Big Bad Wolf debuts in Myanmar, announces first of year’s Philippines and Malaysia dates. For 10th anniversary BBW will ship 60 million books to 30 cities in 14 countries

Posted onJanuary 21, 2019Leave a comment

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 …

Looking Ahead: The Manila International Book Fair September 2019

Posted onJanuary 16, 2019January 16, 20191 Comment

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 …

Big Bad Wolf preps for third Philippines run. Aims for 30 cities in 2019

Posted onNovember 7, 2018November 7, 20183 Comments

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 …

As PRH announces planned expansion into 8 SE Asia countries, TNPS looks at the digital prospects in a region of 380 million internet users

Posted onOctober 8, 2018Leave a comment

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 …

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

Posted onJune 9, 2018Leave a comment

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 …

Big Bad Wolf announces second Philippines book sale just three months after debut, while excitement builds for Sri Lanka

Posted onMay 27, 2018Leave a comment

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 …

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

Posted onMay 6, 2018Leave 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 …

Ten global publishing stories not to be missed. 24 April 2018 collation

Posted onApril 24, 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. 16 April 2018 collation

Posted onApril 16, 2018Leave a comment

Big Bad Wolf Sri Lanka set for June

Posted onApril 3, 20182 Comments

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 …

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

Posted onApril 2, 2018Leave a comment

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

Posted onApril 2, 2018Leave a comment

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

Posted onMarch 19, 2018September 15, 2018Leave a comment

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 …

Thailand’s Ookbee transitions from ebook store to digital lifestyle platform

Posted onMarch 9, 2018Leave a comment

Ookbee has come – and gone – a long way since its emergence as Thailand’s primary ebook store in 2011. Today Ookbee’s growing empire spreads across five countries in SE Asia, and after a brief but unsuccessful foray into physical goods with a partnership with Japan’s Transcosmos, Ookbee is now comfortably focused doing what it Read More …

Vietnam’s Tet book fairs sell $280,000 books in seven days, taking Vietnam book streets sales towards $4 million

Posted onFebruary 23, 2018February 26, 2018Leave a comment

The Tet (lunar New Year) holiday has just ended and book fairs set up for the event raked in over a quarter million dollars in book sales in the week long event. Fully half of that came from the Ho Chi Minh City event, held across three streets in District 1 – Nguyen Hue, Mac Read More …

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

Posted onFebruary 18, 2018July 8, 201812 Comments

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 …

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

Posted onFebruary 16, 2018Leave a comment

The world’s biggest book sale? Two million books at discounts of up to 80%? Where would we be without Amazon? Only, this has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon. This is the Philippines debut of the Big Bad Wolf event, the ten day 24/7 book sale that is taking SE Asia by storm. Originally just Read More …

The Philippines will host one of the world’s biggest book sales in February. Big Bad Wolf is coming to Manila!

Posted onJanuary 19, 2018Leave a comment

The world’s biggest book sale lands in Manila next month. With 2 million titles on sale at big discounts 24 hours a day you could be forgiven for thinking Amazon is about to open a Kindle Philippines ebook store, but actually these are print books, sold in real time. Amazon? Isn’t that a river in Read More …

It’s only January, but already Filipino readers are excited about binge-buying at the Manila International Book Fair in September

Posted onJanuary 15, 2018January 16, 2018Leave a comment

The Philippines may not be on the radar of many publishers, and even fewer indies, but as those who follow my ramblings elsewhere will know, I regard the Philippines as a priority objective for my hybrid author engagement, and 2018 promises to be a good time to step up that action. For the 2017 Manila Read More …

Marvel comics court China and Asia with eastern superheroes

Posted onJanuary 13, 20181 Comment

Marvel’s new editor-in-chief is no stranger to controversy. Last year C.B. Cebulksi’s arrival in the US to take on the role (he had previously been working for Marvel in Shanghai as Marvel Asia VP) was overshadowed by revelations he had previously written comics under a Japanese pen-name. That wasn’t controversial in itself so much as Read More …

The New Publishing Standard

Category: Philippines