Celebrating our International Partners on our 25th Anniversary: Norbert Uzseka at the Lex Copyright Office (Hungary)

In 2017 we are celebrating the 25 th anniversary of our founding. From the very beginning, Berrett-Koehler books have been widely translated to many different languages and wonderfully received all over the world. Over the years, we have signed over two thousand foreign translation rights deals. We could not have done this without the tireless work of our translation rights agents around the globe. As part of our year-long celebration, we will be featuring one of these foreign partners every month.  We asked each of them to provide us with a few words describing their experiences working with BK.

In October we are celebrating our partnership with Norbert Uzseka at the Lex Copyright Office in Budapest. Hungary may be a small market, but our books do exceedingly well there. We are fortunate to count on Norbert's expertise to place our titles, and our business there has doubled since Norbert started working with us. Here is what Norbert wrote to us about his partnership with Berrett-Koehler:

Eleven years ago I attended my first Frankfurt Book Fair. I was new and green so when my Serbian colleague introduced me to Maria Jesus Aguilo, I knew nothing of Berrett-Koehler Publishing. But that was the day when we started working together, on a non-exclusive basis. Later I got to know Catherine Lengronne, too, and though we only meet at book fairs, for short half hours, half hour by half hour I realized a lot about these two wonderful women and BK – a lot that makes me proud and happy to be their Hungarian sub-agent. On both personal and professional levels I see that BK and its people do things as things should be done, things that the world needs. At first I thought BK is about business books, but after getting to know the list, I realized that even the most-businessy-books they publish are also focused on what could be done for this world to be a better place. I’m proud to try my best to sell these books over here, books that show such a high level of consciousness and helpfulness. As a sub-agency, we represent tons of books for a tiny market, so it’s a rare pleasure and honor to work for books that really mean something important. Thanks, BK! J

As for Catherine and Maria Jesus, I’ve found they both share BK’s mentality of being thoughtful, open-minded and attentive. If you’ve ever taken a look into BK’s catalogues, you must have realized how thoughtfully these are made. Be a publisher or a sub-agent, you’ll easily find the information you need. But these two ladies are also kind and neat. I love our meetings, as, even in the most chaotic hours of the book fairs, they are calm and know what they have to tell about the new books – but we can also chat on a bit more personal level.

So I congratulate Berrett-Koehler Publishers on the 25th anniversary, and I wish you guys much-much more! The world needs your books and your kind personalities!

We are very grateful to Norbert and his colleagues at the Lex Copyright Office, and look forward to many more years of fruitful collaboration.