The fun is over and the reckoning begins. The 26th Beijing International Book Fair was by all accounts a tremendous success, not withstanding the shadows of Hong Kong and the US-China trade war. It’s unclear what, if any, impact the situation in Hong Kong had on the Beijing IBF, but we can safely say the Read More …
The 2019 Beijing International Book Fair is looming, and it promises to be the most significant yet as, against a background of a US-China trade war, some 2,600 exhibitors from 95 nations and regions showcase their wares in a country not so long ago considered a pariah state in the publishing world. This year Romania Read More …
The joint StreetLib-TNPS bi-weekly newsletter Publish Africa – the digital advantage released its third issue today. Publish Africa is a bi-weekly review of the Pan-African publishing scene across all formats, but with an unashamed tilt towards the digital opportunity unfolding. Written by TNPS Editor-in-Chief Mark Williams in The Gambia, West Africa and published by Italy-based global Read More …
Leaving aside any debate about the rights and wrongs of the US-China trade dispute and tariffs being imposed by both sides, the dispute has brought to the fore the unhealthy reliance of US publishers on China – or more specifically of US publishers that have their books printed in China. An estimated 150 million Bibles Read More …
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. Read More …
Not for the first time, a major Hollywood movie opened in China before the US, but hopes of a stellar performance were dashed. The fourth movie in the hugely successful Toy Story franchise went head to head with a re-release of a 2001 film from Japan, and came out behind. In The Hollywood Reporter’s own Read More …
With a population of just 640,000 Macao is one of the smaller book markets in Asia, but with the benefit of two strong languages, Portuguese and Chinese, it presents interesting possibilities for publishers both at home and abroad. This year some 20 countries are participating at the Macao International Book Fair (July 4-7) and gourmets Read More …
It was back in 2015 that China jumped the US to take top spot for the most cinema goers. Hardly surprising, given China’s 1.4 billion population. But the film industry wallowed in the complacency that in dollar terms – the only metric that matters for some – the US was unassailable. Not any more. The Read More …
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 – 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 …
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 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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
