August 18, 2001.
Live on Ekho Moskvy radio station Lev Elin, General Director of the Egmont Russia publishing house, and Vladimir Flint, Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation, full member Russian Academy Natural Sciences, full member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, President of the Russian Bird Conservation Union, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor.
The broadcast is hosted by Alexei Venediktov.
Maya Peshkova takes part in the conversation.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Good afternoon. At the microphone Alexei Venediktov. Today our guest is the Egmont Russia publishing house. And also Lev Nikolaevich Yelin, General Director of the Egmont Russia publishing house, and Vladimir Evgenievich Flint, Honored Ecologist Russian Federation, full member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, full member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, President of the Russian Bird Conservation Union, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, author of more than 600 scientific and popular science articles and books. In my opinion, we have intimidated our listeners, especially the little ones. Vladimir Evgenievich, what a monstrous idea with your titles to write for small children?
W. FLINT: There is nothing monstrous here. This is a completely natural process, because the protection of nature, firstly, is extremely important, and secondly, very little attention is paid to it, unfortunately.
A. VENEDIKTOV: So write memos to the president, what do you write for children.
W. FLINT: We write both memorandums and all the best. But my deep conviction is that if we want to preserve our beautiful Russian nature, we must first of all educate people for this. And you can educate a person in the ideology of nature conservation only if you get access to this person as early as possible. For the last 30 years of my life, I have been parallel with scientific work, with the promotion of nature conservation in the highest instances, I devote a lot of time to educating the children's generation, our successor, in the spirit of understanding that, firstly, nature is necessary for man himself, and secondly, nature conservation is an exceptionally interesting thing. And any preservation is based on some kind of knowledge base, and after knowledge comes love and the desire to help preserve. Therefore, I have been working in the field of special education for children for a long time. I collaborated with the publishing house "Kid", "Children's Book", but then it was on a case-by-case basis. And now we have a great opportunity to stage this process of introducing children to nature over a fairly long period of time. And I am sure that those who held my coloring books in their hands are now among those people who are doing something for nature, or, in any case, will not destroy it barbarously, as huge teams of people who have not read in childhood interesting books about nature.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Let's now talk about the books that Vladimir Evgenievich wrote. And who drew them, Leo?
L. ELIN: Several artists painted them. It was a complex painful process, because Vladimir Evgenievich, with all his softness and intelligence, does not allow the slightest point, not the slightest feather of the wrong shade.
A. VENEDIKTOV: I have 9 books from this series in front of me. It's called "Professor Flint's Library". I would like to draw the attention of our listeners to the fact that the books are really wonderful, and I advise you to fight for them now. We will be giving away a few sets. Vladimir Evgenievich, what age are these books intended for?
W. FLINT: I would say pre-school and the earliest school age. From 4 to 10 years.
A. VENEDIKTOV: I will now name a few books. "Animals of the mountains", "Amphibians", "Animals of the north", "Animals of the steppes", "Animals of Africa", "Reptiles". We will ask a question, and you will answer us on the pager 974-22-22 for the Ekho Moskvy subscriber. The question is this: a person has 7 cervical vertebrae, but how many vertebrae does such a long-necked animal like a giraffe have? And the first winners will receive several books from this series. The rest of the books will be bought and searched. By the way, Leo, are they for sale?
L. ELIN: They are certainly on sale. The series was completely completed a month ago, and they are all on sale.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Vladimir Evgenievich, what was the most difficult thing in your work?
W. FLINT: The most difficult thing is to find the right words and use concepts that are understandable to young children. For example, we can say that the weight of an elephant is up to 4 tons, but what a ton of children may not know. Therefore, one has to make some comparisons so that he can imagine what it is. For example, you can compare an elephant to a truck. And there are many such difficulties. It is necessary to write a book in an understandable, intelligible language and at the same time it is necessary that it be interesting. This is not an easy task at all. For me, for example, it is much easier to write a scientific article than a children's book. They require time, special focus and, of course, an idea of who your reading audience is.
A. VENEDIKTOV: I must say that interest in your books is very high, and not only from Moscow. The answers were completely different. One long answer from Irina can be considered the best answer, but it is wrong. She replied that the giraffe has only one cervical vertebrae. Are there any animals that have one vertebra?
W. FLINT: No, there are no such animals, because the neck is a fairly mobile organ, and if you have one vertebra, you will very soon realize that you do not have enough vertebrae to turn your head back and forth.
A. VENEDIKTOV: I would like to name the correct answer. A giraffe has the same number of cervical vertebrae as a human, that is, 7.
W. FLINT: Yes, and the giraffe is always in serious trouble because of this. In general, why does a giraffe have such a long neck? So that the giraffe can eat the leaves of trees, and there it has no competitors. But at the same time, the giraffe also has to drink water, and so the process of watering a giraffe is always quite complicated. They have to spread their front legs very widely so that they can reach the surface of the water with this long neck. But, nevertheless, all vertebrate mammals, including humans, have 7 cervical vertebrae.
A. VENEDIKTOV: The correct answers were sent to us by Georgy-931 and Daria-124 from Moscow, Yuri from St. Petersburg, 222, Lena from Kazan, 15, and Anatoly from Saratov, 56.
