Marvel has confirmed a Muslim superhero named Ms Marvel – Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan – will star in a live-action series on Disney+. Very few details available right now, and one can only wonder if this is more about political correctness and the need to appear “inclusive”, rather than a genuine realisation the world needs Read More …
One would think a country like Indonesia, not noted for its reading reputation, might soon get tired of a Malaysian company turning up with millions (literally) of English-language books in eleven-day 24/7 flash sales. But if there is a limit, Big Bad Wolf has yet to reach it. Not content with taking 5.5 million books Read More …
Big Bad Wolf’s debut event wound up in South Korea yesterday. No news yet on how many turned out for the 24/7 eleven day sale of 2 million English-language books, but I’d be very surprised if we don’t see the Big Bad Wolf team organise a second South Korea event before this year is out. Read More …
Big Bad Wolf took 2 million English-language books to Taiwan this month for its second Big Bad Wolf Taipei event. Last year it drew a crowd of 165,000 during its eleven day 24/7 run. That’s a remarkable achievement given all the books were in English. It’s no one-off. Big Bad Wolf on June 10 closed Read More …
Italy-based digital books distributor and publishing facilitator StreetLib has partnered Singapore’s STARY to deliver content to its mobile reading apps Dreame and FicFun with strong followings in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and South Africa. Full disclosure: The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) is published by StreetLib to further the debate about Read More …
When Big Bad Wolf debuted in Indonesia in 2016, regional organiser Uli Silalahi of PT Jaya Retail was not convinced the event had legs. Usually book exhibitions are only 3 days with a total of 5 thousand visitors. But here was Big Bad Wolf suggesting not just a twelve day book sale open 24 hours. 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 …
The world’s biggest book fair is happening right now in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar. In the standard Big Bad Wolf international format, Andrew Yap and Jacqueline Ng have taken 2 million new English-language books to Myanmar, where a crowd of 500,000 is expected. Yes, read that twice. 2 million new English-language books have Read More …
I frequently hear from TNPS readers that they wish they’d known about a particular book fair, festival or other literary event and its background in advance so they could have attended, or organised something on social media to mark the occasion. So this will be the first of an occasional series looking at events well Read More …
There are three contenders for “the” global publishing story of the year here at TNPS, and regulars will not be surprised to learn Big Bad Wolf is among them. But unless one of the other two produce a remarkable rabbit from a hat in the next two months then Big Bad Wolf is going to Read More …
Back in December 2017 TNPS ran with the headline, S.E. Asia online economy growing faster than predicted. $200bn by 2025. Will publishers rise to the opportunity? S.E. Asia online economy growing faster than predicted. $200bn by 2025. Will publishers rise to the opportunity? It seems some have. This week comes news that, from a base Read More …
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 …
There’s no question Big Bad Wolf runs the largest book sales in the world. Just how big they can get remains to be seen, but 2018 is shaping up to be the biggest by far. Big Bad Wolf kicked off with a debut event in the Philippines, in Pasay City in February. Read about it Read More …
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 …
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 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 …
This is breaking news from Colombo, and I’ll come back with more retails as they emerge. What we know so far is the the first Big Bad Wolf book sale in Colombo last October was a huge success, and this year the event is being brought forward to June. Last year 1.5 million books were Read More …
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 …
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 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 …
