A somewhat biased view on China…
While Dan Brown who wrote the Da Vinci Code would expect to be the most successful author worldwide, Naomi Simmons outsold him by more than two to one!
Naomi Simmons is a best-selling course-book author for English Language Teaching.
I write books for children around the world to teach them English. I have just written 36 books for Chinese children. These teach English through fun stories, songs, poems and raps. It was really challenging to do as all the stories were set in China and had to be both relevant and funny for Chinese children.
Her series of text books for primary school childrren “New Standard English” has sold 105 million copies in China! She says that the success of this series is based on the fact that children gets to read funny stories, sing funny songs and play funny games. The stories - which even made it as cartoons on China Central Television - are a mixture of Chinese Tales and introduction of English culture. Children would learn for example that English people pour milk in their cup of tea or eat peas by piercing them with a fork.
However, unlike Dan Brown who earned more than 425 million USD from royalties (193 million USD for the movie starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, out in China this Friday), Naomi received a fixed commission of ‘only’ 272,000 USD.
Links
China Daily - 2006 05 16
Naomi Simmons’ official website
New Standard English by Naomi Simmons, published MacMillan English
Dan Brown’s official website
Da Vinci Code, the movie
[powered by WordPress.]
[hosted by TodayInChina.]
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:48 am
[…] While Naomi Simmons outsold ‘Da Vinci Code’ in China with her English books for children, Dan Brown is still expected to make a triumph this week-end as the movie is released in China today. The movie is expected to reap more than 60 million of RMB (6 million EUR) in China with tickets selling from 45RMB to 120RMB (4.5 EUR to 12 EUR). However, everybody in China does not welcome this movie… The Patriotic Church of China called the believers for a boycott. They see the movie and the book as insulting. “The movie has many details that go against Catholic teachings or are even insulting,” said Liu Baining, vice-president of the China Patriotic Catholic Association to Xinhua. The movie indeed enraged a lot of believers worldwide with its suggestion that Jesus married and fathered children. I decided to go to Wang Fu Jing (王府井) to watch the movie on Sunday and couldn’t buy a ticket except for the last show times, late in the evening. Was it because all the tickets where sold out? No!!! In fact, you had a few people who bought all the tickets and were selling them just in front of the cinema for 100RMB instead of the official price of 70RMB! So, we left Wang Fu Jing and went to the smaller cinema near the Poly Theater where we had no problem to buy tickets to watch the Da Vinci Code, a good movie but far from amazing… Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]