L. ELIN: I want to say that it's great that the winners are from different cities, because 85% of the books are published in Moscow, and with our distribution system, the regions are very often deprived of good books.
A. VENEDIKTOV: By the way, Lev, how many books were published in this series?
L. ELIN: 14.
M. PESHKOVA: Leo, everyone is talking about the fact that you are now a book monopolist in the country's book market. In the Pioneer magazine for some reason they called you Lopakhin, they began to peck you in the press. What caused all this?
L. ELIN: We have not become a book monopolist. In the field of magazines, we really are almost monopolists, we have 65-70% of the market, and we publish 11 magazines. These are children's magazines, and among them today I am proud to name the Toshka magazine about animals - the most popular magazine in Russia. But I don't think it's normal. We had a ton of magazines starting with " young technician” and “Young Naturalist”, which today are published and sold in insignificant editions. This is wrong and I think it needs to be changed. In any case, for my part, I do everything I can, I open new magazines that close niches that are unfortunately empty today.
M. PESHKOVA: Do you want to offer readers some new magazine now?
L. ELIN: First of all, we really want to open a Russian children's literary magazine. This is a very painful process. There are several very good publications in St. Petersburg, but they are small-circulation. We hope that such a magazine will appear early next year.
M. PESHKOVA: Will this magazine be like the magazine "Chizh and the Hedgehog"?
L. ELIN: I love the magazine "Chizh and the Hedgehog". Yes, it will be something like this, but it will be a mass magazine.
M. PESHKOVA: I remember those times when the best writers of children's literature first published and made a magazine. Will such time return to us in Russia?
L. ELIN: I really hope so, and it seems to me that over the past few years, Egmont has returned respect to magazine publishers and shown how you can work with children. Still, we sell a million copies of magazines a month and clearly have an impact on this market.
M. PESHKOVA: But, nevertheless, little attention is paid to childhood. I mean books. Books are reprinted and translated. Where are our children's writers?
L. ELIN: There are children's writers. Just recently there was an article on the Internet by Lev Yakovlev from the Black Hen association, where he once again divided writers into writers and non-writers, completely rejecting Mikhalkov, Barto and so on, calling everything that happened before graphomania, and offering new names. I called him and asked him to send all these new names, and now my desk is littered with manuscripts. And I must say that there really are a couple of names, and we will publish them.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Vladimir Evgenievich spoke about the giraffe, and I just remembered one rhyme. “Picking flowers is easy and simple for small children, and it is not easy for someone who is so tall to pick a flower.”
W. FLINT: This is a great illustration of how to teach children about the long neck of a giraffe.
L. ELIN: I want to say that sometimes we can objectively say how to tell children about this and that. But sometimes we can't tell. Sometimes there are things that are completely new to our market. "Teletubbies", for example, for which I get beaten every second day. Only the lazy one didn't say that "Teletubbies" is a brainwashing of children. They already say that this is generally a threat to the country's security. Everything is quite in the spirit of "today he plays jazz, and tomorrow he will sell his homeland." The bottom line is that books for kids under 3 years old were not published in Russia. It's a new culture that we just don't know.
A. VENEDIKTOV: I am returning to Vladimir Evgenievich. lion, he children's writer? How to classify this phenomenon?
L. ELIN: I will do without classification. I will say so. When I met Vladimir Evgenievich, he told me about animals during the evening. I heard this magnificent intelligent beautiful Russian language and thought that it would be very cool to speak this language with the kids. We agreed to try to put the 10th anniversary of Professor Flint's knowledge into 10 lines, and, in my opinion, it worked out. To be a children's writer, you have to be a very good writer.
W.FLINT: These 10 lines are the most difficult thing. For example, the first version of the text includes 14 lines. And I have to cross out 4 lines from the finished text. I cross out, I print it again, it turned out 10, but the text from this, of course, is depleted. And here the biggest difficulty is not to lose the meaning, not to lose the logic of presentation and fit into some kind of frame. If there was no such limit, I would certainly write much faster.
M. PESHKOVA: But I want to say that I know Academician Flint from the other side. It was Academician Flint who saved the Siberian Cranes population.
A. VENEDIKTOV: And what is it?
W. FLINT: This is Russian name the large white northern crane, which is among the most endangered cranes in the world. Its numbers continue to decline gradually. When we started working, it was generally on the verge of extinction. But it's a big long story with over 20 years behind it. But, in any case, now the Siberian Crane is out of danger. I wrote a separate book about the Siberian Crane, and it has long been published. It's called Operation Sterkh. And now we are publishing another book, and it will be called "Operation" Sterkh "continues."
L. ELIN: You are distracted from children's book publishing. Now we have to work for the children.
W. FLINT: I can't do it just for children, because adults are now often worse than children, and they also need to be brought up with the same purposefulness and, if possible, in an artistic form.
A. VENEDIKTOV: By the way, about the art form. Returning to the publishing house "Egmont Russia", you decided to translate and publish the pocket encyclopedia "La Rus". Why in translation? Why not their authors?
L. ELIN: In general, we are very cautious about the word "encyclopedia", because our market over the past 2 years has been inundated with an incredible number of children's and children's encyclopedias. Therefore, we chose very carefully, and we chose "A la Rus", and we chose an encyclopedia that is designed for a certain age, just for a preschooler and elementary school student. There are no such books on the market today. This is the best.
