And they believe that the Frankfurt book fair, the world's biggest with more than 9,000 publishers from 110 countries, is the ideal place to clinch the elusive contract. The book has an entry on itself as the world's biggest-selling copyright book.
It has now sold 89 million copies in every language from Macedonian to Icelandic.
China is the one market we haven't been able to get into. The potential there is enormous, said Fred Buxton, sales and marketing director of Guinness Publishing.
I shall be talking to agents for China at the fair. I would love to clinch a deal before I leave Frankfurt, he said.
Guinness, one of international publishing's most durable success stories, is now into its 41st year. It all began when Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the famous brewery, was out shooting in Ireland and got into a dispute about whether the golden plover ranked as Europe's fastest game bird. Beaver, arguing that records invariably started pub and bar disputes the world over, decided it was time to produce the ultimate reference book for superlatives.
Twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, who were running a fact-finding agency for English newspapers, proved to be the perfect choice as editors.
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The book has a built-in obsolescence factor which puts it back in the bestseller lists every year.
Twenty-five per cent of it is updated each year. People have an insatiable thirst for records and aspiring to beat them. Every age group enjoys the book and it genuinely is a household word around the world, Buxton said.