REPRESENTING AN
EMERGING PUBLISHER

COMMUNICATION
The LITAO approach
to Exhibition Excellence.

Lithuanian children’s books publisher, was entering the China International Children’s Book Fair in Shanghai for the first time. Though a thriving publisher in its home country, it didn’t know any of the requirements for China’s strict censorship laws and differentiations between publishers. LITAO was hired prior to and during the exhibition to prepare publisher’s offerings and seek potential matches.

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Client’s Challenge
  • - Client’s first time attending Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair with no prior China experience.
  • - Content sensitive to plagiarism.
  • - Needed to pass tight governmental censorship and content control.
Litao’s Solution
  • - Careful curation of SKUs best suited for China market and least likely to face censorship.
  • - Built close relationships with Chinese publishers for navigating Chinese publishing process.
  • - Prepared thorough talking and sales points for representation at exhibition while protecting main content.
The Outcomes
  • - Over 150 active publishing leads within 3 days of exhibition.
  • - Sold first copyrights in China within 1 year.
  • - No identifiable copyright theft.
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*We cannot disclose company names here,
but please ask us if you wish for more details.

We first sorted through the publisher’s hundreds of titles to determine what would work best, settling on a total of twelve books marketed to children up to five years old. The age limit itself was a strategic move: the more illustrations and fewer words, the less there would be to censor. We also focused on titles with immediate positive utility, such as books that improved children’s hand mobility. At the exhibition itself, we had to keep alert for proper matches—offiicial publishing house acquirers who would buy the books’ copyrights for China and NOT undercover creative directors who would copy the Lithuanian books’ innovative educational methods. As such, we had to be very selective with the information we gave away, filtering through layers of conversation to discover the true roles of the various inquirers.

Key Takeaways:

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The publisher gained ~150 workable contacts through the exhibition and subsequently received its first copyright payments in less than a year—a remarkable outcome from a mere three-day presence at the fair.

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