A not-so harmonious society - a book plan

When I finished some years ago my book on "The wild East. 15 misunderstandings on China and the Chinese" (only in Dutch and German, you see here the German cover) I vowed I would never write a book again. Not only did I find writing a book a gruesome lonely boring process that did not fit my character, it seemingly offered little advantages. Unless you have a Harry Potter it is certainly not a way to make a living and getting that little bit of money actually paid by European publishers is tougher than getting money out of a Chinese company.

The number of people that actually buy your book is, compared to the impact of activities like this weblog, very low.

What is nice is that in a book you can actually build up an argument, make a point, often better than in short internet entries. And there is of course the vanity factor: publishers know that people love to have a book on their name, even if it does not pay the bills. Some publishing houses actually let authors paid to make maximum use of this vanity factor.

Of course, vanity is no issue for me :-). But this week I had two conversations with publishers who gently pushed me to give the idea of a book a thought. And then without wanting it, the thought-process was triggered off.

Now, by accident I have also been writing a proposal to write a client report for an HR-company on labor issues and these two lines came together this week. The famous labor contract law and the trade union activities at Wal-Mart are both part of Hu Jintao's "Harmonious Society" and so I thought, tying up other elements of Hu's drive for this harmonious society might actually be a good concept for a book. When this client-report works out, I might already have a nice basis.

What is helping too is my current work at Chinabiz Speakers. Maybe few authors can make a living by writing books, but when you can be linked up with a professional speaking circuit, that does make a difference. Selling speakers who have some books on their name proves also to be easier.

Let's ponder a bit.

Books on China not to buy

Are you looking for something to read in the upcoming May holidays? Access Asia breaks with a tradition in reviewing books and lists in this week's newsletter three that are actually so bad, you should not buy them. So in AA's great tradition of not being afraid to piss people off, you should not buy:
By Will Hutton: The Writing on the Wall: Why We Must Embrace China as a Partner or Face It as an Enemy.

The Windbag of the Third Way displays a profound and deep lack of knowledge of (or even passing acquaintance with) China, but still manages to stuff his bank account with royalties anyway.

By Sid Smith:China Dreams.

We can only assume that Sid Smith is a fake name for a teenager somewhere in Wimbledon who’s turning in these manuscripts to his uncle’s publishing company. Nothing to do with China, or anything much else for that matter, except some lunatic dreams that make no sense whatsoever – the only good news is that it’s less than 200 pages long.

By Guy Delisle: Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China.

Another in the “oh I’m a foreigner and China’s really weird” school of books. For 150 pages! As bad as a language student’s blog (and they are all really bad) covering strange food, funny accents, they’re not really like us at all, and on and on and on.

More at the Access Asia Website.
The reviews all bear the hallmarks of our celebrity speaker Paul French, who is working through our Speakers Bureau. Are you interested to hear his critical view directly, do not hesitate to drop me a line.

Many more books on China ahead

Business is beating politics in the book sales on China, writes Paul French in the Weekly Update of Access Asia. Surprising winner, at least for me, is China CEO: Voices of Experience from 20 International Business Leaders that has sold in the tens of thousands (well, at least a couple of them).
But there is more ahead:

The China books bubble continues to swell, and that’s OK with us – it’s our kind of bubble. A good friend in Beijing has established an exclusive club only for people who have not yet written a book on China – it’s a club with a declining membership week by week, and soon the founder could be the only member (which is OK as he usually ends up drinking on his own anyway).

Paul French advises from the academic contributions a few of them, including Chris Alden's China in Africa: Partner, Competitor or Hegemon?
More books at Access Asia.