Frankfurt Book Fair Translation Rights
1998 saw enhanced translation rights activity at World Scientific with the introduction of a customized database for capturing details of foreign language publishers and monitoring translation projects. The result was the company’s highest sales figure for foreign rights in this decade.
We also managed to promote translation rights activity at the Frankfurt Book Fair. World Scientific attended the fair together with Imperial College Press. Frankfurt provides a good opportunity for making new contacts in the industry, and for expanding our reach and visibility in the international rights market and electronic publishing arena. Well over a quarter of a million visitors attended the fair to meet the 7000 exhibiting publishers.
Our busy schedule included meetings with our key contacts such as agents Bestun (Korea) and Tuttle-Mori (Japan), as well as international publishers such as Baifukan, Editura Technica, Igaku-Shoin, Masson Editeur and Spektrum Akademisher Verlag. The display of books and brochures at the World Scientific/ICP booth resulted in numerous requests for reading copies and regular catalogue mailings.
American Physical Society Centennial Meeting
As this year is the 100th anniversary of the American Physical Society, their annual meeting, held from 22 to 24 March, was bigger and busier than in previous years. The 1999 American Physical Society Centennial Meeting was attended by our representatives Dr Wei Chen and Stanley Liu (Editorial, US) and Calandra Braswell (Sales,US). As anticipated, our booth attracted a lot of visitors who were very interested in many of our titles. We also featured our newly released CD-Rom for Nobel Lectures in Physics. The meeting was a great opportunity to meet up with our authors as well as to showcase our new books and journals in physics.
Joint Mathematics Meeting
The Joint Mathematics Meeting was attended by our representatives Dr Sen Hu (Editorial, US) Dr Sunil Nair (Editorial, UK) and Calandra Braswell (Sales, US). The meeting was held on 13–16 January this year at San Antonio, Texas, and attracted about 3600 participants. We featured 84 World Scientific and Imperial College Press titles, and distributed complimentary journals, leaflets and catalogues. It was a fufilling event, as not only did we manage to establish new contacts while strengthening old ties, we also succeeded in selling a large stock of our titles.
Annual Meeting of Allied Social Science Association (ASSA)
The ASSA Annual Meeting was held on 3–5 January this year in New York. World Scientific’s Zhai Yubing (Editorial, US) and Kisha Thomas (Sales, US) mingled with the other 5000-odd participants, including representatives from big-league publishers such as Prentice Hall and Finance and Business were displayed at our booth.
rig-Gen George Yeo, Singapore‘s Minister for Information and the Arts, and Second Minister for Trade and Industry, said in a recent speech on electronic commerce that e-commerce would “sweep the world like a tidal wave” and could be either a major threat or a huge opportunity.
