Saturday 9 May 2015

A Surprise from China


A surprise package arrived in the post today. A Chinese edition of The Backpacker's Handbook. I had heard last year that such a version existed and I did ask the publishers about it but heard nothing until today. It's a big book, some hundred pages longer than the English version. I can't read it of course but it does look good!

As far as I know this is the first time any of my books have been translated into another language. I must admit I never thought the first one would be Chinese. I presume the gentleman pictured on the flyleaf must be the translator. To him, many thanks. I find it quite startling and flattering that my book is available in Chinese in China.


In a note in English it says that this edition is jointly published by McGraw-Hill Education (Asia) and Post and Telecommunications Press. A Google search reveals that the latter is a big Chinese publisher founded in 1953. The note also says that this edition is only authorized for sale in the People's Republic of China, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.



5 comments:

  1. It's potentially a very big readership, Chris. Will you be going for the Lamborghini, or the more understated Aston Martin?

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  2. Is this authorized by your publishers? Do you get any royalties from it or is this another example of copyright infringment, a knockoff?

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  3. It is authorized. McGraw-Hill are my publishers. If it sells enough I might get some royalties - I have no idea of the price! I also have no idea how many backpackers there are in China.

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  4. :-). I'm not banking on making anything! I'm just hope there are lots of backpackers in China.

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  5. Well, even if backpacking is relatively small in percentage (of the population) terms, it could still be sizeable numbers. Fingers crossed, eh?

    China is a bit of a mystery to me, in terms of internal freedom of movement, but the potential for exploring landscape on foot must be enormous, if it's allowed.

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