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Foreign literature in ... Japan

       At Publishing Perspectives Robin Birtle thinks he can explain Why Foreign Bestsellers Often Fail in Japan.
       Among the reasons:
The Japanese equivalents of mass market paperbacks, bunko, are not arranged by author name, but instead are grouped by publisher. This peculiar arrangement is in place to ease the process of book returns to the distributor and certainly does not benefit Japanese consumers who, just like book civilians worldwide, think author name and not publisher when looking for a specific book.
       Actually, this arrangement isn't nearly that unusual -- even in the US one can find certain series/publishers grouped together in some bookstores (the Loeb classical library volumes, Penguin Classics, etc.) and in many European countries it's a widespread practice. In places where publishers actually still serve as gatekeepers I find it very useful, since I know what kind of publishers publish what kinds of books, and can zero in on their offerings, rather than browse alphabetically-by-author (which is useful if you know what author you're looking for, otherwise ... not so much).
       Still, it's interesting to learn that:
Each publishing market has an effective limit on the number of foreign-language books translated and sold in print domestically. In Japan, the figure is around 8% of annual book sales

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