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 …
In the dark history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade few can be unaware of the “golden triangle” of trade between Britain, West Africa and North America. Which makes Britain and the US the two largest African-slave-owning nations, right? Well, not quite. In fact Britain traded in, but did not in any meaningful way own slaves. Read More …
Back in May Book Expo New York hosted an event titled Reaching the Arab World – the New Gateway Hub – The Sharjah Publishing City Initiative. Given the panel comprised Ahmed Al Ameri, Former Director of the Sharjah International Book Fair and Head of the Sharjah Book Authority, alongside the CEOs of Ingram and OverDrive, Read More …
Kenya’s Daily Nation weekend lifestyle section carries an interview with Abukakar Adam Ibrahim, the Nigerian author of Season of Crimson Blossoms, which won the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2016, Africa’s richest literary prize. Abukakar Adam Ibrahim was in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in September for the Goethe Institut Literary Crossroads event, which featured two writers from two Read More …
Back in September I ran a post here on Nook’s future, speculating on the possibility Nook could be acquired by the Chinese ebook behemoth Tencent, which was actively looking for global expansion possibilities. A sentiment shared by Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson at the Hot Sheet. Nothing yet to suggest Tencent has Nook on its Read More …
What do WB Yeates, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lynda La Plante, Jules Verne, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Agatha Christie have in common? They all endured some form of what we now call “learning disabilities,” chief among them likely dyslexia, which although first recognised in the late 1890s did not become widely accepted as a learning difficulty until Read More …
It’s a funny old world. Publishing is supposedly on its knees, decimated by digital, attention spans are supposedly shortening by the day and no-one reads any more, and video streaming and other distractions are wiping out any vestige of hope that literature might still be around next weekend. Meanwhile books continue to sell, publishers continue Read More …
Since Tata Trusts launched Parag in 2005, some twenty million children have benefited from this far-sighted initiative to make children’s books available in India’s myriad local languages. Inevitably in any former colony the colonial language is often the second language, at best, of the indigenous population, while the colonial language dominates commerce, business and, of Read More …
It was never meant to be like this. In those dark and gloomy days of 2011-13 it seemed to many observers that mainstream publishing had no future and digital would not just disrupt, but destroy publishing as we knew it. Not only were upstart start-ups like Amazon’s KDP, Apple’s iBooks, Kobo, Nook, Smashwords and a Read More …
The Bookseller Children’s Conference is underway in London today and the CEO of Hachette Children’s Group, Murray Hill, has called on publishers to “act as agents of social change more than ever before.” It’s an interesting debate with an interesting argument to juggle. Murray talks about “overuse of social media and time online” and Read More …