A. VENEDIKTOV: We will now raffle off books from this series of the A la Rus pocket encyclopedia. The question is: what title did the mandarin from Gianni Rodari's fairy tale "The Adventures of Chippollino" have? Lev, what is the most successful project of the year 2000-2001 for you?
L. ELIN: For the last 3 years, the publishing house has reoriented itself and deals not only with magazines, but also with books. We didn't rush and buy countless western licenses, but for 2 years we developed our books. And on September 1, these series will already appear in bookstores in Moscow.
A. VENEDIKTOV: You say that the market is filled with encyclopedias, but at the same time you publish your own. I now have in my hands the Encyclopedia of the 21st century. martial arts tree. What is the 21 Wreath Encyclopedia? what is this project?
L. ELIN: This project is designed for ages from 8 to 12 years old. This book is entirely made by Russian authors, made in Moscow, and it does not pretend to be a strict encyclopedia. This is very interesting stories about this or that area of our life, which we constantly encounter and which is important. In particular, cinema and television, the Internet, security schools. These are books that are useful, needed, and very well written.
M. PESHKOVA: I wanted to know why you publish Walt Disney?
L. ELIN: First of all, this is how our company started. We entered this market as a Disney publishing house, and we have remained so. I believe that a significant part of Disney production is of high quality, good and necessary.
M. PESHKOVA: And what is your attitude to Russian fairy tales? Do you publish them? And in general, fairy tales of the peoples of the world. Where do they fit in your publishing portfolio?
L. ELIN: We publish Russian fairy tales, but again we are very careful about this. We have published a very beautiful series of Russian fairy tales, and we are very proud of them. But the peculiarity of our book market is that as soon as a niche appears, everyone rushes into it, and competition for price begins. Dumping is going on, and publishing houses that publish a book on poor paper with cheap illustrations often win. That is, the book turns out to be cheap, and a third of our fellow citizens prefer to buy books worth up to 30 rubles. And at some point, quality projects turn out to be risky.
M. PESHKOVA: But you have another project, it is called Stylish Things. What it is?
L. ELIN: In July alone, we published about 70 titles, and I must honestly admit that not everyone receives my personal blessing. This is a project of girls from the marketing department. This is a youth make-up, hairstyles, manicure. Sorry, didn't read.
A. VENEDIKTOV: We have winners - Olesya-930, Ilya Zhukov-396, Denis from Samara, 32, and Inna from Novosibirsk, 48. The correct answer is the title of the mandarin duke. Svetlana’s question to Vladimir Evgenievich: “How do you evaluate, if you know, the textbook for grades 9-11 “Ecology of Russia”, authored by Mirkin and Naumova?”
W. FLINT: Unfortunately, I am not familiar with this textbook, but if everything is correct there, then it is good. In general, I believe that in any children's literature, first of all, everything must be strictly verified from the point of view of science. There is nothing worse than lying, because a lie or a mistake gleaned from a book is embedded in a person for life. Therefore, the greatest responsibility for those who write for children is that everything must correspond to reality, science, and nowhere should there be a contradiction to this.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Do you think it’s right that there should be lessons like “For the kids about animals” in primary school? Unfortunately, there is no such literature.
W. FLINT: I, in any case, guarantee that everything that I wrote is absolutely infallible and corresponds to what happens in nature. I am very careful to ensure that no wrong wording can leak into the words.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Leo?
L. ELIN: Answering your previous question, I will answer that this is my favorite project, and I would be happy if it were sold in large numbers throughout the country, and not for mercantile reasons.
A. VENEDIKTOV: We will present the rest of the books published by the Egmont Russia publishing house in the Books program over the next week. I thank our guests. It was the "Book Casino" on the "Echo of Moscow".
‒ Leo, please tell us how the idea of the Motley Square book series came about.
“It all started in 2008. Egmont was not Russian at that time, it was part of an international publishing holding, under the auspices of which mainly magazines and books on the world's main brands were published. The company prospered, everything worked out for us, and at some point we decided to “play hooligans” and release something unusual. The boom in the children's book was just beginning, there were few books by modern Russian children's writers, often they were designed poorly and without fanfare.
Writers Tim Sobakin, Mikhail Yesenovsky, Sergei Georgiev, Artur Givargizov, Valentina Degteva were known to readers primarily from publications in children's magazines, including ours. We invited gifted and very different artists to draw the books of these authors: Maxim Pokalyov, Ekaterina Silina, Nadezhda Suvorova, Natalia Korsunskaya and Zina Surova. Illustrators got almost complete freedom, and we have an outstanding artistic result. Five books with unusual titles, unusual illustrations and in an unusual non-commercial format.
‒ In addition, the square format is the most difficult to illustrate.
‒ Difficult both for illustration and for proofreading. If the publisher wants to prepare a book in a different format or include the text in some collection, square illustrations cannot be used.
