On Saturday, the 8th of May, WiK presented a special Zoom event with Eric Oey, head of the publishing company Tuttle. 

Oey gave WiK members an insight into the history of this company, and his family’s long-time connection to the book and antiquarian world. Tuttle, from its origins in post war Japan, buying books for Western university libraries, is now a well-established company with a back catalogue of books chosen for the long-term. Their English translation of This is a Cat by Natsumi Soseki was first published in 1972, and is still one of their best sellers.

Tuttle is very open to proposals for new work and translation, and Oey went through the categories of popular genres so that WiK members could better understand which book pitches would have a higher chance of success. Language texts, origami, gardens, self-help (ikigai), illustrated folk tales and ‘cool Japan’ were among current best sellers.

Along the way Oey gave some fascinating statistics. During the pandemic printed books have seen a 30% increase, while ebooks have peaked and are now in decline in terms of their market share. Roughly 50% of book sales are through amazon, making it a necessary evil. Altogether there are 5000 books published each week, and Tuttle itself is producing 150-200 books a year.

At the end of the session, members were left with a much clearer idea of the publishing world, particularly in their niche of Japanese based writing and translations.

Thank you Eric Oey for an informative and hopefully fruitful session with Writers in Kyoto.