India’s Kolkata International Book Fair wound up earlier this week and the numbers are in: 2.3 million visitors spent 230 million rupees (US$ 3.2 million) on books in twelve days. Given the price of books in India the volume must have been huge. This just weeks after 900,000 turned out to the New Delhi World Book Read More …
If it’s February it must be the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela in Bangladesh, an annual festival of books that runs the entire month of February. Last year the boi mela sold books to the USD equivalent of just shy of $10 million. But hands up anyone who has Bangladesh on their book market bucket list? Read More …
When StreetLib launched The New Publishing Standard in September 2017 we made clear the function of the journal was to stimulate debate about the much-neglected global book markets. It was not a StreetLib promotional tool, and not a vehicle to advocate digital at the expense of traditional formats. But occasionally StreetLib becomes part of the Read More …
Last year the Washington National Book Festival clocked a record 200,000 visitors. The Cairo International Book fair has just beaten that in its first two days, averaging 108,500 visitors a day, despite cold weather and a venue that, because of renovations at the usual location, is challenging some would-be attendees. UK’s Bradford Lit Fest and Read More …
Taking place for the first time in the Fifth Settlement, the just launched 50th Cairo International Book Fair is hoping to set a new world record for visitor numbers, with extra days added to the usually 12-day event. According to Egypt Today, Haitham al-Haj, chairman of the General Egyptian Book Organization. expects the extra days to Read More …
We’re now well into our fifth year without a new Kindle store being launched – the last was the Netherlands in November 2014 – and there seems little prospect of any new Kindle store launches in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Amazon Prime Video is available pretty much everywhere in the world, and this week comes Read More …
Given the Jeddah International Book Fair ran from December 26 through January 5, we can only attribute five days worth of the 475,000 visitors to the 2019 book fair count, but even so we’re looking at about a quarter million booklovers descending on an Arab book fair so far in 2019, and we’re still less Read More …
When it comes to judging the potential of the so-called nascent book markets, attendance at book fairs and festivals is a good barometer. First we have to divest ourselves of the idea that national and international book fairs all take the form of the celebrated western book fairs like Frankfurt, London and New York, which Read More …
At the best of times the logistics of setting up the world’s biggest book fair are problematic. Accommodating over four million eager booklovers over fourteen days is a challenge no other book fair on the planet has to face. And yes, we are talking Cairo, Egypt, in Afraica, which in defiance of the widely held Read More …
Storytel ends 2018 on a positive note, with a deal to produce 600 audiobooks from titles in the 4,000-strong catalogue of one of the most prestigious publishers in the Arab world, Dar El-Shorouk. Cairo-based Dar El-Shorouk publishes award-winning Arabic authors such as Bahaa Taher, Hisham Mattar, Youssef Ziedan, Alaa Al-Aswany, Ahdaf Soueif, Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Ahmed Read More …
It all seemed so unlikely. Twin brothers in Nigeria, one an author, one a musician, decide to distribute their and other artists contents through a micro-aggregator called Publiseer. Only launched in Lagos in August 2017, twins Chidi and Chika Nwaogu have since expanded their operation to Kenya, Ghana and most recently South Africa. Now we Read More …
Here’s a second chance to see the TNPS post from the past seven days. Start the Day Global – 30 September 2018 Sweden’s Storytel Arabia partners with Jordan’s Jamalon to expand MENA audiobook reach Nigerian student writer wins trip to Sharjah International Book fair. They never had prizes like that when I was a kid! Read More …
The Egyptian Publishers Union (EPU) has said that piracy costs Egypt’s publishers LE 300 million ($16.8 million) annually. EPU Chairman Saead Abdo said, This illegal act harms Egypt’s reputation abroad and at the same time undermines the rights of publishers and authors. The 130 titles seized in a warehouse in the city of Shubra al-Kheima Read More …
In case you missed any, the past week’s posts from TNPS: As the National Library of Paraguay gets a new Director, Paraguay’s publishing future is digital 2020 World Book Capital’s censorship double standards: It’s one rule for Malay titles and another if the book is in English Mark Williams At Large Amsterdam’s Festival voor het Afrikaans Read More …
The Amman International Book Fair is underway in Jordan this week as the Arab book fair season gathers momentum. Although smaller fairs like Al Ain in the UAE are already playing to an enthusiastic crowd – Abu Dhabi’s 10th Al Ain Book Fair is underway as the Arab book fair season gathers pace the Jordan Read More …
You couldn’t make it up. The world’s biggest book fair is in a part of the world where, so conventional wisdom has it, nobody reads. Egypt’s Cairo International Book Fair will celebrate its 50th edition in January, with the Arab League as guest of honour for this special event, and literally millions of visitors will 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 …
We’re just a few weeks shy of the first anniversary of The New Publishing Standard, and if I had to identify one regret at how things have progressed this past eleven months it would be that I’ve not had the time to pursue and develop the many smaller and quirkier international publishing stories that have Read More …
Here’s a summary of TNPS posts from the past seven days. Book reading down slightly in New Zealand. More than half read NZ authors Storytel Brazil 2019 launch whispers grows louder Spanish book market valued at minimum $2.7 billion. Paperback and ebook sales both rising Côte d’Ivoire: francophone Africa publishing insights Is Amazon preparing a Read More …
In November it will be four years since Amazon launched a Kindle store (Netherlands, November 2014), and as I’ve speculated on several occasions here at TNPS, it seemed mostly unlikely there were any new Kindle store launches being planned. Amazon has set up token operations in Singapore and Vietnam, is opening a call centre in Read More …
