publishing symposium in Singapore examined the opportunities and challenges of the Malaysian book industry.

Raman Krishnan: "Don't sell books, sell personalities, sell your writers."

Linda Tan Lingard: "Malaysian publishers are seeking to expand their market overseas."

MPH Publishing’s senior consulting editor (print) and senior business development manager (e-publishing) Oon Yeoh.

Scholastic Asia director Selina Lee was a panellist at the Publishing Symposium themed ‘Malaysia Market Focus’ during the Singapore Writers Festival 2014.

Kumpulan Media Karangkraf CEO Syamil Fahim was also one of the panellists at the Publishing Symposium.

Ask most people involved in the Malaysian book publishing industry – the English-language one, at least – and you are likely to get frustrated sighs in return. It is a widely-acknowledged fact that winning over readers, particularly to locally-published books, is a difficult, if not downright thankless, job.

Which is why it was rather surprising that the recently-held Singapore Writers Festival 2014 chose Malaysia as one of the countries of focus for its publishing symposium, aimed at providing Singaporean writers and publishers insight on breaking into the Malaysian market (the other country highlighted was, quite understandably, China).

Singapore’s National Arts Council’s senior director for literary arts development, Khor Kok Wah, however, thinks Malaysia is a natural fit for Singaporean writers looking to expand their reach.

“The aim of the symposium is to try and get our writers better known outside of the country, and Malaysia has a huge market. We also have a shared history as well as the language affiliation. And besides, we are all curious about our neighbours and how we’ve grown in different ways,” he explained.

With a diverse line-up of speakers, there was no lack of information made available to those who attended the symposium.

What became abundantly clear during the event was that the Malay-language publishing scene in Malaysia is not just thriving, but expanding into new territories – the average local Malay trade book sells about 20,000 copies here, versus a local English title which sells about 3,000. Of these Malay-language books, genre fiction titles (romance, horror) tend to be most popular, followed by books on Islam, shared Arief Hakim, co-founder and managing director of Malaysian publishing company PTS Media Group.

Syamil Fahim, CEO of Malaysian company Kumpulan Media Karangkraf that has a strong Malay book publishing arm, talked about the increasing popularity of their e-book platform, their foray into self-publishing services, as well as the launch of an online writing community portal that allows the company to source directly for potential works.

The picture painted for local English publishing, however, was not as rosy. Linda Tan Lingard, director of the locally-based Yusof Gajah Lingard Literary Agency, pointed out that the English language publishing market in Malaysia is only the third largest, with both Malay and Chinese language books’ sales far surpassing sales of books in English. “Locally-published books in English face fierce competition from imported titles,” she explained.

According to MPH Publishing’s senior consulting editor (print) and senior business development manager (e-publishing) Oon Yeoh, local long-form fiction in English doesn’t do very well. “Non-fiction books, such as ‘how-to’ books and cookbooks, tend to do better than fiction, though short story collections sometimes do well.”

He added that the price point for locally-published books needs to be lower as well. “Imported titles sell even when they are priced well over RM50, for instance. With local books, however, the buying public is not prepared to spend more than RM50.”

Scholastic Asia director Selina Lee pointed out that Malaysia is one of the few markets in the region where book distributors sacrificed some of their profit to meet market demands.

Kuala Lumpur-based Silverfish Books founder and managing director Raman Krishnan was more direct. “Anglo/American books are sucking the air out of the Malaysian and Singaporean publishing industries,” he said. “In Malaysia, the distributor decides what books the public reads, which in turn is decided by media reports from the West. So the real question is, how do we survive in this atmosphere?”

Building a healthy local and regional market is, in Raman’s opinion, the only way for homegrown publishers and writers to survive. “We have 600 million people reading in the South-East Asian region, and yet the intra-Asean publishing trade is almost zero. Look at Malaysia and Singapore: we have been independent for half a century, where are the Malaysian and Singaporean stores?”

Singaporeans at the symposium, however, did not seem deterred; many, in fact, seemed to have very specific aims when it comes to the Malaysian market.

Cheryl Robson of Aurora Metro Books, which operates in Britain, Australia and Singapore, shared that she was at the symposium looking for Asian authors to publish. She sees South-East Asia as a growing market, despite difficulties such as exchange rates and channels of distribution. “I find that the advent of e-books has opened up many new options. Once we look at digital distribution in South-East Asia, price, cost of shipping and so on is no longer as big a problem,” she said.

Aspiring Singaporean author Lim Wan Phing was keen on publishing her novel in Malaysia because its subject was “very Malaysian. The challenge is, of course, having the right contacts, which is what I’m hoping to establish at this event,” she said.

Savinder Kaur of Singaporean publisher Red Wheelbarrow Books, meanwhile, said she finds the English literary scene in Malaysia to be “very vibrant”, and is happy to have more knowledge on tapping into it. The key, she feels, is to target the niche markets.

“The truth is, very few countries around the world have a large mass reading market. Having been involved with some Malaysian poetry and literary events, however, I feel there are strong niche markets. So we are not so interested in the mass Malaysian market but, rather, those niche audiences that have already shown so much interest.”

To people like them, the speakers did offer much insight, as well as some cautious hope.

Lingard said while the Malaysian book industry faced challenges, it was growing, with active local publishers.

“As the demand for more books of a greater variety increases, Malaysian publishers are looking to buy foreign titles, especially as they are seeking to expand their market overseas,” she added.

Raman pointed out that authors who were already popular in their home countries fared better across the Causeway, citing Malaysian cartoonist Lat and Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at as examples. A good strategy, he said, was to sell the writers.

“Don’t sell books, sell personalities. Sell your writers.”