By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief
As we in the United States, Europe and Asia salivate over the lastest micro advancement in computing technology that makes our tablets faster, flatter and more beautiful — and while callow pundits bellow carelessly about the “death of publishing” — vast tracts of the world are barren of books. Billions of people have likely never even heard of an e-reader, let alone seen one. Some 3 billion people — or close to half the world’s population live on less than $2.50 a day. To these people books are a luxury, time to read is a luxury, learning to read is a luxury.
And for many, so is reliable electricity. Throughout large parts of Africa, South America, and Asia the power grid is unreliable. And what do you have to do when the grid goes down? Work, cook, talk, maybe even read. But what you’ll be reading isn’t likely to be an e-book — and even if you had one, you’d need a book light to read it at night. You’d be reading print, and most likely by candlelight or a kerosene lantern.
Yes, e-books do offer the promise of extending cheap and even free education and books to a greater number of people on earth than ever before. But that is still not everyone.
While publishers are shifting signifiant resources into e-books and realizing real gains from that activity, many of them are also just as committed to developing their overseas distribution and sales — particularly in education publishing — to serve those communities for whom e-books are still just an idea. There’s a reason you see programs like Ingram’s Global Connect taking off and new POD distributors thriving in places from Brazil to Russia.
Print is still in demand. Maybe not here, but here is not everywhere.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
8 Comments
There’s a variable to the equation that we must consider –cost of transportation. To put print books in the hands of readers in the developing and emerging countries is extremely expensive. Much more than in central markets. Oil prices, bad roads and generally deficient communication infrastructures conspire against print books in those parts of the world.
The arrival of Ingram to Brazil has been good news, but it alone can’t solve the problem.
On the other hand, we must take into account the wide adoption of cell-phones in those countries. Cell-phones are the computers of the poor. I can’t understand why local and international players in the book industry are not catering for those devices with more mojo. Campaigns to promote reading, which are a common policy for many governments in Latin America, should also work to increase public awareness that where there’s a screen and an Internet connexion, there can also be a book.
In this sense, experiences in South Africa, Kenia and Nigeria have been very successful.
Julieta
@Julieta, of course, you are also right. Physical distribution hampered by poor infrastructure remains the major problem for many countries and while digital distribution is a significant opportunity, much of what’s being implemented via POD and other projects, creates a print product at the end of the chain. Pure digital, i.e. e-books, are still a ways off. And while cell phones — and the majority of phones out there are dumb, featureless phones — do offer access to books via Java applets and the like, they still require money and infrastructure just the same. A satellite dish in the Sahara still needs to be connected to some sort of electrical source. People have experimented with solar, but that has also proven less than cost-effective.
A bit part of what I was pointing out is that we in developed nations are privileged to be in the position we are in, but much of what we’re debating is relevant to our own walled gardens of relative wealth.
Valid comment! We in Europe tend to forget that not everyone can afford a 100 dollar e-reader, and with the costs of certain e-books, it’s actually more expensive to buy e-books than a second hand print book that has been read 20 times.
I’m on my 4th Kindle (they don’t break; I keep upgrading) but even I think that print still matters a LOT and will matter for a good while. I do think print will change in that POD technology will get better and cheaper and will largely replace the warehouse-full-of-books model of print distribution, which requires the retailer to guess which books are going to sell. I don’t know how POD would work in a developing world scenario.
As a Nigerian small publisher and bookseller, I agree with all of the above. To successfully deal with the book deficit in Africa, print books are still an essential, a very big essential. Especially as it pertains to dissemination indigenous knowledge. Most of us do not have the wherewithal to employ necessary technology to make our content available in any other format. For specialised professional books especially at the tertiary educational level, I see POD as an important aspect for getting books into the hands of those who need them. But this would entail cross border / cross organisation partnerships. And finally, for mass literacy campaigns to boost reading levels and possibly promote an affection for the book outside the spheres of education, mobile phone technology is an important platform to explore.
I agree with the cost factor being a stumbling block in putting books in the hands of eager South Pacific Island readers. Two of my books in a trilogy, set in the islands are out in Smashwords and my friends are only able to access printed material, if they can afford to buy. Lack of electricity, no bank accounts to send money via Paypal and sending payment through Western Union costs too much when their money is so hard to come by. They’re desperate to read material with reference to the way of life they know and love. If I carry a suitcase in, I have to pay such high import charges that when it’s added to the book price, it’s far too much for them to pay for anything. Just eating and paying rent is the huge cost. And so, literary starvation continues. They are able to read, and read well, as many schools have been well catered for with lots of school library books(in English) through generous donations from New Zealand and Australia, the main donor nations. So, they wait and so do I.
The gap still there. Moviles are helping to reduce faster those bridges. Not now the book will disappear; nor the libraries business. But the pace of change is there; so changes will come or it will change us.
I remember the watches with digital figures. I was the greatest desater ever built. An electronic toy, not more. During the last vacations in Florida I watched very carefully people relaxing on the beach. From approx. 350 men and women, I saw 2 or 3 using an electronic pad. Approx. 300 were using a printed material!
IIt seems to me, the “toy generation” may be a target (?????), as there are always people who are buying always the latest news, if it is need or not!! It is a kind of hobby or hunting….