A meeting at the 2013 Frankfurt Book Fair has resulted in Greystone Books acquiring international English-language rights to More Than Honey: The Survival of Bees and the Future of our World. Co-written by Swiss filmmaker Markus Imhoof and environmental author Claus-Peter Lieckfeld, the book is based on Imhoof’s similarly titled Academy Award–nominated documentary.

“I am very excited to see my book translated in English,” Imhoof says. “The book offers a deeper understanding of a lot of background information in the film, and the film brings emotion to the information in the book.”

Originally published in 2012 by Germany’s Orange Press, More Than Honey is slated for Canadian and U.S. publication in fall 2015, in an English translation by Jamie McIntosh. Greystone’s edition will be an English idiomatic version of the original German publication, with the addition of close-up images by photographers Heidi and Hans-Jürgen Koch.

“We’ve actually been spending quite a bit of time and more resources talking with publishers from Germany over the last few years,” says Greystone publisher and acquiring editor Rob Sanders. “It’s the environmental issue that attracted us and it fits perfectly with what we’re trying to do at Greystone. After soliciting readings, we decided that it’s a book we felt we could do something with.”

Like the critically acclaimed film, the book sheds light on bee-colony collapse, an epidemic plaguing honeybee populations worldwide, but the print version incorporates research left over from the making of the documentary.

“A lot of the material could not find a place in the 90 minutes of the film,” says Imhoof. “I was too exhausted to
go through it all again for the book and also didn’t want to just throw it away. We discussed a possible structure of the book … and worked together on the writing by distance.”

Sanders hopes readers will relate the book’s title to the documentary, allowing the publisher to capitalize on the praise the film has received internationally.

At last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Sanders, who says the material is already in the hands of “quite a few people,” met with publishers from the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand interested in buying territorial English-language rights, and  plans to keep them involved throughout the production process in hopes of joint print runs.

“It’s an important book,” says Sanders. “It fits our list perfectly, and it further secures ongoing relationships with international publishers, which is also something we’re trying to do.” – Becky Robertson