Coming soon: eat, drink, talk business - the MGIP Frankfurt Dinner
5 questions to... Jean-Babtiste Bourrat
1. At this year’s summer meeting you presented a project, on which you worked together with Chris Hudson – THE EXCHANGE OF KNOWLEDGE BETWEEN MGIP MEMBERS. For all members that weren't able to attend the meeting: What is the project about?
MGIP is a place for exchanges of knowledge in the editorial area. At the summer meeting or during the book fairs we have contact with publishers or rights sellers, but it’s very rare to be in contact with other areas such as marketing, commercial, design, or publicity.
I think MGIP could be also a place for other exchanges of knowledge with other publishing departments. For a couple of days, a member invites a director of a department from another member’s publishing house in his/her company, to participate in an exchange about its best practices and knowledge.
2. Who could benefit from this exchange?
This program could be based on the goodwill of the members who want to invite other members. There is no obligation, for we understand that some members don’t want or haven’t got any time for such exchanges.
3. How can this exchange be financed? What are the costs for each member?
The costs (hotel and travel) are paid by the guest. The program is free of charge for the publishing house that hosts the guest. It is not necessary to organize an invitation in return.
4. From your point of view, what parts of the publishing business would be the most suitable for an exchange of knowledge? And what parts are not suitable?
In my point of view this program is suitable for marketing directors, commercial directors (sales department), design (art directors), and publicity (press and media).
5. As it is your idea, will you offer an exchange to someone at your publishing house LES ARÈNES?
Yes, as an example les Arènes could invite a foreign Marketing or Commercial Director and an Art Director :
1) Invitation for a Marketing or Commercial Director
Two days sales conferences with our representatives and our Commercial Director + one day sharing experiences with our Marketing Director and our Sales Director. For this exchange it’s better to have some facility in the French language (sales conferences will be held in French).
2) Invitation for an Art Director
Two days with our Art Director in order to see different types of layouts and what sort of books we do. We will speak about covers, illustrated books, new trends… We could also organize a meeting with our production department. In this case, English speaking is feasible.
Martin Levin, former Motovun member, and father of member Hugh Levin, died 25th of July 2016, aged 97. Martin was a legendary publisher, turned lawyer, turned mergers and acquisitions guru, turned author.
Martin left army service in 1950 and joined Grosset and Dunlap (now part of Penguin Random House) rising to the role of Senior Vice President. He was recruited in 1966 by Times Mirror (owned by the LA Times) to create a book-publishing arm. During his 17 years there, he acquired companies ranging from law and medical publishers to the then-paperback house, New American Library. Martin took a small and struggling book publishing business to become the fifth largest US publisher, and profitable. As he neared retirement, Levin enrolled in New York Law School and was admitted to the NY Bar in 1984 at the age of 65.
As a lawyer, Martin arranged more then 100 mergers and acquisitions in the book field. Just a few years ago, Martin was still actively doing business and negotiated, for example, the sale of Globe Pequot publishers.
Martin's services to the publishing world were extraordinary (he was President of the American Association of Publishers at one stage) and were recognised by the AAP when he was presented with a lifetime achievement award. He also spent some years teaching about book publishing at both New York Law School and the Stanford University Publishing course, which he later helped transfer to Yale University.
Motovun members who were at the Dresden summer meeting in 2006 will recall with delight and a chuckle Martin's brilliant address on “The 10 Biggest Mistakes I Made in Publishing”. Five years later, aged 92, he published his equally amusing and instructive book, “Everything I Know about Management I Learned from my Dog”!
Martin joined Motovun at the invitation of Ken Webb, who comments: “he was perhaps the oldest member ever when he retired from our association. What a wonderful gentleman he was, as well as being such a successful publisher.”
A family service took place in Florida. A celebration of Martin Levin's life is planned to be held at the Morgan Library in New York on the 9th of November. Any MGIP members who wish to attend are invited to contact Hugh Levin (hugh.levin@gmail.com) so they can be added to the guest list.
