Flo – Literature from North Sea area in Sweden

ended

Flo is a small Swedish publishing house that translates, publishes and market high-end literary fiction from the countries around the North Sea and The North Atlantic (Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, The Faroes, Scotland, Germany and France), with focus on the smaller languages in the area: Bokmål and Nynorsk (Norway), Danish, Icelandic, Faroese and Dutch. Our objective is to present and find a brother market for literary fiction from these countries in Sweden, but also to via our publications increase the attention for certain authorships in the area as a whole, as well as raise the public awareness about the importance of literary translation as art and craftsmanship. Our main activity will be to produce, publish and market ten physical books by authors never before translated into Swedish (accept by us, in some cases). Via recording of audio books and a strong visual concept communicated via elaborated social media strategies, we aim to attract new and younger readers for translated literary fiction in Sweden. We will invite all our authors for visits to Sweden, especially in connection with the international book fair in Gothenburg. Beneficiaries of the project will be Swedish readers, the foreign authors, publishers and agents, the contracted translators and editors, the PR-bureau, the audio book-studio, the printing house, the distributor, and the book shops. We will print each book in a first run of 1 000 copies, and our goal is to sell 600-800 copies of each, with higher goals for at least one of the titles. The expected result is in line with results from earlier publications by us at Flo. To maintain the translation activity and active distribution of literary fiction between the countries of Europe (and the World!) is in our perspective not just a love act contra the higher arts and literature, it is a question of democracy – a vital way to strengthen the bonds and increase the understanding between our countries in a difficult time.