Category: Bangladesh

With no new Harry Potter books, Pottermore sales and revenue declines as Harry Potter remains inaccessible to much of the globe

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It’s been a while since the release of The Cursed Child, the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and the Hogwarts Library digital audiobook, and revenues have been hit, as The Bookseller reports. In the period, revenues were £32.8m, down from the previous year’s £40.3m. Pretax profit was £3.4m, compared with £3.5m. Nevertheless, the result showed that Pottermore Read More …

Bangladesh Book Fair in Kolkata sets the scene for Kolkata IBF and the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela

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On any given day there are more book fairs and festivals happening around the world than anyone could keep track of, where readers, authors and publishers congregate, seemingly oblivious to our quaint western notion that, if books aren’t being sold in bookstores or on Amazon then, well, nobody in that country reads. Take the 8th Read More …

Another Bangladeshi author and publisher killed by extremists

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After a lull of a couple of years it looks like Islamic extremists have returned to their most brutal form of censorship – murdering authors and publishers that dare take a different view. In 2015 atheist author and blogger Avijit Roy was murdered at the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela (Dhaka International Book fair), followed by Read More …

While publishers limit their reach with archaic C20 territorial rights, Big Bad Wolf shows us the global demand for English-language books

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With a population of 20 million Sri Lanka is bigger by population than all but eight countries in Europe. That alone ought to put Sri Lanka on the radar of publishers as a lucrative market. Its 16.6 million Sinhala speakers is close to the population of the Netherlands. Its 4.7 million Tamil speakers give it Read More …

20 World Book Day stories not to be missed

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Unless you’ve been riding camels in the Gobi Desert in Outer Mongolia, snorkeling in the warm seas around Trinidad & Tobago, on safari in Botswana’s Kalahari, or relaxing on the Caspian Sea beaches of Azerbaijan, you cannot help but have noticed it was World Book Day this week. In fact, even if you were in Read More …

Six weeks after the world’s longest book fair ended Bangladesh is at it again

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Happy New Year! In Bangladesh, that is, where 1425 has just begun, and among myriad celebrations to celebrate the New Year is a ten day book fair organised by the Bangla Academy. A book fair in Bangladesh? If you’re new here you could be forgiven for wondering if they even have bookstores in Bangladesh, such Read More …

While all eyes are on the London Book Fair this week, in the thirty days either side of the LBF over 13 million people are visiting book fairs around the globe

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The London Book Fair is underway, and there’s no question it’s one of the most important trade book fairs of the year. But these big trade events (the London Book Fair, the New York Book Expo, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the Frankfurt Book Fair, etc,) are just that – trade-focussed events where public access Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed. 11 April 2018 collation

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The global publishing market has never been more exciting, and every day myriad publishing stories cross my screen that I’d love to develop here at TNPS, but there simply isn’t time. But if you’re reading TNPS in the first place you probably share my obsession with all things international publishing, and would no doubt enjoy Read More …

Penguin Random House India asks Bangladeshi authors to write in English

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I so hate this time of year. April Fool’s Day is a minefield for international news, where time zones painfully elongate the period in which improbable news stories may or may not be true, leaving me needing to treble-check sources and then I’m still juggling the odds I’ve fallen for some prank news story. So Read More …

4.5 million English-language books are pulling in 750,000 booklovers in… Indonesia

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There are any number of contenders for the claim to be the most unlikely book event ever. But a front runner for the crown must be the Indonesia Big Bad Wolf event this year. Indonesia’s biggest book sale is underway right now in Jakarta, and as ever its 24-hour non-stop book-buying. Last year 40,000 a day Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed. 2 April 2018 collation

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The global publishing market has never been more exciting, and every day myriad publishing stories cross my screen that I’d love to develop here at TNPS, but there simply isn’t time. But if you’re reading TNPS in the first place you probably share my obsession with all things international publishing, and would no doubt enjoy Read More …

The world’s biggest book sale moves to Indonesia. And this time it’s 5.5 million books. 2018 is the year of the Big Bad Wolf

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The Big Bad Wolf debuted in the Philippines last month, taking 2 million books to the World Trade Centre in Pasay City, Manila for a ten day non-stop (literally, 24/7) book sale that had Filipinos queuing for two hours just to pay for the books they had selected. As one Filipino booklover reminisced in the Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed. 17 March 2018 collation

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The global publishing market has never been more exciting, and every day myriad publishing stories cross my screen that I’d love to develop here at TNPS, but there simply isn’t time. I also have a rule that I don’t repeat a story published elsewhere on the western English-language publishing circuit unless I can offer some Read More …

Bangladesh Amar Ekushey Boi Mela sells $9.6 million of books in 28 day event

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The world’s longest duration book fair drew to a  close this week. The annual Amar Ekushey Boi Mela runs for the entire length of February, and this year broke records for book sales despite early controversy over payment methods allowed at the event. When I reported in early February that the Bangla Academy, the organiser Read More …

Using literature to connect countries and cultures – the Second South Asian Literature Conference ends

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The second South Asian Literature Now conference in Dhaka ended Friday, after two days of discussion on South Asian poetry, language and translation. Lamenting that, Various parts of South Asia are still isolated and people know little about their literary works, Prof Emeritus Rafiqul Islam of the Bangladesh University of Liberal Arts opened the ceremony Read More …

Augmented reality, educational games for science textbooks, and a Youtube channel. The Bangladesh book fair delivers more surprises

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The month-long Amar Ekushey Boi Mela book festival in Dhaka is among many other things an opportunity for publishers to release new books, and every day the list of new titles has been mounting. But this past week three innovative new additions to the list came in the form of a Youtube video, a science Read More …

World’s biggest book sale heading to Bangladesh, Dubai, Korea and Taiwan this year

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As reported here at TNPS last week, the world’s biggest book sale, the Big Bad Wolf, debuted in the Philippines, marking the start of a ten country tour. Shopping at Barnes & Noble was never like this. Bring comfy clothes, a suitcase, a friend and lots of stamina for the world’s biggest book sale As Read More …

Dhaka Book Fair organisers in High Court over Bkash monopoly

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The world’s longest duration book fair, the month-long Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, is mired in legal controversy this week, following a High Court ruling. As reported here earlier this month – Mobile payments net booklovers extra discount at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, paving the way for future ebook stores the Bangla Academy, the body behind Read More …

Arab Renaissance 4: Saudi Arabia’s first Arts Book Fair is underway as Casablanca IBF opens and Cairo IBF closes. Publishers look the other way

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Reading the Anglophone publishing industry blogs one might think there are only a handful of literary events going on around the world. While Taiwan’s Taipei fair has received significant coverage, you’d struggle to find news and perspectives on the Havana Book Fair in Cuba, still running, or the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela in Bangladesh, or Read More …

Mobile payments net booklovers extra discount at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, paving the way for future ebook stores

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One of the biggest challenges to the digital transition in the so-called Third World is payments. In countries where cash is king, even though smartphones are everywhere, paying for any sort of e-commerce is difficult if you don’t have a bank account and plastic card. Mobile payment solutions as we know them in the west Read More …