Bangladesh began 2021 with just 58.4% of its population online, which sounds pitiful until you realise 58.4% means 96 million people online. For comparison the UK has just 63 million people online. One wonders if publishers have any idea of the opportunity they are turning their backs on.
While much of the world has embraced, or at least woken up to, the digital advantage as the pandemic has taken its toll across the global publishing industry, some parts of the world have remained immune to digital’s charms. Not least Bangladesh.
This week came news the annual Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, the country’s largest cultural event, after much juggling of options –
has settled on March 18 as launch day for the month-long event that usually happens every February.
Squeezing in the open-air book fair before Ramadan and the rainy season kick in means sacrificing footfall as the pandemic continues to ravage the country, but any chance of a hybrid in-person and digital fair this year was scuppered in December when publishers shouted down proposals for a digital version of the time-honoured event.
As argued here at TNPS at the time, the decision to deliberately eschew digital opportunities serves no-one’s long term interests and treats Bangladeshi consumers with contempt, but what will be will be.
This past week one government minister, Dr. Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, speaking as the chief guest at the general annual meeting of Bangladesh Book Publishers and Sellers Association, went even father, explaining that in his humble opinion,
the joy of reading a printed book and reading a book on a computer or mobile screen is not same. The attraction of the book will always remain.
And that, per BSSNews,
Publishers need to focus on increasing number of printed books through the use of advanced technology.
Further Razzaque,
underlined the need for finding out ways to sustain the publishing industry by tackling challenges.
Now one might think, after almost a full year of a global pandemic in which almost every country has seen interest in digital reading soar, Bangladeshi publishers might want to be looking at their options. But t seems that isn’t going to happen this year. At least not for the majority of Bangladeshi publishers.
And while that makes sense to the extent that Bangladeshi publishers have few options to reach audiences with any digital books they might produce, to cling so tenaciously to the past it to miss an opportunity not just to reach the domestic audience, but also a global one.
Bangladesh began 2021 with just 58.4% of its population online, which sounds pitiful until you realise 58.4% means 96 million people online. For comparison the UK has just 63 million people online. One wonders if publishers have any idea of the opportunity they are turning their backs on.
