Building Your Global Publishing Business: Keith Yatsuhashi of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Global Publishing Team on how publishers can successfully tap international revenue streams in book sales, translation and rights.

Then we connect with our specialist overseas. … We have a specialist in almost all of the embassies and consulates around the world, and we have a team [of] about 40 strong right now, of specialists who focus on the publishing industry. The value we bring to publishers when they're in that exploratory phase is helping them determine which markets make the most sense for them and how publishing is structured in a certain market. So we rely heavily on the expertise of our specialists in a country, who know what's going to do well in a market. It requires a qualitative response; you really need someone in the market to be able to speak to that.

Extra: Can you highlight some of the market research and best practices you will share with attendees at the conference session?
Yatsuhashi: We have about 40 market-research reports that we've come out with in the last two years in what we call our Publishing Market Resource Guide, a booklet that compiles all of our market-research reports for publishers. ... All the market research is specifically focused on the U.S. publisher and how U.S. content does in that [particular] market. It also details some of the challenges [of] exporting … and things that the publisher needs to know, like in this market the English language is not widely spoken and the title needs to be translated, and also who some of the big players are. Some of the market research is a little bit broad, but it's a first step for a lot of publishers … . We also offer customized market studies based upon the needs of U.S. companies.

Extra: How has the focus of the Global Publishing Team shifted since the U.S. and global economies have faltered?
Yatsuhashi: With the [high] cost of trade shows, and also last year the U.S. dollar was so weak against the euro, many companies were saying it was too expensive to go to [international trade] shows. And we've found that the trade shows are huge for this industry, and if a company can't get to these international shows or even the domestic ones, we're trying to fill that niche with programs like catalog shows.