Originally planned to go live to mark the occasion of the Sharjah International Book Fair later this year, we decided to bring forward the launch of our B2B newsletter for the Middle East North Africa book market after Hugo Setzer, IPA President, announced the IPA Middle East Regional Seminar, to be held in Amman, Jordan, in September.
From the newsletter introduction:
The Middle East Regional Seminar has a strong focus on the digital opportunity, and so we have brought forward the Publish MENA launch to help set the scene for the Amman Seminar.
MENA is geographical term with many interpretations, and by some definitions may include Turkey, Iran and even Afghanistan, but for the purposes of this newsletter consider it to be the Arabic-language book markets.
Publish MENA is published by StreetLib, an Italy-based global gateway aggregator and publishing facilitator for digital books, but this is about all books, all reading and all publishing, not just digital.
That said, as the subheader of the newsletter might suggest, there will be an unashamed tilt towards “the digital advantage”, because that’s where the future of African and Middle East publishing lies – in a hybrid print & digital publishing model that in the next decade can transform MENA’s publishing industry.
Like its sister newsletter Publish Africa, Publish MENA is a joint StreetLib-TNPS production, with the intent to further the debate and allow publishers to make informed decisions about whether they choose to embrace, or eschew, the digital advantage.
The MENA book market is valued at $1.7 billion, with an Arab population of 520 million, 220 million of which are online.
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Read issue #1 by clicking here. It’s free, so feel free to share.
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