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.
For the first time there will be special exhibition areas for digital, audio and animation, and exchanges about online reading platforms on both sides of the Straits.
China.Org reports:

Cross-Strait integrated development of publishing sectors will be high on the agenda of the event, with forums and exchanges to be held.

Over the past 14 years a total of 9 million books have been sold, generating deals worth $66.7 million.
That’s an average of 643,000 books and $4.76 million per event.
Via China.Org
Earlier this year the biggest Taiwan book fair, the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE), clocked a record 580,000 visitors during its six-day run, up 10% on 2017.

Publisher attendance was up 10%, foreign publisher attendance up 13% and TIBE 2019 saw a 27% rise in meetings about copyright authorisation. A total of 35 publishers from 52 countries attended the February event.
Earlier this month Big Bad Wolf made its second trip to Taiwan, taking 2 million English-language books. No attendance figures for this year yet but in 2018 165,000 turned out.

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


Just two more examples among many of a growing interest in books and reading globally.