Scandinavia as a book market
From a distance, Scandinavia seems to be a closely-knit community with similar political and cultural roots; the everyday reality of publishing, however, sometimes tells a different story. Gone are the days when it was natural to read a neighbouring country’s books in the original language, or when it was considered essential to be familiar with the most important writers of each Scandinavian country. Communications are becoming easier and easier, but new barriers seem to be rising all the time: this is why marketing and distribution have become such crucial issues. Possibly due partly to political developments in Europe, with some Scandinavian countries in the EU but not all, Finland seems to be more interested in central Europe than its Scandinavian neighbours, while Norway and Sweden, especially the former, have little interest in their eastern neighbour. Sweden might seem the natural market for Finland-Swedish books, but in practice very considerable efforts are needed to sell books to Sweden, and the problem becomes even worse with Finnish-language books that need to be translated.

Lack of continuity
In the past, almost every Swedish publishing house had on its lists one or two major Finland-Swedish writers, and there was continuity – new books by the same author always found interested readers. The trend now is to look first at sales figures, the argument being that exactly the same applies to their own writers. Poetry is the genre most seriously affected, which is a problem for us since so much of the best literature written in Swedish in Finland is either poetry or essays. Even big houses are under strong pressure to make books profitable. It has become increasingly unusual for Swedish newspapers to review books that are not published in Sweden, which makes it very difficult to interest Swedish bookshops in books coming from Finland – there is almost no demand, in fact. Moreover, as VAT is much higher on books in Sweden than in Finland (25% as against 8%), the prices become much too high when books are exported.

Book channels
The growing importance of book clubs as channels for book distribution is a fact that influences publishers’ decisions. We very rarely have best-selling novels on our Finland-Swedish lists, and hence are not very attractive to Swedish book clubs. However, once a writer does cross this barrier – as with our biggest success in recent years, Monika Fagerholm’s Underbara kvinnor vid vatten (Wonderful Women by the Water), which has been translated into ten languages – the print run in Sweden far exceeds our own. (An average print run for a Swedish-language book in Finland is 1,000-1,500: Fagerholm sold 7,000, a hitherto unheard-of figure. In Sweden, hardback sales amounted to some 20,000; the paperback edition sold 2,000 copies in Finland. By then it had been published in Finnish, and was a great success among Finnish-speaking readers as well.) In order to compete with book clubs, whose influence in Finland is even greater than in Sweden (only 30% of books sold in Finland are from bookshops), booksellers have to find new methods of marketing. This means concentrating on a small number of titles, requesting marketing support from the publishers which enables them to reduce the price of the book, and putting the writer under the spotlight by such means as interviews. The Internet presents new threats, but also new opportunities – especially in a country like Finland where things happen on the net more frequently than anywhere else in the world.

Concentrating on fewer and fewer titles, putting the writer under the spotlight
Increased interest in the author behind the book is a world-wide phenomenon. Timid poets, however good, and not currently in demand. To compensate for this, however, new poetry book clubs are coming into existence, and poetry readings attract surprisingly large audiences. (The poetry event at the Helsinki Festival usually has an audience of about 1,200!) There are very few literary programmes on television, but women’s magazines are taking more and more interest in writers who deal with interesting topics. The bestseller mentality, and the avoidance of so-called "silent books", is a phenomenon I encounter every year at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The best way of introducing new names to foreign publishers is to get the book accepted by a respected (and preferably British or American) publisher. In the hectic atmosphere of a book fair such as Frankfurt, gossip is the most efficient marketing method: being on the right list is what matters. On the positive side, once you have achieved one break-through, people are interested and come to visit your stand the following year as well.

Translation
Translation is an expensive business, and would be even more difficult between Scandinavian countries were it not for the special translation grant system. Every year the Nordic Council of Ministries doles out translation grants for books within Scandinavia: the problem now is not so much money as the shortage of applications. Each Scandinavian country has a literature information centre, and its own system of grants. Translators are encouraged to visit the country in which they have an interest, publishers are encouraged to apply for grants, and so on. These centres do not sell rights, but do a lot to help publishers in the marketing of books, preparing the ground for actual negotiations between publishers in different countries.

And finally...
Culture in general and literature in particular play an important role in the formation of a Finnish identity, and this is just as true now as it was at the beginning of the century, when Finland became an independent nation after hundreds of years of foreign rule. Writers in Finland feel a strong sense of Finnish identity irrespective of whether they write in Finnish or Swedish, and Swedish-speakers can feel especially pleased about the cultural vitality of the linguistic minority: they form only 6% of the Finnish nation, but the number of Swedish-language books published and the number of authors writing them far exceed that proportion. Publishing those books presents endless obstacles, but is also a source of great satisfaction.