Italy-based digital books distributor and publishing facilitator StreetLib has completed the third stage of its global roll-out, and now offers an author and publisher portal for every nation in Africa.

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[Press Release] StreetLib completes Pan-African digital footprint. Launches a publisher portal for every nation in Africa.

 
Loreto, Italy 12 March 2019.
The Italy-based digital books distributor StreetLib has completed the third tranche of its global roll-out, announcing it now has a digital publishing portal for every country in Africa.
StreetLib CEO Giacomo D’Angelo said:
This is a major milestone in our pledge to provide an author & publisher portal for every country in the world. This takes our total to 75 countries and we expect to clear 100 countries served by end April and cover the world by end 2019.
Our early focus on Africa is because we believe the global publishing industry has not kept up with the pace of technological development, and regards Africa as a digital backwater not worthy of attention.
That’s understandable. In Year 2000 there were just 4.5 million Africans online. But the 18 years since have seen growth of over 10,000% and today there are over 460 million Africans connecting to the internet, almost all on mobile devices. That’s more than in either the USA, the EU or Latin America.
Our research suggests that figure could top 800 million by 2025.
Already in 2019 Nigeria has more people online than the UK or Germany, while Kenya and Egypt both have more people online than Spain. South Africa is almost on par with Canada, while Morocco, Uganda and Tanzania all have more internet users than Australia.
Ethiopia and Algeria are both on par with the Netherlands, while Sweden, the home of Storytel, is numerically behind Ghana, Senegal and Sudan.
As a gateway distributor StreetLib delivers digital content around the world through its partnership with retailers, digital libraries and subscription services, as well as its own ebook store, which uniquely supports content in all Africa’s indigenous languages.
StreetLib is in talks with African telcos and other organisations across Africa to bring about truly Pan-African distribution, and is talking with African libraries and education authorities to bring digital content to the continent’s rapidly digitising library and education systems.
Giacomo D’Angelo added,
Many African publishers associations do not have their own websites. As part of our commitment to “Realising Africa’s Potential as a Global Publishing Leader in the 21st Century” StreetLib is offering to provide a sponsored website for any African publishing body that needs one.
We invite authors, publishers and publishing industry stakeholders across Africa to partner with us to reach readers across the African continent and around the globe. All with no up-front costs.