Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, published between 2010-12 in the US, has been available in Brazil in Portuguese, without controversy, as Vingadores: A Cruzada Das Crianças, since 2016 through Editorial Salvat and Panini Comics. That is, until this week at the Rio Biennial (the Rio International Book Fair) when the Mayor of Rio, Marcelo Crivella, came Read More …
Rules are there to be broken. At least, that appears to be the thinking of many in the UK publishing industry. BIC – Book Industry Communication – describes itself as, an independent organisation set up and sponsored by the Publishers Association, Booksellers Association, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and the British Library Read More …
This is a remarkable story that blows apart the faux narratives that smartphones are destroying the reading habit and that kids don’t read digitally. Yes, of course kids love printed books, and long may they continue, but printed books have production and distribution costs as well as practical issues of accessibility (everything from fixed font Read More …
We hear it so often it’s easy to start believing it. Nobody reads because they are all on social media on their smartphones. And let’s be honest. It’s easy to buy into that narrative. Just take a look around. It seems practically everyone is glued to their smartphone instead of reading books. Or so the Read More …
India’s SonyLIV is the latest video streaming operator to enter the lucrative and fast-growing Middle East market. Uday Sodhi business head of digital, Sony Pictures Networks India, explained, With a bustling young population who are essentially digital first consumers, the Middle East serves as a highly lucrative market for content creators like us to spiral Read More …
Tom Cruise. Natalie Portman, Patrick Stewart… The San Diego Comic Con has been dominated by celebrity news about the latest film, TV, comics and games. The attention economy in action, right? How can publishing compete in this brave new world? But actually it’s a reminder that the games, films, TV and celebrity that grab the Read More …
Summer is a quiet time in the Indian book fair scene, with the mega-events that attract millions of visitors tending to cluster around winter-spring, but there are some exceptions, and one is kicking off tomorrow, July 19. Organised by the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (CODISSIA) and the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India Read More …
Banned books at book fairs is nothing new, and we are mostly eager to condemn such practices, in the name of free speech and freedom to publish. But where do we stand when it comes to censoring guest speakers? Jaraguá do Sul, a city in the interior of Santa Catarina, Brazil, has announced the line-up Read More …
Nigeria’s Booksellers Association (BAN) has fresh blood after recent AGM elections, and BAN’s new president, Dare Michael Oluwatuyi, MD of CSS Bookshops Limited, is determined to reverse years of decline in the bookselling trade and return Nigerian bookselling to its former glory. As reported by Nigeria’s Guardian, Oluwatuyi said, We shall embark on qualitative membership Read More …
The rise and rise of audiobook and ebook subscription streaming across the Scandinavian countries has been mentioned here at TNPS so often it hardly needs rehearsing again. But this week the tremendous interest in digital reading in northwest Europe takes on new significance as we learn that video-streaming is still rising in these same countries, Read More …
At end March a body called Copyright Licensing New Zealand published a study on author earnings in New Zealand which embarrassingly only reached my desk this week (hat-tip to Book Squad). Commissioned by Copyright Licensing New Zealand in conjunction with the NZ Society of Authors, NZ Writers’ Guild and Playmarket, the report by Horizon Research, Read More …
Breaking news via the International Publishers Association: Following the adoption of the Copyright Directive by the European Parliament plenary on 26 March, IPA President welcomed the result and congratulated European publishers for their work. Hugo Setzer, IPA President, said: The IPA welcomes the agreement found in the European Union for a Copyright Directive and would Read More …
It’s been well over a year since the last Author Earnings Report was released by Data Guy, the data analyst who preferred to keep how own identity hidden while making controversial claims about ebook sales in the US book market (and occasionally beyond). In January 2018 the last Author Earnings Report became mired in controversy Read More …
With the announcement in December that Amazon-owned Audible was sponsoring the prestigious Sunday Times Short Story Award came the prospect that the winners would not just earn some extra cash but would have their entries published as an audiobook that would reach a still wider audience. Which all sounds great. The Sunday Times Short Story Read More …
Cultural appropriation, while not new, is a rising theme in a modern world that is connected in a way impossible to imagine even ten years ago, and with it comes an acceleration in examples of perceived and actual cultural appropriation as well as examples of extreme reactions to this appropriation. Back in August this year Read More …
Earlier this year TNPS reported on a move by the Rwandan government to bring its educational publishing programme in-house, putting the future of local publishers at risk. African publishers pay the price for putting all their eggs in one basket Now South Africa looks set to follow suit. Zimasa Velaphi, chief director of communications and Read More …
The just-ended Kuwait Book Fair attracted a lot of unwelcome international attention this year thanks to what were often wildly irrational censorship decisions resulting in 700 books banned in 2018 and over 4,000 books banned in the last few years. But has that censorship ban just been overturned by the judiciary? One report from Alqabas Read More …
The Hot Sheet is a publishing industry news-sheet for authors, produced every two weeks by Porter Anderson and Jane Friedman, and reviewed here every other Sunday (when possible) as one of the best bi-weekly industry overviews available to authors. We’re not interested in delivering breaking news, but perspective on stories that are likely to retain meaning for your Read More …
After the resounding success of the Sharjah International Book Fair in the UAE, extolling a message of cultural tolerance and publishing freedom, the Arab literary arena was this week plunged into controversy once more as the Kuwait International Literary Festival kicked off. Running November 14 through 24 the Kuwait event was already standing in the Read More …
When Digital Book World announced Data Guy would be delivering the closing keynote speech, during which time he would dazzle us with yet more publishing industry numbers known to nobody else, and incidentally would reveal his true identity and answer his critics, there was a muted response. Data Guy’s true identity is neither here nor Read More …
