Publish Africa bi-weekly email newsletter debuts 27 June. Subscribe now to catch the first issue

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A gentle reminder that the StreetLib-TNPS bi-weekly newsletter “Publish Africa – the digital advantage” debuts on Thursday June 27. If you’d like to have it land in your inbox every two weeks then subscribe here. Publish Africa is a bi-weekly review of the Pan-African publishing scene across all formats, but with an unashamed tilt towards Read More …

Ebooks delivered the highest percentage of AAP publisher revenue in US adult fiction in 2018

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It will have surprised few that, for the second year running, the StatShot Annual Report of the Association of American Publishers has reported online retail exceeded bricks & mortar stores in delivering revenue to member publishers. And taking a step back, if we allow that most AAP member publishers have a lot of investment in Read More …

220 Taiwanese publishers expected at Taiwan Strait Book Fair in PRC as the two Chinas work towards an integrated publishing sector

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Set for September 20-22 this year the 15th Taiwan Strait Book Fair is being held in Xiamen, Fujian Province in mainland China, alternating each year between Taiwan and the People’s Republic. This year 120 exhibition booths have been set by for Taiwanese publishers, and a total of 220 publishers from Taiwan are expected to participate. Read More …

Madrid Book Fair set new records for sales and attendance. 2.3 million visitors spent $670,588 a day on books this year

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Europe’s biggest book fair wound up earlier this month, and the numbers, actually announced a week ago, have just crossed my desk. 2.3 million people turned out to the Madrid Book Fair this year, spending some 10 million euros ($11.4 million) buying 550,000 books, an increase of 14% on 2018. From TNPS in 2018: Last Read More …

OverDrive’s Sora app sees 240% increase in reading when school digital libraries connect to public libraries. A lesson in giving consumers choice

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At the American Library Association Annual Meeting this month digital library content facilitator Rakuten OverDrive revealed a statistic that bears out a simple truth in any format: More choice of books means more reader engagement. The numbers are startling. Ebook and audiobook reading increased over 240% when students connected their Sora classroom reading app to their local Read More …

Toy Story 4 pays the price for historical indifference to future markets. A lesson publishers can learn from

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Not for the first time, a major Hollywood movie opened in China before the US, but hopes of a stellar performance were dashed. The fourth movie in the hugely successful Toy Story franchise went head to head with a re-release of a 2001 film from Japan, and came out behind. In The Hollywood Reporter’s own Read More …

Google and Snapchat lead the way in driving publisher revenues

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A constant theme here at TNPS is the importance of publishers taking a holistic approach to the business, and looking at and learning from adjacent industries. Publishing is a broad term, of course, so the headline that Google and Snapchat, according to a Digiday survey, are driving publisher revenues does not refer specifically to book Read More …

In the audiobook market stakes, Bookbeat takes a surprise lead, adding 24 markets. Total 28. But this isn’t a gamechanger yet

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With just 50,000 titles Bonnier’s Bookbeat is no match for Audible or Storytel in volume terms, and we shouldn’t see the sudden leap from 4 to 28 markets as a gamechanger for CEO Niclas Sandin. Sandin himself concedes as much. The press release Sandin optimistically states, We believe that the audio book can become one Read More …

Thailand’s Chiang Mai Book Fair kicks off June 28 through July 7. Check out this fine example of indigenous book fair art

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The Chiang Mai Book Fair, as the headline suggests, will be starting June 28 and running through to July 7. Not much information available as to its scale and scope, but I just had to include it here for its adorable artwork. Book fair art often loses sight of its indigenous culture when trying to Read More …

East meets West at the mouth-watering 2019 Macao International Book Fair in July

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With a population of just 640,000 Macao is one of the smaller book markets in Asia, but with the benefit of two strong languages, Portuguese and Chinese, it presents interesting possibilities for publishers both at home and abroad. This year some 20 countries are participating at the Macao International Book Fair (July 4-7) and gourmets Read More …

Boldwood Books goes energetically global with simultaneous ebook, audiobook and POD, but will they still be leaving money on the table?

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With a name like Boldwood Books one really wouldn’t expect anything less than a bold launch of a new publishing operation, and that’s exactly what Amanda Ridout has delivered. While many bigger publishers have chosen to window releases, eschew the benefits of POD, downplay ebooks and carry on with archaic territorial restrictions, Amanda Ridout’s Boldwood Books Read More …

Storytel launches in Germany, leaving Brazil, Thailand and South Korea to come for 2019

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After the launch in Singapore earlier this year, Storytel was widely expected to follow through with Brazil and then Germany. South Korea had been confirmed for end of year, and Thailand, while not yet official, the prime candidate for the fifth new market for 2019. Stefan Tegenfalk, Head of Expansion at Storytel, said in a Read More …

Qatar’s Doha International Book Fair pushes 2019 event back to 2020

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Launched in 1972 as a bi-annual event, the Doha International Book Fair went annual in 2002 and this year will be the first time since that a year has been skipped. Usually scheduled for the end of the year, the 30th incarnation of the event has been pushed back to 9-18 January 2020. The current Read More …

Big Bad Wolf takes millions of English-language books to Taiwan, Myanmar, Indonesia and Pakistan as publishers look the other way

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Big Bad Wolf took 2 million English-language books to Taiwan this month for its second Big Bad Wolf Taipei event. Last year it drew a crowd of 165,000 during its eleven day 24/7 run. That’s a remarkable achievement given all the books were in English. It’s no one-off. Big Bad Wolf on June 10 closed Read More …

Submissions opened for the Sharjah International Book Fair Awards. Deadline September 1

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With Sharjah the World Book Capital this year (check out this interview with Bodour Al Qasimi to find out how that came to be) the Sharjah International Book Fair promises to be even more of a extravaganza than usual. One of the highlights will be the Sharjah International Book Awards. The deadline for submissions is Read More …

StreetLib-TNPS launch “Publish Africa – the digital advantage”. Bi-weekly B2B insights into Africa’s publishing transition

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StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. As ever on such occasions, we re-print the StreetLib Press Release in full below without further TNPS commentary, Read More …

At IPA Seminar Nairobi StreetLib announces a publisher portal for every country in the world

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StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. As ever on such occasions, we re-print the StreetLib Press Release in full below without further TNPS commentary. Read More …

Accra International Book Festival goes global. Appoints West Africa and Asia / Middle East coordinators, days after announcing first children’s book festival

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While the “Africa Rising” IPA Regional Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya will be grabbing the headlines this week, news comes from Ghana that the acclaimed Accra International Book Festival is expanding its horizons. At home it will be launching its first Accra Children’s Book Festival in September, while further afield in Africa Cameroonian Ngalim Jusline Veeyeenyuy Read More …

In advance of the IPA Africa Regional Seminar StreetLib announces plans for a Pan-African Digital Library Hub

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StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. As ever on such occasions, we re-print the StreetLib Press Release in full below without further TNPS commentary. Read More …

OverDrive’s Summer Read incentivises kids to read in the summer break, but elsewhere some stubbornly insist if it’s not ink on paper it’s not real reading

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Teachers invariably view the long summer break from school with mixed feelings. A chance to relax and recharge the batteries on the one hand. On the other, knowing that some of the progress made in the previous academic year will be undone as many children will have fewer opportunities to read. It’s not a problem Read More …