This is a scene in the early hours of the morning in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where the 24-hour twelve-day mega book sale known as Big Bad Wolf is preparing to wind down. Because of the huge crowds during the day many booklovers head to the sale in the early hours, kids in night clothes, pushing Read More …
We’re just a few days away from the Seoul International Book Fair, which kicks off in South Korea June 20-24, in a five day event expected to draw a crowd of 300,000. Add that to the 700,000 attending Bookfest Malaysia and we’re already looking at our first million booklovers attending literary fairs and festivals this 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 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 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 …
The Italy-based aggregator StreetLib announces today that it is launching in India, with a partnership with India’s PubGen. The news comes hard on the heels of StreetLib’s new focus on the Ibero-America market, and less than two years after StreetLib opened offices in the USA. In today’s press release StreetLib describes the move as, a Read More …
The 2018 book fair year is off to a great start in India, not withstanding early indications of a slight fall in visitor numbers at the New Delhi World Book Fair. I’m still awaiting confirmation on that, but meanwhile the numbers are in for the Chennai (Madras) Book Fair and it’s an impressive showing. A Read More …
If it’s January 5 (insert any day of the year) there must be a book event happening somewhere on the Indian sub-continent. Today in fact is the National Poetry Festival day at the New Town Book Fair in Kolkata. The New Town Book Fair runs January 4-14. But the New Town event, now in its Read More …
The world’s biggest book sale is underway in Malaysia, and Rokal Daily has a great post this week highlighting “10 Things You Can Relate To If You’re A Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Junkie.” Big Bad what? For us in the west, finding great books is as easy as easy as popping to the local Read More …
A year and a half after Google and Temasek’s first assessment of the SE Asia digital economy, a new report shows the region growing significantly faster than predicted. The report touches on neither books nor ebooks, but this study represents major opportunities for publishers, distributors, retailers and authors, both within the region and beyond. By Read More …
When it comes to children’s books we tend to think of books for children written by adults. And understandably so. Writing a book is a craft that need to be learned, and often that can take years – even decades – of practice. Some never master it. If course there are exceptions, and since 2005 Read More …
Thanks to the miracles of time zones I’m able to report today, part way through Monday 09 October, that the world’s biggest book sale finished at midnight on Monday 09 October, A few days ago we reported on the world’s biggest book sale, the Big Bad Wolf sale in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with 1.5 million Read More …
It was the publishing industry’s Super Thursday yesterday. In Colombo. In the UK of course it was also Super Thursday, the day when some 500 hardcover titles are released on one day, marking the start of the Christmas book-shopping season. Publishers big and small, except indie authors, were lining up to get their new hardcover Read More …
