To sell books to China, foreign publishers may have to play by its rules

China has a huge publishing industry, with over 367,000 titles published in 2011 — making it a large and lucrative market for foreign publishers who want to sell book rights there. But they may face unique challenges, including an ebook market very different from the one in the West.

“Times are hard,” Diane Spivey, rights and contracts director at Hachette’s Little, Brown in the UK, acknowledged in her introduction at Tuesday afternoon’s 26th annual International Rights Directors Meeting at the Frankfurt Book Fair.