The five books of the Motley Square turned out to be unlike each other, but at the same time they looked like a series. The format worked great. The resulting books differed from many others in their boldness, decisiveness, some kind of uncompromising artistry. They made a strong impression on professionals - no one expected this. The publisher received the Book of the Year award. But the reader's reaction was very disappointing. We have a strong feeling that we are "terribly far from the people." And although it’s hard to surprise me with aggressive misunderstanding (which I just didn’t experience as the publisher of Teletubbies and Masha and the Bear), but here I was really offended. Probably, it was possible to survive this insult, to continue the project despite dubious financial prospects: our company is one of the largest book and magazine holdings in Russia, we could afford it. But then crises came one after another, and I had to think about “pure business”.
However, time passed, and we returned to a ten-year-old project.
‒ What prompted you to do this?
‒ A very difficult chain of events... First, there were amendments to the law on funds mass media under which a foreign owner could no longer have more than 20% of the shares of newspapers or magazines in Russia. Egmont (owned by the Danes) has always published a lot of magazines, but we thought that this law would not affect children's publishers. Turns out he touched it. Probably, it was possible to somehow get out, write down the company to Russian employees, something else ... But our then Scandinavian owners, in principle, do not understand what it means to “get out”, and after the adoption of the law, they simply decided to put the company up for sale.
I've run a publishing house for over twenty years, it's my life's work, so I couldn't afford to sell it to random people. To buy out the publishing house, I pledged everything I had, including my pension. For a Russian, this sounds almost like a joke. And the Scandinavians made a strong impression. They, nevertheless, meticulously rewrote all my property - and I became the sovereign master of Egmont. But - with a huge debt. I don't want to explain what it means - in the midst of a crisis, to go almost on your knees through 12 banks in search of a loan. How many problems had to endure with the copyright holders of Western brands. I should have gotten something in return, don't you think?
‒ I wish you that.
“And I wished that for myself. Some time ago, I set two goals for myself: to make a film and to release a series of books that will be an event. He achieved his first goal when he became the producer of the cartoon "Sadko". And in order to achieve the second goal, I decided to return to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Motley Square.
‒ But the project was unsuccessful at the first attempt, wasn't it?
‒ Times have changed. The reader has changed. And I seem to have a heightened desire to take risks ... Yes, the level of distrust was high, the partners recalled: “You abandoned the project then!” And yet we decided to revive it.
Ten years later, our vision for the series has changed. In 2008, we were just looking for something new, and now we decided to create a kind of anthology of contemporary children's literature in dozens of books. Include the best in it - both previously published and published for the first time. The Motley Square series is supported by another revival of the City of Masters series, which, with rare exceptions, includes larger prose books for older children. Both of these series are part of our larger project.
Illustration by Ekaterina Golovanova for the book by Natalia Evdokimova "3 minutes before Have a good mood»
‒ And Artur Givargizov was invited as the project manager. Have you decided that Arthur, like a magnet, will attract interesting authors and artists?
- Yes. Artur Givargizov is a real phenomenon in modern literature and a very generous person who supports talented authors and artists in word and deed. I know him from the time of the first successes of the Melnitsa studio, which created cartoons about three heroes. Artur Givargizov wrote books based on those cartoons. It was a difficult task to make a quality witty cartoon book, and he brilliantly coped with it.
Arthur wrote his own texts, “not by order”, for a long time on the table and read them only to his friends. I really liked his stuff. I was struck by Arthur's incredible writing ingenuity, some kind of sophisticated writing technique brought to perfection. In fact, a huge number of works for children are based on some plot clichés, given parameters- both here and around the world. Here is a little boy. They don't like him in the yard. Mom has problems with dad. The family does not have enough money. And then the boy meets a friend ... Then there are ten options for the development of the plot to choose from. I understood that Arthur's texts are completely different literature.
‒ And decided that it should see the light of day?
- Yes. I became the first publisher of Artur Givargizov. In 2003, we prepared his book "With a wardrobe on a bicycle." And now Arthur has become the head of the Motley Square project.
‒ And does it work?
‒ Absolutely. We started the series with reprints: we republished the five books that were released ten years ago. Then they republished interesting authors whose books had previously been published by other publishing houses. But they didn't stop there. A huge number of manuscripts come to Arthur. He reads them. Wakes up every day at five in the morning, and sits down to read manuscripts. This has been going on for a year and a half.
"You seem to have condemned him to a nightmare life."
‒ But he is inspired by the idea of collecting the best in the Motley Square and the City of Masters. So that readers can see all this richness and diversity. And Arthur is terribly interested in working with artists. For him, the artist is a full-fledged co-author. I know two more writers who had a similar attitude towards artists - Yuri Koval and Sergei Mikhalkov. Yuriy Koval was a talented artist himself and liked to have talented artists make illustrations for his books. And Mikhalkov's books seem to have been illustrated by all the interesting artists of his time.
Arthur was always involved in choosing an illustrator for his books - wherever he took the manuscript. And now he is looking for an artist for each book of the Motley Square and the City of Masters. It's not easy, believe me. So for Arthur, our project is not only a collection of star authors, but also a gallery of contemporary illustration.
‒ And how free is Arthur in choosing texts? He is not only a spirit modern literature", he is also on friendly terms with many contemporary writers. Does that affect his score, do you think?
