The non-Italian language books presented to international producers at Industry Books 2011 will concentrate on British authors: the selection is also linked to the Focus on the United Kingdom at this edition of the Rome Film Festival.
This decision will give the second edition of Industry Books a special appeal: the country that gave us Harry Potter has an undisputed supremacy in the field of books and movies.
Just take a look at the 2011 Statistical Yearbook for the British audiovisual industry drawn up by the British Film Institute: of the top 20 most successful films of all time around the world, 13 were based on books published by British authors.
“A great contribution by publishers to the world of cinema”, says Valeria Notari, head of publishing and film/audiovisuals at UK Trade & Investment, the government agency that assists British companies on foreign markets, as well as foreign companies investing in the United Kingdom.
The UK publishing industry is the fifth largest in the world: a market that turns out 120,000 new titles per year, 40% of which are exported (another record).
There are 2360 publishers, of which only 90 have a turnover in excess of 5 million UK pounds, with 1910 reporting sales of below one million. In 2009 the sector employed around 28,000 people.
The Publishers Association represents the big publishing companies (120 members), whilst the smaller publishers belong to the Independent Publishers Guild (550 members).
However, literary agents also play a vital role on the UK rights market and they have their own association with around one hundred members.
Valeria Notari has made a decisive contribution to establishing contact with these associations, getting them involved and interested in participating in the selection process.