South Korea Guest of Honour at Sweden’s Göteborg Book Fair next week. 90,000 visitors expected

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Running September 26-29 this year, the annual Göteborg Book Fair has South Korea as Guest of Honour, and the Korean Publishers Association has shared some of the delights lined up. With 90,000 visitors expected the Göteborg Book Fair (Gothenburg Book Fair) is the largest cultural event in Scandinavia, and this year has the themes “Gender Equality” Read More …

Scholastic adds its children’s and YA list to the OverDrive digital library catalogue

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Scholastic has boosted Rakuten OverDrive’s schools ebook catalogue with Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man and a host of other bestselling titles including perennial classics like RL Stine’s Goosebumps, and series like The Baby-Sitters Club Very little detail on the OverDrive blog to add to this story right now, just some genre summaries and a handful of Read More …

South East Asia Book Fair underway in… South Korea

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The South East Asia Book Fair is underway, running September 18-22 at the Convention and Exhibition Center (COEX) in the South Korean capital Seoul. For anyone feeling the need to rush off to Google Maps, fearing some high-speed continental drift has been happening since you left school, no South Korea is not in South East Read More …

Sweden’s Storytel becomes Finland’s third largest publisher with acquisition of Gummerus Kustannus

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Storytel is best known globally for its digital books streaming service, now covering eighteen markets, and with big plans for further expansion in the next decade. But CEO Jonas Tellander is a big fan of the hybrid print and digital model, as his press release reporting the acquisition of Gummerus for an undisclosed sum makes Read More …

Digital now delivers 56% of revenue for car manual publisher Haynes

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If we’ve ever been bold enough to try some car maintenance we’ve probably has an oil-covered Haynes manual precariously balanced on the engine block. At least, back in the days when car engines and computers were different planets. Nowadays of course, cars can seem more microchip than are mechanical, so perhaps it’s not so surprising Read More …

Publish MENA – the digital advantage #4 is hitting inboxes this weekend

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The joint StreetLib-TNPS bi-weekly newsletter Publish MENA – the digital advantage released its fourth issue just before the weekend. Publish MENA is a bi-weekly review of the Middle East North Africa Arab publishing scene across all formats, but with an unashamed tilt towards the digital opportunity unfolding. Publish MENA #4 is the usual mix of developments within the Read More …

Start The Day Global with the Treviso Comic Book Fest, the Atomium Awards, Graphic Novels and Social Injustice and the 50th anniversary of Scooby Doo

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We Start The Day Global today in Italy, where the 16th Treviso Comic Book Festival is set for September 26-29 The (auto-translated) press release tells that, the international illustration and comic event, will bring the great names of the seventh art and guests from all over the world to the chief town of the Marca Read More …

Storytel finally launches in Brazil, hard on the heels of the low-key Confama partnership in Colombia

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Later than anticipated, Storytel finally launches in Brazil in what it its second full country presence in Latin America, but its third operation in the region if you count the partnership with Confama in Colombia. And by extension Storytel’s 18th full country presence, or 19th if Colombia is counted. It would seem that for now Read More …

The emergence of a Nation: Romani Literature to debut with a Gipsy Pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair

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Calling itself part of Europe’s largest minority group (25 million people), the International Roma Writers Union (IRWA) will make its first appearance at the Frankfurt Book fair this year, taking its rightful place as part of Europe’s cultural heritage. According to a press release the International Roma Writers Union is the, only professional organisation for Read More …

US-based self-publishing aggregator PublishDrive changes payment model for authors

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Originating from Hungary, now based in the US, PublishDrive is the youngest of the new breed of aggregators born of the digital self-publishing revolution, offering a pay-as-you-sell service for authors and small presses. That is, until this week. Now PublishDrive has distanced itself from its competitors with a new four-tier finance model for authors and Read More …

Digital now accounts for 23% of the Norwegian book market as book sales increase across the board, with print fiction up 42%

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One of the elegant beauties of digital is that it drives interest in all books, not just the format. Digital offers consumers new discovery points and streaming services give consumers the chance to try new authors at no risk, that lead to new sales across formats. The latest example comes from Norway where first quarter Read More …

Big Bad Wolf returns to Dubai in October, with 3 million books

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Very few details available right now, but with one month to go it’s now official that Big Bad Wolf, the Malaysia-based flash-book-sale operation that takes literally millions of English-language books to countries that routinely do not speak English, is back in the UAE in October for its second run. As with the debut event in Read More …

Canongate’s “rewarding year” with “record breaking backlist sales” and ebook, audio, and global sales all rising is part of a bigger picture

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After several years of ebook sales “plateauing” as publishers increased ebook prices to avoid cannibalizing print sales, and audio grabbing the headlines as the only digital format that mattered, ebooks have been gradually edging their way back into the publishing news. This week comes an announcement from the UK’s Canongate that ebook sales were up Read More …

India’s Pratham Books “Doubles the Fun” as it marks International Literacy Day with its annual One Day, One Story event

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September 8 is International Literacy Day, and around the world events are happening to mark the occasion and boost awareness of the issue. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include, at #4, the target of achieving literacy around the world, and while of course that includes adult literacy, the key to a literate world is Read More …

Marvel Avengers comic banned at Brazil’s Rio book fair because of a gay kiss

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Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, published between 2010-12 in the US, has been available in Brazil in Portuguese, without controversy, as Vingadores: A Cruzada Das Crianças, since 2016 through Editorial Salvat and Panini Comics. That is, until this week at the Rio Biennial (the Rio International Book Fair) when the Mayor of Rio, Marcelo Crivella, came Read More …

Culture Minister leads call to embrace the digital opportunity at the Ghana International Book Fair

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The 17th Ghana International Book Fair (GIBF) has not long wound up, and by all accounts it was a vibrant and rewarding event, not withstanding a dark cloud emerging over publishers holding unwanted school textbooks. With the theme “Reaching the World Market through Effective Book Distribution Networks” it was inevitable the question of the digital Read More …

Netflix Belgium’s first Original is from a Polish book. Far from video streaming killing off publishing, it is driving the Global New Renaissance

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It was never going to stand up to scrutiny, but whenever publisher sales dip an excuse is rolled out to explain it’s not the industry’s fault. Elections, screen fatigue, social media, bingeing on Netflix… Maybe the publishing industry spokesfolk tasked with putting a spin on the bad news should just number the excuses. Sales down Read More …

“Publish Africa – the digital advantage” # 6 is now available

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The joint StreetLib-TNPS bi-weekly B2B newsletter Publish Africa – the digital advantage released its sixth edition today. Publish Africa is a bi-weekly review of the Pan-African publishing scene across all formats, but with an unashamed tilt towards the digital opportunity unfolding. If you’re not a subscriber you can find the latest edition here. To subscribe, Read More …

A library on a bus – Rwanda Bookmobile Initiative is a great idea, but its argument against digital is flawed and unnecessary

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Targetting remote primary schools, and carrying books in Kinyarwanda, French, and English, NGO Rwanda Bookmobile Initiative is a mobile library taking books to parts of the country where books are hard to come by. There’s little to fault and much to praise in this initiative, launched last week. Pacifique Mahirwe, Director of Rwanda Bookmobile Initiative, Read More …

Asia Foundation launches Let’s Read Project in Myanmar

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Let’s Read is an initiative by the Asia Foundation to bring the joy of reading to children across Asia who otherwise do not have easy access to books. In many parts of the world “book scarcity” is a major obstacle to social development and literacy because young children who might otherwise learn to read simply Read More …