‒ Primary selection of texts is carried out by Artur. And he also offers the artist for the book. I absolutely trust his taste. But sometimes it is difficult for him to sit on two chairs. He "allows" the author much more than I, for example. And his desire to understand the author and the artist is much sharper than mine. Therefore, we make a decision by a simple vote. The editorial board is Arthur, Chief Editor Egmont Mikhail Morozov and me. If two people vote for the manuscript, it will be published. If two vote for a given artist, the artist will illustrate the book. In reality, of course, everything is not so simple ...
Illustration by Olga Solomatina for the book of poems by Tim Sobakin "Hedgehog's Dinner"
‒ When we just launched the project, we arranged an exhibition of sketches and invited authors and artists to it - to get to know each other. For some of the writers, illustrations caused tension. They said it's not mine. We had to convince them of the correctness of our choice. In the process of work, the author and the artist rubbed each other, although I know at least one case of the author's offense ... As for our task, it is important for us that the book looks like a complete work.
‒ In the 1990s, a certain idea of seriality developed. All books in the series should have, if not exactly the same, then almost the same recognizable cover. The bestseller comes first, we "tie" everything else to it - albeit weaker. All your books have different covers.
‒ The square format works, this is the identification mark of the series. But the covers are really different. And the books are different. And I don't even expect readers to buy all the books in the series. There is no need for this. Let everyone choose what he likes. And from what to choose - will be. This year we are going to release 30 new books and get closer to a hundred...
‒ A hundred? Then really, let the readers choose... Do you have any favorites among your publications?
- Yes. But I don't want to name individual names.
‒ But I ask you this question as a private person. Here you are very fond of the works of Artur Givargizov. You admitted it. Is there anyone else you love the same way?
‒ Will their books also see the light of day?
- Already seen.
‒ What about the commercial component? "Motley Square" and "City of Masters" make a profit?
- If this is a matter of life, what profit can there be? However, this project is self-sustaining. And there is an opportunity to combine business with pleasure. We pay authors and artists royalties. We pay salaries to editors and layout designers. The opportunity to support talented people also brings satisfaction. In addition, the Internet opens up new opportunities for the popularization of books. We are grateful to readers who talk about the books of the project. Thanks to them, everything will work out.
Lev Nikolaevich Yelin, CEO of Egmont Russia
06.07.2012This year, the subsidiary of the oldest Danish publishing concern in Europe, Egmont International Holding, is celebrating its 20th anniversary of successful work on the Russian book market. Perhaps, for Russia, this is a unique example of long-term foreign investment in the publishing business. And today, when the book market is losing fans and investors, when industry professionals fall into packs of pessimism and go out of business, one is drawn to communicate with those who are ready to develop and invest morally and financially, who are still interested in all this.
Therefore, "KI" asked for "tea" to the General Director of the company "Egmont Russia" Lev Nikolaevich Yelin with a proposal to talk about the current work and plans of one of the leading publishers of the Russian book market.
- Lev Nikolaevich, it is believed that a children's book is one of the few market segments that demonstrates stability and even partly development ...
I'll bet. Over the past three years, the total circulation of children's books, according to the Book Chamber, has fallen from 125 to 100 million copies. This has affected the majority of publishers working for a children's audience, and hardly indicates the stability of the situation as a whole.
We, like everyone else, had falling circulation, including in 2011, but now we have achieved a certain stability. "Egmont Russia" is 17% of the total circulation of children's books in Russia, and about 44-45% of the children's magazine market. But to do this, we are forced to expand the range of titles, as the average circulation per book continues to decline. Our average circulation is about 12,000 copies, which is higher than the industry average, but this is largely due to the large share of fairly cheap titles.
- In your expert opinion, what are the main trends and directions of development of the children's segment of the book market in Russia?
First, over the past three years, the average price sales, and its upper ceiling was very clearly marked. Secondly, today it is possible to maintain positions, turnovers, circulation only by reorienting to other sales channels, that is, the role of classic bookstores is falling sharply, including due to a reduction in the number of these stores due to bankruptcy, with the desire of their owners to reorient their business, sell and so on. There was a "Top Book" and we were happy to invest in promotion programs that operated throughout the country, but now this is not the case. And, by the way, the bankruptcy of Top Book was a painful blow for Egmont, we lost a little less than a million dollars.
Finally, another trend in the children's book market is the increasing role of impulse buying. For recent years we see the growth that brands provide. And brands sell well in the mass market, this is achieved by marketing efforts that work specifically in the mass market. And today in "Auchan" we get a turnover that, with similar efforts, cannot be obtained in a classic store.
- That is, if we are talking about the sales structure, then today the main efforts of Egmont Russia are connected with the development of the mass market channel?
The share of supermarkets and specialty stores such as " Child's world”, “Ship”, in our turnover has already exceeded 40%. About 20-25% we sell through bookstores, 7% - online stores. And the rest - wholesalers. Although sometimes wholesale is the only way to distribute in the regions. Unfortunately, it is so bad that it does not allow you to reproduce the exact sales scheme. We sent the goods, received the money, and sometimes it is impossible to trace the further chain in order to fine-tune the pricing policy. Of course, we are trying to promote wholesalers to a higher level of distributors, to teach them to work according to certain rules, when both parties are bound by a different level of obligations: the publisher knows exactly the whole picture of their sales, and the trading partner participates in the process, not limited to the role of a mere intermediary. But so far it is very difficult. And the crisis undermined the market. So today we can boast of literally 3-4 such agreements.
