Amazon launches full language support for Traditional Chinese outside China, but is the 2007 Bezos vision of “every book ever printed, in any language, available in less than 60 seconds” still on the agenda?

Posted onMay 24, 2019Leave a comment

It was November 2014 when Amazon last launched a new Kindle store, almost seven years to the day from when the Kindle first launched in the US. Kindle Netherlands became the then latest in a seemingly unstoppable roll-out of Kindle stores across the globe and few could doubt that the Bezos doctrine of every book Read More …

Start The Day Global 22 April 2019: Libya, China, Pakistan, Big Bad Wolf Pakistan and South Africa

Posted onApril 22, 2019Leave a comment

Start The Day Global – a round-up of some of the myriad international publishing stories that there isn’t time to develop in full, or that have been well-covered by other industry journals and warrant a referral here. We start the day global today in Libya, perhaps one of the less frequent countries to pop up Read More …

Kindle CN store among the few survivors as Amazon crashes out in China

Posted onApril 19, 2019Leave a comment

Jeff Bezos has on many occasions said he welcomes failure, because failure helps the company rethink and revitalise. That’s not a luxury every company has, but then most companies aren’t Amazon. From the Firephone to holidays to diapers, not everything Jeff Bezos touches turns to gold. This week comes news that the latest admission of Read More …

Marvel’s China-first strategy is a lesson western publishers can learn from

Posted onApril 3, 2019April 27, 2019Leave a comment

Marvel’s newest superhero movie, Avengers: Endgame, launches across the world in April, and is predicted by some optimists to be the first Hollywood movie to break the half billion dollar mark at the US box office. Given none has yet broken the $400 million mark, that’s wildly ambitious. Observes The Hollywood Reporter, The biggest U.S. Read More …

Is China now the biggest book market, redux. Alibaba says 30 million new Chinese readers were added in 2018

Posted onJanuary 13, 2019April 19, 2019Leave a comment

While one report citing a $55 billion value for the Chinese book market cannot be taken as gospel, a new report from China’s online giant Alibaba adds weight to the possibility the USA’s claim to be the world’s largest book market is now out of date. As reported here at TNPS a few days ago, Read More …

China ended 2018 with 225,000 bookstores and a $55 billion valuation. Has China usurped the US as the world’s largest publishing market?

Posted onJanuary 11, 2019April 19, 2019Leave a comment

The latest report from China’s Books and Periodicals Distribution Association tells us China finished the year with 225,000 bookstores and outlets, up 4.3% on 2017, with total sales revenue of 370.4 billion yuan ($54.7 billion), up 5.9% on 2017. The Chinese government has played a big role in supporting publishing recently, as Xinhua reports: Private bookstores Read More …

Chinese bot translates 300-page book from English to Chinese in 30 seconds with 95% accuracy

Posted onOctober 17, 20185 Comments

This is a post that will send shivers down the spines of translators everywhere. First the bad news (if you’re a translator – great news if you’re a publisher!). India’s YourStory reports that a 300-page book written in English by Indian author Srinivas Mahankali, totaling 100,000 words, was translated into Mandarin by automated software in Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed – 12 September collation

Posted onSeptember 13, 2018Leave a comment

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. They do make the TNPS twitter feed. Follow TNPS on twitter here: @thenewpubstd. But twitter is an ephemeral beast. Blink and you miss it. Still, Read More …

The Week in Review

Posted onAugust 26, 2018Leave a comment

Here’s a summary of TNPS posts from the past seven days. UK small publishers find new ways to survive as chain bookstores turn them away HarperCollins’ Harlequin launches romance book website in Australia The Mogadishu Book Fair: an oasis of tranquility in a troubled land Small presses and self-publishers left stranded by collapse of Read More …

Publishing Perspectives’ interview with the Beijing IBF’s director. The Hot Sheet’s take on indie author access to China

Posted onAugust 26, 2018April 27, 2019Leave a comment

Given China is by any measure the second largest book market in the world, it should come as no surprise that the Beijing International Book Fair is one of the largest and most important publishing events in the world. To coincide with the event, Publishing Perspectives ran an insightful interview with the Beijing IBF Director, Read More …

The Week In Review

Posted onAugust 19, 2018Leave a comment

Here’s a summary of TNPS posts from the past seven days. Big Bad Wolf shows the world’s demand for English-language titles, taking 2 million books to Taiwan this week Brazil’s São Paulo Biennial disappointed with fewer visitors (“only” 663,000) but they spent 33% more Amazon to open a Customer Service Centre in Colombia in October, Read More …

Least likely headline you’ll see this year: Ebook company buys film studio for $2.5 bn

Posted onAugust 16, 20181 Comment

Being the former ebook subsidiary of Tencent has its benefits. Buying your own film studio, for example. But actually China Literature, the former ebook arm of Tencent, didn’t need parental help to secure the deal. After a $1 billion IPO in November 2017 – Tencent’s China Literature IPO the biggest in a decade China Literature Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed – 12 August collation

Posted onAugust 12, 2018Leave a comment

China’s curvy new bookstore floats in the clouds

Posted onJuly 13, 2018April 27, 2019Leave a comment

When it comes to embracing digital reading, China is the world leader, with more ebook readers, more digital authors, and bigger ebook stores than anywhere else on the planet. But print, here as everywhere, is still king, and despite the fact that the Chinese live more of their lives on their smartphones than any other Read More …

7 million users in the Philippines as Wattpad’s Tencent-backed Asia plans step up a gear

Posted onMay 6, 2018April 22, 2019Leave a comment

The Philippines has long been one of Wattpad’s strongholds, but this month comes news from Manila Bulletin that fully 7 million of Wattpad’s 65+ million users around the world are from that one country. After the latest $51 million round of Wattpad funding in January, with a substantial portion coming from China’s Tencent – Tencent Read More …

Publishing News Round-Up 1 May 2018

Posted onMay 1, 2018Leave a comment

It would be impossible to try cover even a fraction of the publishing news that lands on my e-desk each day, but there’s so much happening in our industry that passes unnoticed. So here’s a selection of some of today’s best publishing stories. Apologies if some are behind pay-walls. Amazon Launches Kids’ (Hardcover) Subscription Service. Read More …

As Amazon launches Prime Reading in China, a predicted $5.3 bn valuation will make the China ebook market far bigger than the US by 2020

Posted onApril 19, 2018April 18, 20191 Comment

IDBoox of France covers the story that the Chinese ebook market will be worth $5.3 billion by 2020, reporting on a study conducted by Chinese e-commerce giant Dangdang and Analysys which predicts annual growth for the Chinese ebook market of 29.8%. $5.3 billion would value the China ebook market at $2 billion more than Data Read More …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed. 16 April 2018 collation

Posted onApril 16, 2018Leave a comment

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 …

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

Posted onApril 2, 2018Leave a comment