There are a number of versions of My Life, Bill Clinton's blockbuster autobiography, circulating in China. The table of contents in a copy sold in one Beijing bookshop is lifted straight from Living History, an autobiography by Clinton's wife. Another has dust jacket photos of Mr Clinton wrapped around a book that appears to be the one written by his wife. It doesn't appear to bother vendors that the rights to the Chinese edition of the book haven't even been sold yet.

Piracy is one of the greatest worries facing foreign publishers and literary agents seeking sales in China. And it will surely be the focus of major discussion at the Beijing International Book Fair, running from September 2 to 6.

The fair is expected to draw several hundred foreign exhibitors, buoyed by figures from the industry periodical Bookseller Daily which show that book imports into China have more than trebled since 1995.

But China still lags its neighbors Japan and Korea in the import rankings, preferring to produce most books domestically. Consequently a lot of the business expected to be conducted in Beijing in September will be in the selling of rights to foreign titles. US publishers top the rights sales league table in China, followed by UK and German agents, according to data issued by Bookseller Daily at last November's Frankfurt Book Fair.

One of the most successful European publishers operating in China, British firm Charlesworth, will provide exhibition space and support services to a number of European and US publishers at the upcoming fair in Beijing. Its success in selling licenses and rights to Chinese publishers pushed Charlesworth to rename itself Charlesworth China and open a permanent office in Beijing. After six years in the Chinese market, the company was ready for expansion, said a spokesperson.

"Initially this was with organizations because our core activity was in academic journals," the spokesperson said. "We dealt with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a range of Universities." Charlesworth today lists publishers, libraries and government agencies among its clients but its core business remains academic journals. "This is a growth area set to continue" the spokesperson added.

English language textbooks have proven to be a dependable source of income, but business and computer books also do brisk trade in the rights selling market among Chinese publishers.

Glossy galore Magazine publishing has attracted a huge amount of foreign attention too. Publishing giants in the sector such as Hearst and Germany's Gruner & Jahr have established complex joint venture arrangements or sold licenses to local companies printing Chinese editions of their magazines.

FHM China earlier this year chose as its first cover girl actress Zhao Wei, featured below a large headline reading “Zhao Wei, Opium of the Youth”. Certainly, Zhao is pretty, but her allure hints at a new addiction in China. Sex, sports and name-brand consumerism are partnering well to create a huge market in glossy, advertisement-laden magazines. Chinese editions of Elle and Cosmopolitan have become common reading matter for young Chinese women, and newsstands in every Chinese city are bedecked with posters for competing glossy titles.

"I often buy several magazines a month after they’re published," says Du Juan, a 22-year-old secretary at a Beijing advertising company. "But I always buy Elle when it comes out. There's so much about fashion and lots of cosmetics advice."Spending on magazine advertising, a major source of revenue for publishers, is rising steadily in China but local figures still lag far behind Japan's, according to figures published in May by the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) a trade body of magazine publishers around the world. Which bodes well for future growth rates.

The projected spend in China for 2004 is US$243 million. Japan in the same period will spend US$3,222 million and India US$1,021 million. Europe's largest economy, Germany, by comparison spends US$4,246 million a year on magazine ads. Industry watchers, according to the FIPP, look to China and India to outperform the Asian average over the coming years, however.

“‘Potential' is the key word" says Colman Ho, a magazine publisher at the Beijing offices of Lam Media, a Hong Kong-registered publishing company. "Foreign titles will keep rushing in because the operation costs are so low."Publishers of men's magazines have identified Asia as the biggest market of the future, banking on the change in lifestyle and habits of local men. China's Esquire, published in China since 1999, currently has a circulation of 326,000. Most of those sales are reported in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou according to Trends, the Chinese company licensed to produce the magazines.

Beijing-headquartered Trends also publishes Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar and Cosmo. The company charged RMB20 for a 226-page July issue of Esquire Style. Interviews with Ethan Hawke and a Chinese film star are juxtaposed alongside travel pages, book reviews and two main features in a recent edition. Dogs, businessmen, luxury fountain pens, Chinese starlets and bulletproof limousines are also given the two-page spread treatment, punctuated by glossy adverts for aftershave, clothes, cars and watches.