- As the main trend of the "children's" book market, you called the fall in prices. To what extent is this trend typical for your company as well?
The publishing house began to change its portfolio in September-October 2008. Despite the fact that both 2008, 2009 and 2010 were successful for us, we changed the assortment and reduced the price. They left the “novelty” segment of expensive books, in which they were the absolute leader, realizing that this niche would shrink, and, on the contrary, developed several hundred titles that corresponded to the cheaper segment. As a result, the average price of Egmont Russia products in 2011 was about 1 euro. And if we talk about the book portfolio, then mostly these are books with stickers and coloring books. Of course, the word "coloring" for many sounds like a description of something simple, primitive. As a rule, this is how it is in the Russian market. But our approach is slightly different. We explore the coloring market, the psychology and the specifics of the perception of children of all ages. Based on this, we determine the number of pages, and the thickness of the lines, the nature of the picture. Our coloring pages are in the upper price segment due to their high quality.
- Have you conducted research on the coloring book market in Russia?
It is senseless to carry out this kind of research in Russia, we were guided by the results of Germany and England. When it comes to things like how a small child perceives a coloring book, there is almost no difference. For example, if a kid under four years old categorically does not accept when the figure of a bunny or a bear cub goes out of the field, then it does not matter where, in which country these test results were obtained. There are just a few rules to follow. Of course, in books for an older age, when the child develops individual perceptions, discrepancies begin between countries. For example, books in which we used drawings by Russian artists working for Europe turned out to be insufficiently colorful and catchy for Russian buyers. I had to refine the covers, which my European colleague rightly called perfect ...
- And if we speak from the point of view of content, is it possible to single out some moments that are typical for Russia, or, on the contrary, are not perceived by Russian readers?
In an illustrated book, Russia needs more text than, for example, American readers. And if we release Disney books, then we try to the point of possible to enter as much text as possible. In addition, a simple translation or summary, which is based solely on the perception of the picture, does not work for us. And we invite good children's writers. Indeed, in order to write 30 lines per page, to correctly state, convey the content, you need to be a good writer.
If we compare the same book in the USA, Scandinavia, part of Eastern Europe and with us, they will differ. They do not pay such serious attention to the text, it just complements the picture, but we are trying to be more creative in this. Of course, Russian authors work within certain limits, because there is a finished book, a certain design, and nothing can be changed. But at the same time, the language in which they express themselves is richer and more diverse in shades, so the books are better. And even if it costs a lot of money, we are not ashamed of what we are doing.
- Are there any topics that do not go on the Russian book market at all? For example, in Europe the theme of death is very popular, and there are books that broadcast this theme for children's consciousness...
In this case, it would be more correct to speak of certain changes in the consciousness of a European adult over the past decades. Both interest in the topic and the desire to explain to the child what it is and how to perceive it - this is not a book or publishing trend, this is the direction of the development of society. Our society is simply not ready for this topic yet. And you can not throw on the child what his parents are not ready for. But very often it turns out that we are afraid of some topics, and they are accepted by Russian readers very well. So, about eight years ago, a Disney series called "Witches" appeared. Then we renamed it "Enchantresses" because we decided that "witches" were somehow not good. But it was the “Witches” that were more successful, and later it turned out that this topic is very close to our girls, although we heard a lot of criticism: “How can you? This is not in Russian culture!”. In general, we very often heard accusations that our product is not in the trend of Russian culture. A classic example is the launch of the Teletubbies, which was designed to be a terrific parenting tool, well received by children, and the product of not just Air Force staff, but really a squad of psychologists, specialists in children's consciousness. But we were all scolded. I remember how E. Uspensky spoke on "ECHO of Moscow" and said: "These are not Slavic faces, frozen and devoid of facial expressions." I called and said: "Well, then, maybe we'll remember Cheburashka." The attack was of such a level that the church got involved. In general, the project was curtailed in Russia. Although the whole world continues to watch, buy "Teletubbies", it is very good program education and training.
- Of course, society forms some themes and trends, but, nevertheless, Russian book publishing today is more free, it is ready and can expand the boundaries of perception.
Yes, and the demands of society are growing. In fact, we see that the number of publishers and the number of topics that appear is enormous, but this is less obvious to the buyer due to the reduction in points of sale. And in supermarkets they will not put on the shelf books that meet the interests of a certain elite part of the population.
- Therefore, for example, Vadim Meshcheryakov opens "Children's Shops", trying to broadcast his brand and his products ...
Yes, I am very respectful of this. But over the years, we have adhered to a certain policy, considering two things as the mega-mission of our publishing house. The first is to support Russian brands. Egmont Russia is the company where Russian animators come first with their projects. We already have a reputation, together with EKSMO we started the Smeshariki project, then promoted Luntik. It was to us that the authors of "Masha and the Bear" came, who at that time made only the first two series and were completely unknown. And we said yes, and transferred the first money to them. Today this project is the first in terms of sales in the country. And I am sure that his role in the upbringing and development of the younger generation may turn out to be very significant as a result. Today, Egmont Russia works for a wide audience, makes high-quality books under the brands Masha and the Bear, Smeshariki, Barboskins, and Luntik.
