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Dear BATW Friends,
There are many revolutions occurring around us, in our culture and in our travel journalism publishing. We only understand a few aspects of these complexities. We can help each other to understand more.
One interesting development is that we can now actually publish our travel journalism books and literary books to a new audience, the Chinese. I have done this. The Chinese represent a new world. There are 1.39 billion people who read Chinese, as their native language, making this a much larger group than the native-speaker English language folks. The Chinese are now accumulating substantial wealth. They are now close to being or actually the largest supplier of outbound travelers among all countries in the world today. They are hungry for a knowledge of the outside world and for a sense of their place in the world.
Recently I met Runa Jiang, a charming and ambitious 30-year-old from Beijing, the entrepreneur CEO behind Fiberead. The concept of her company name is interesting, that “fiber optics” will transform the reading possibilities and cultural opportunities of people worldwide. She is one of those progressive forces in China transforming our world and making it better. The full contact info for Fiberead is noted in the more formal announcement, below.
The mind-boggling experience for me occurred when I was looking at Amazon China and saw my book there. The book is my main travel guidebook on California, Northern California Travel: The Best Options. You can see it on Amazon China at http://amzn.to/1H3ynf9.
(Humor note: It appears that my book in Chinese had 10 five-star reviews when I last looked at this link. Amazon can probably feel confident that these reviews were not placed there beneficially by my colleagues in BATW. I apologize if I understate the Chinese language competence of my BATW colleagues.)
My Chinese publisher is also working on the translation of a second book, my travel literary book Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time. This is a book about a world citizen, me, looking at 25 places on the planet and internalizing that we live in both the most wondrous and the most horrific time ever to be alive. My publisher feels that the emerging Chinese citizen shares these concerns and may enjoy this second book as a meditation on our modern reality. I mention this to suggest to my BATW friends that your books other than travel guidebooks may be of interest to the Chinese.
Below is a more formal announcement on these developments.
Thank you,
Lee Foster
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Lee Foster’s California Travel Guidebook Released in China in Chinese
Lee Foster’s main California travel guidebook, Northern California Travel: The Best Options, has been released in China in Chinese.
The book is now available in several structures in China, such as Amazon China at http://amzn.to/1H3ynf9. The Chinese publisher chose to change the earlier cover of the book, which showed Lee Foster’s image of California poppy wildflowers, the state flower. The new cover is a recognizable travel object, one of Foster’s photos of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The book has been available as a printed book and ebook in Amazon USA at http://amzn.to/1aXQxCK and on Lee Foster’s Amazon Author Page at http://amzn.to/1jl9Lnz. The book’s 30 chapters are also presented as 30 articles in a “website book” on Foster’s primary website at http://bit.ly/1CHNMgk.
The entrepreneur behind the Chinese translation is a young woman in Beijing named Runa Jiang. She is the CEO of a company called Fiberead. Her vision behind the name for her company is that “fiber optics” will eventually transform the world, bringing a better “reading” and cultural experience to countless people.
“This California travel guide book is just right for the new Chinese traveler now exploring the world,” notes publisher Jiang. “China will soon be sending more of its citizens on world travel than any other country. Northern California is one of our favorite destinations, due partly to the major historic migration pattern of Chinese into America through San Francisco.”
Publisher Jiang is equally enthusiastic about her second acquisition among Foster’s books, which is currently being translated. That is Foster’s travel literary book, Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time. In the book’s 25 literary essays about his worldwide travels, Foster describes how we live in the most wondrous and maybe also the most horrific era ever to be alive. The book exists in the U.S. as a printed book, an ebook, and also recently as an audiobook (http://amzn.to/1IfXt9z).
“This thoughtful book about being a world citizen is perfect for our Chinese audience today,” says publisher Jiang. “We Chinese are now focused on our place in the world. Chinese citizens have emerged from relative isolation to become major players on the world stage. We are thinking a lot about how wondrous and horrific the world is in our time. We want to go out and see it for ourselves, as Lee Foster did.”
Author Lee Foster appreciates the opportunity his partnership with Fiberead presents. “I’ve always been excited about the dynamism of modern China,” says Foster, “starting with my first visit there in 1990. Even then there were millions of highly educated and motivated young people in Beijing and Shanghai. I knew they would transform their country and our world in positive ways. I’ve been impressed with how conscientious and thorough these translators have been, checking in with me weekly in the past year, as they strive to transform my American English expressions and concepts in the books into their language.”
For Further Information:
The Chinese Publisher:
Runa Jiang, Fiberead
www.fiberead.com; contact@fiberead.com
The Author:
Lee Foster, Foster Travel Publishing
www.fostertravel.com; lee@fostertravel.com
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