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News from the US, UK and worldwide publishing trade press

Pilgrimages: African Travel Writing, By and For Africans

June 30, 2010
Pilgrimages: African Travel Writing, By and For Africans

By Mark Garcia-Prats In hopes of extending the positive attention about Africa stemming from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, The Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artist is sponsoring a writing project called Pilgrimages. The idea for the series is that during Africa’s first World Cup, 14 African writers will be sent to [...]

Whatever Happened to US Spanish-language Publishing?

June 29, 2010
Whatever Happened to US Spanish-language Publishing?

This article originally appeared in our printed BEA Show Daily, which you can read in its entirety here. By Emily Williams With Spain as the Global Market Focus this year, we thought it worthwhile to look at the existing market for Spanish-language books in the US. The Hispanic book buying market is estimated at about $1 billion, [...]

Agent Andrew Wylie Touts Foreign Sales as the Road to Profitability

June 28, 2010
Agent Andrew Wylie Touts Foreign Sales as the Road to Profitability

By Edward Nawotka Like him or not, Andrew Wylie is certainly savvy about managing his reputation. In April, the UK Guardian offered this profile and now Harvard magazine visits the man known overseas for the nickname “The Jackal.” The piece tracks his progress from Harvard undergrad to his position at the top of the publishing food [...]

Catching up with Ramy Habeeb, the World’s First Arabic E-book Publisher

June 28, 2010
Catching up with Ramy Habeeb, the World’s First Arabic E-book Publisher

By Edward Nawotka Last year at this time on Publishing Perspectives profiled Ramy Habeeb, founder of Kotobarabia, the world’s first publisher of Arabic-language e-books. In “Kotobarabia’s Arabic E-Books Extend Borders” Habeeb describes a situation where censorship mean many books never saw the light of day and book distribution for 80% of the publishers in the Arabic-speaking world [...]

Early 2010 UK Book Sales Down, No VAT Planned for Books

June 25, 2010
Early 2010 UK Book Sales Down, No VAT Planned for Books

In the UK, the Publishers Association’s data collection scheme, PA Sales Monitor (PASM) reports that book sales from January to March, compared with last year, grew “marginally by volume from 84.3m to 84.4m units, but the valuefell  by 3.3% from £287m to £278m. Export  sales actually grew in value by 2.4% from [...]

“Breaking the Rules to Survive”: European Booksellers Consider the Future

June 23, 2010
“Breaking the Rules to Survive”: European Booksellers Consider the Future

By Edward Nawotka Earlier this week the European and International Booksellers Federations held their annual meeting in Brussels with the theme “Breaking the Rules to Survive.” Speakers included Kelly Gallagher, Vice-President of Bowker, Geert Joris, Director of Boek.be, and Fergal Tobin, newly elected President of the Federation of European Publishers. You can read a press release [...]

LeMOTif Reports on the Status of French Lit Agents

June 22, 2010
LeMOTif Reports on the Status of French Lit Agents

By Olivia Snaije PARIS: The presence of literary agents in France continues to be a hot topic, hot enough so that the regionally-funded French book “observatory”, Le MOTif, has just released an in-depth study entitled “The Literary Agent in France: realities and perspectives”. It follows the publication of numerous articles in the press and a 6-page [...]

Why French E-books Don’t Deserve Lower VAT

June 16, 2010
Why French E-books Don’t Deserve Lower VAT

By Edward Nawotka In the latest issue of ESPRIT magazine, Pascal Fouche, bibliographer and editor of the three-volume Dictionnaire encyclopedique du livre, discusses the changing definition of the book in the age of digitization, largely in favor of the argument that a lower rate of V.A.T. — 5.5.% in France — not be extended to e-books: [...]

Germany is Guest of Honor at Guadalajara 2011

June 11, 2010
Germany is Guest of Honor at Guadalajara 2011

By Edward Nawotka Anyone who has followed our news coverage knows that we think overseas publishers would do well by taking a longer look at the central and Latin American markets. One of the key gateways into the southern hemisphere of the Americas is the annual Guadalajara Book Fair, one of the best — or at [...]

Shanghai Hopes For All E-textbook Campus in Five Years

June 10, 2010
Shanghai Hopes For All E-textbook Campus in Five Years

By Wuping Zhao SHANGHAI: Shanghai hopes be the first Chinese city to promote all e-textbook campus in five years, according to a statement from Shanghai Municipal government on June 6, 2010. An official from local government said the city’s Educational Committee is experimenting with an e-book campus, which started at the beginning of this year. The committee [...]

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