The second component of our mission is the creation of special projects. Egmont Russia creates 1-2 projects a year, which are very dear to us. It is no coincidence that for several years in a row we received an award for the best book of the year in the nomination "Together with the book we grow." These are the Motley Square series, authored by Artur Givargizov, the book 333 Cats with drawings by Viktor Chizhikov and poems by Andrey Usachev, and the two-volume Classics, which contains works by more than forty contemporary children's poets and writers. The other day, Zakhar Prilepin told me that he considered Classics to be mandatory reading for his children ... It is very important for us to designate the leading edge of a children's book, be it books on a spring in the format of the School of Fun series (there we published both Givargizov and "Children's Books"). Kharms, and many others) or the Motley Square project, which has become a new word in illustration. Ten years ago, we published a series of books of the world's best fairy tales with illustrations by Russian artists, when no one thought that Russian artists could and should be paid money comparable to foreign fees. We took the top five illustrators who worked exclusively for Western publishing houses - Arkhipova, Koshkin, Ustinov, and others, paid very good money and received a series of high-quality books with magnificent illustrations.
And next year we will definitely come out with something new. But we must take into account the fact that the last three years have been a period of very tough competition for us, primarily with the IG "AST". The struggle was for every right - for every ruble offered by us, at least five were offered. We lost some rights, but, fortunately, we defended the main Russian and Western licenses, although this hard struggle bled us dry. The whole last year we did not feel very comfortable, but by the end of the year we realized that we survived - and quite successfully.
- Now you can breathe a sigh of relief, given the rather difficult situation in the IG "AST".
Yes, this is true, and their authors and partners are now contacting us, but we do not experience cheap gloating. We are grateful to our partners who stayed with us, but we do not condemn those who chose to earn money. And the market is such that you can never relax. All the same, there are strong players, there is Eksmo, which is becoming more and more active in the children's segment (and, moreover, controls the remaining AST portfolio). But if earlier the proposals of our competitors went beyond common sense, and financial question for copyright holders prevailed over some analysis of the situation, but now, I hope, the competition will go on at a more civilized level. At least the conditions that we offer to our partners and those offered by our competitors will be comparable. The Russian Book Union is already discussing new, civilized rules of the game.
- "Egmont Russia" actively develops the magazine direction of activity. Does this mean that you experiment less with book formats, with toy books?
No, they are two different divisions. The publisher's turnover is divided approximately equally between books and magazines. And experiments are going on in both areas, without which it is impossible to succeed today. We have over 30 magazines, but we are constantly launching new ones. There are magazines that we make, objectively focusing on the needs of a wide children's audience (for example, Vinny and His Friends) and on supporting a strong brand (Smeshariki). Others are just "for the soul." Thus, the magazine "Young Erudite" absolutely definitely performs an important educational function. And by the level of subscription that this journal has in libraries, we know how much it is in demand and useful. "Young Erudite" is designed for ages from 9 to 13, although if we talk about Muscovites, then this audience is from 7 years old. This magazine contains amazing articles about natural phenomena, about history, technology, a mandatory section on the topic "how it's done", for example, a refrigerator in the context. A very useful magazine indeed.
But experiments with a magazine mean endless experiments with format and paper. Moreover, not from the point of view of reducing the cost and simplifying production, but taking into account the fact that for kids, for example, glossy paper is not needed to draw and read. Although the first desire of many publishers is to make it bright, and advertisers are asking. In publications for children, something different is needed, you need to play with printing, depending on age. Every time we create a project, we try to answer the question - what do we want to achieve? How is this new magazine different from the existing line? And, as a rule, this idea is put on the cover. For example, Masha and the Bear is a magazine for fidgets. Is the truth true to the spirit of the series? Each of our projects is a clear positioning.
In terms of books, last year we developed 180 new "novelty" titles that our partner companies are using around the world because we have developed low-cost product lines. It seems that in the world there are already a lot of developing books for the most younger age with toys, musical elements - but to make them inexpensively, of high quality and so that they are objectively useful is not an easy task. And we solved it.
- What printers do you work with?
The corporation we belong to has very strict requirements. Each printing house with which we work must pass an audit, not financial, but in terms of compliance with all standards - from the absence of minors in the workplace and ending with the fact that everything must be clean, hygienic, tidy, and so on. And we have very strict checks on hygiene standards. On the one hand, they are obligatory here in Russia, on the other hand, in Europe we have a special agency that checks all products for compliance with European standards.
Today, about half of our books are made in China, from one manufacturer we have known and trusted for a long time.
- But in general, we can say that you experiment quite freely and you have a lot of your own titles, that is, your publishing policy is not dictated by the corporation?
Not dictated. We, like many companies in Egmont, publish Disney magazines and books, and this is a very large part of our portfolio, dear to us. But both specific Disney titles and the rest of the publishing portfolio are formed in our office. We have 1,700 book titles coming out this year, which is a significant increase from last year's 1,360 SKUs, and an additional burden on the editors, but in an uneven market, we did this to strengthen our position. Since we work with the mass market, we offer each chain specially made for it, exclusive product lines.
- How actively does Egmont Russia experiment in the field of e-books?
We are happy to work in this direction. We started with three applications for the App Store based on Masha and the Bear, made in collaboration with Art. Lebedev's studio, and very successful. Already, we have given the App Store permission to use our books as ads, which is very flattering, as it is considered the highest praise. And we hear the same thing from the professionals of this market. This year we are going to launch at least 30 new applications - e-books, coloring pages - we want to create a matrix of different products on different age, of varying complexity, quality, prices. We need to appeal to a wide range of audiences.
Both children and parents will enjoy what we have done now, because there are a lot of game elements in the Masha and the Bear books. This is aerobatics. But there should also be simpler, everyday products. In addition, the e-book allows us to create educational products that are impossible in paper form. And it's very interesting. Therefore, we endlessly consult with professionals in this market who teach us all these software engines and mechanisms. And we think that next year there will be about 40-50 e-books. Of course, this is not a business project yet, and we understand that a children's book will last longer than others in the paper version on the market, but we are interested.
We are also developing an electronic direction in the field of magazines, we plan to make not just pdf versions with the ability to turn pages, but to introduce interactive elements. We want to give the children's magazine a different dimension.
- These are large-scale developments that require serious investments. How willing are you to invest in such products?
This is a serious investment, but we are happy to make these investments. And then, all our projects are financially capacious. We practically do not make single books, but create lines. And this always requires investments - long-term and serious, which pay off in 3-4 years.
- Are you developing applications for Android, or only for Apple Store?
We have an agreement with a French company that makes a product that is easily compatible and adaptable to different platforms. But this is the next step, since today only the App Store provides 100% intellectual property protection. In addition, the Android platform in Russia is less common among advanced users. An android user and an apple system user are significantly different. An Android user who is installed on both HTC and Sony and Samsung often does not even know about the existence of the Android store that you can download something there. And users of the iPhone, iPad are advanced people, the owners of an account in the App Store. I haven't seen a single iPhone owner who didn't buy books.
- And how is the pricing for an e-book compared to a paper book?
Everything is simple here. We know that there are some psychological barriers and just look at the price of a similar product in the App Store. At the same time, the price of the paper version does not play a role. For example, the versions of the Masha and the Bear books in the App Store are a rather sophisticated premium product, with rather complex animation, there are more opportunities than in a regular book, you can read, listen, and play. And paper books, from which applications were made, with a volume of 24 pages from the middle price segment, are even closer to the economy class. However, Masha and the Bear's App Store price of $3.99 is more than reasonable compared to current store prices. And we have 1200-1300 downloads in the first month, which is really quite good.
Isn't there a danger that the book becomes more of a game than a reading?
The book has become a game for the last 15 years, and, in general, the convergence of the toy world with the book world is quite obvious today. We often compete with toy manufacturers. What we do and what they do are sometimes interchangeable or very close. And if an ordinary book for children stagnates, then a toy book grows by 20-30% per year. And parents who themselves read an average of 9 minutes a day today are unlikely to buy serious books for their child, they will prefer toys or, in extreme cases, books with a familiar brand on the cover. And then the child begins to read. In Europe, since the 1950s, they realized that comics may not be the best reading, but through it, children begin to read and come to at least some kind of paper word, and sometimes they begin to read serious books. The culture of comics has not taken root in our country, and I do not regret it. Egmont Russia offers magazines that contain text, stories, that is, there is always a literary content. But in order for both books and magazines to be read, some additional component is needed today. And so we went further, took the next step after games and toys - we offer e-books. You may not do this. And the children will immediately start with the Angry birds arcade and will “wet” the pigs. But it would be better if it had something to do with the book.
- And if you look into the near future, what are your forecasts for the development of the book market for children?
I do not think that the book-toy will replace everything, it will occupy its own niche in the children's market, and has already taken shape enough in the number of titles and circulations. And I think that there will be no revolution within the wide children's segment, the world of analog children's books will not undergo major changes. But will he live happily ever after in this established state - or how will the Titanic sink? We cannot predict how fast the e-book will spread. If you look at the pace at which the consumption of electronic media is changing, and the speed at which the Internetization of Russia is going on, then the forecast for analog products is not very favorable. Incidentally, out of twenty recent books that I read, only two were in print. EBook convenient, convenient for me on the plane, and for the child sitting in the back seat of the car.
And yet, I would say that today the lack of an adequate distribution system is a bigger problem for Russian book publishing than the onset of the digital age.
I love museums... I got tremendous pleasure, going to Korovin, to Arch Moscow, looking at the work of friends. I am fond of Russian and French impressionism, and lately I have been trying to study the Italian Renaissance, which is more difficult for me, since, unlike my artist friends, I am less savvy in this.
I am an international journalist by education, Faculty of Moscow State University, international branch, Hindi and English. He started in the Gudok newspaper, then worked for a long time in the Novoye Vremya magazine. From the end of 1985 to 1992, he was actively engaged in investigative journalism - the history of the execution of captured Poles in Katyn, KGB operations abroad - was published both in Russia and in the world's leading media ... At some point, they began to call me for interrogations (disclosure of state secrets!), After that it wasn't all that great. And then a Danish journalist called, my friend, who offered to publish a Mickey Mouse magazine. I laughed, but he said, “You are a fool. They will put you in." And I went ... Honestly, I thought that it would be a vacation for a couple of years, but it turned out differently.
