difficulties in publishing plays

[Louise . Forsyth]

Dear colleague,

 

The cost of publishing plays in China is shocking!! Are there similar costs
in staging foreign plays? Am I not right in thinking that the cost of
obtaining an ISBN number in North America is minimal? 

 

Louise Forsyth

 

  _____  

From: Canadian Theatre Reserach [mailto:CANDRAMA at LISTSERV.UNB.CA] On Behalf
Of ??
Sent: January 14, 2008 18:19
To: CANDRAMA at LISTSERV.UNB.CA
Subject: difficulties in publishing plays

 

 

 

Yes, it's quite important to publish plays. I think this is also true in
China. But perhaps you don't know how difficult to publish a play in China.
The most difficult part is the cost barrier.As you know, every book must
have an ISBN,right? But publishers will usually charge the author about 2000
US$ for that number (it's not cheap in China). Together with some other
charges like 'editing fee(700 us$)', printing fee(starting from mim of 2000
copies in general so of 2700-3000 us$), the total publishing fee for a play
of 200,000 words will reach up to 5400-6000 us$). Probably the publisher
will say 'This kind of stuff will not sell well in the market and so you
will almost publish yourself--, that is, you pay all the fee. I feel sad
about this. 

 

You may ask "Why could not you get support from the government? from the
university?

Well, that seems to be a good idea. But not in China. If you know how many
routines you have to go through and how many people you have to beg for a
drop of water, you will mostly just give up trying!

 

And I am not adding royalties here.!!

 

How much does it cost to publish a play in Canada?

 

If I can solve this problem, I will be more willing to translate and
introduce Canadian plays to China....

 

 

 

Dachuan Lu

School of Foreign Languages

Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

100083, Beijing

dclu at yeah.net

 

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