"china's size and influence are such that current and aspiring players cannot afford to be absent form the market," says publisher Tom Gorman, who successfully launched the Chinese edition of Fortune magazine in 1996 and now works as a media analyst at CCI Asia Pacific Ltd.

Author of the industry guide-book Guidelines for Publishing In China, Gorman explains that “advertising spending in the magazine category grew by an average of 33 percent annually from 1984 to 2002 and is likely to maintain very high rates of growth for the foreseeable future."

Other complications Local copycat magazines have also entered the market, going after the same readers as those targeted by Esquire and FHM magazine, also produced by Trends. Competing for readers with renowned foreign titles, Mangazine, published by the Nanfang Newspaper Group, an all-Chinese effort at a men's magazine.

With long articles about local rich people, entertainers and sports stars, Mangazine also prints content from foreign publications. Like its foreign-licensed peers, the magazine runs ads for luxury consumer goods, but appears in recent editions to be struggling to draw in the same volume of ads.

Complex licensing systems are the bane of foreign players. Official import and trading agencies like CNPIEC dominate the Chinese market for rights and licenses but several newer foreign and Chinese firms have entered the scene. Magazines published in mainland China must have a sponsor or licensing partner affiliated to a government agency. Foreign publishers must buy out the government-issued serial number of a title going out of business.

Last year's cancellation of compulsory subscriptions has sent many state-owned titles to the wall, freeing up serial numbers for foreign entrants to the market. The most popular way in for a foreign firm to invest in a local company producing similar titles and license the foreign magazine brands to the Chinese company. US publisher Hearst International used this model to team with Beijing publisher Trends Ltd.

"There's few if any foreign magazine publisher making money in China right now," said a German publishing executive with several years' experience in China setting up partnerships with local publishers to print Chinese editions of German magazines. "you can make money from selling licenses. It's less hassle. But some people want more control of their product for the future and opt for a joint venture relationship."Aside from piracy, distribution problems have worried publishers who complain it's tough to get their magazines beyond the metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai. Publishers currently have to rely on China Post as the sole distributor. Readers outside Beijing and Shanghai can be elusive because of distribution problems, according to George Green, president of Hearst Magazines International, which also publishes Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping in China with a local partner. "The big problem isn't sales. It's distribution," Green told a Beijing media briefing during a recent visit to China.

China's WTO commitments mean foreign companies will get their own distribution networks for books, newspapers and magazines by December 2004. Proving there's no holding back the invasion of foreign glossies, the China edition of British gossip bible OK! launched in July this year.

Lad rags and gossip magazines appear to have a long way to go to match China's best selling magazine, Reader however. The bi-monthly mix of stories, health advice and home-keeping tips is the biggest selling title in Asia. Only Reader's Digest, National Geographic and Time out-sell it in world circulation rankings.

Bill Clinton's publisher Alfred Knopf, meanwhile, is reportedly mulling the launch of the real Chinese edition of My Life.

Two formidable obstacles

Licensing

Complex licensing systems are the bane of foreign players. Magazines published in mainland China must have a sponsor or licensing partner affiliated to a government agency. Foreign publishers must buy out the government-issued serial number of a title going out of business.

Last year's cancellation of compulsory subscriptions has sent many state-owned titles to the wall, freeing up serial numbers for foreign entrants to the market. The most popular way in for a foreign firm to invest in a local company producing similar titles and license the foreign magazine brands to the Chinese company. US publisher Hearst International used this model to team with Beijing publisher Trends Ltd.

Distribution

Publishers currently have to rely on China Post as the sole distributor. Readers outside Beijing and Shanghai can therefore be difficult to reach, according to George Green, president of Hearst Magazines International, which also publishes Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping in China with a local partner. "The big problem isn't sales. It's distribution," Green told a recent Beijing media briefing. But China's WTO commitments mean foreign companies will get their own distribution networks for books, newspapers and magazines by December 2004.