As decided at the last general assembly in Bucharest, we have installed PAYPAL for further payments, e.g. MGIP dinners, MGIP membership fee and forthcoming summer meetings.
Based on your registrations we will issue paypal invoices with all details. We hope that this will make payments easier. Initially we will try it with your MGIP Frankfurt Dinner registration.
MGIP BOOK AWARD WINNERS @ICMA BOOK AWARD 2016
As you may remember from the last two years, we have a cooperation with the ICMA Book Award organizers and have the chance to submit our MGIP Book Award winners. We will do this again this year.
We were able to negotiate with the organizers that all of you can enter books to ICMA until October 1st, 2016. You can find further information and entry forms under: https://issuu.com/newspaperdesign/docs/trends_7._icma_books_24.7.16
For our MGIP Book Award winners it is free of charge. All others pay a submission fee of 75€.
You may know our member Aleŝ Ŝteger from the summer meetings in Avignon and Lake Como, as well as from several dinners. At the moment, we should pay special attention to him, in the context of the documentary film BEYOND BOUNDARIES – Brezmejno, a German-Slovene co-production, which is shown at some festivals already.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES - Brezmejno by Peter Zach
The film is an essayistic roadmovie that tours the borders of Central Europe. Aleš Šteger, the well-known Slovenian poet, wrote a lyrical text to accompany the film. It's a philosophical meditation on something we are not far from losing: Europe. From the press kit: Aleš Šteger is a poet, essayist and novelist writing in Slovenian. Besides writing and translating from German and Spanish Aleš is also the programme director of Beletrina academic Press that he co-founded. Aleš belongs to a generation of writers that started to publish after the fall of Yugoslavia. His first poetry collection was sold out in three weeks after the publication and indicated a new generation of Slovenian artists and writers. Štegers books have been translated into 16 languages and his poems appeared in international renown magazines and newspapers as The New Yorker, Die Zeit, Neue Züricher Zeitung, TLS and many others. Among other prizes and honors his English translation of Knjiga reči (The Book of Things, BOA Ediions, 2010) won two mayor awards (BTBA award and AATSEL). Aleš received the titel Chevalier L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and he is a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin/Germany. He worked also as programme director at the Maribor 2012 European Capital of Culture. Since 2012 he is working on a performative writing project Written on Site, making one public writing performance a year.
MGIP statistics
To prepare some information about MGIP members and their products please don’t forget to answer to our mail with your numbers!
MGIP - 40th anniversary Band
Don’t be shy and contact Michel Moushabeck to join the Motovun Band for the celebration! We are sure that there are many hidden talents amongst the members.
MGIP Frankfurt Dinner
Please return your registration form and invitation for possible MGIP candidates.
DBW will welcome a MGIP fellow again
Please send your application to our office.
October 18th,2016 7 pm, MGIP Frankfurt Dinner at Restaurant MARGARETE March 13th, 2017 – MGIP London Dinner April 3rd, 2017 – MGIP Bologna Children Book Fair Dinner June 15th – 18th, 2017 – Summer Meeting & 40th Anniversary of MGIP in Motovun & at the Adriatic Seaside
End of summer at the Adriatic Sea
Do you have any content suggestions for the MGIP Newsletter? Please send us your ideas by the 8th of every month and we can include them.
Motovun Group of International Publishers
International Non-profit Association Under Belgian Law | Founded in 1977 - Founding President: Bato Tomasević Office: Theresienstrasse 40 | D-80333 München Germany | phone: +49 172 961 74 03 | Secretary: Barbara Glauning
Board of Directors: Jean Arcache (President) | Robin Wood (Chairman) | Juraj Heger (Treasurer) Jean-Baptiste Bourrat | Christopher Hudson | Kiran Kapoor | Jan Martens | Elisabeth Sandmann
Motovun Group of International Publishers
Responsible for editorial content: Philipp Sandmann, Barbara Glauning
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From the press kit:
