By Edward Nawotka

In today’s editorial Argentine publisher and bookseller Guido Indij argues:

“Bibliodiversity is currently threatened by overproduction, corporate consolidation in the publishing industry and the growth of new technologies that seem to benefit the dominance of a few big publishing groups and their quest for high profits.”

The statement is curious, particularly in light of the explosion of titles as a result of self and DIY publishing. With more than three million new titles published last year in the US alone, the one thing that would seem to be least at risk is diversity. Yet, that said, a key to Indij’s argument is that so much cultural production is dominated by North Americans and Europeans, at the expense of those in the Southern hemisphere. The “overproduction” he refers to is not the sheer diversity of titles, but the flooding of the market with a handful of popular authors whose intellectual assets are controlled by the conglomerates (think of James Patterson or Harry Potter).

Do you agree that bibiodiversity is under threat? Is there a need to create more room at the global cultural banquet for authors and writers from below the equator? If so, how?

Let us know what you think in the comments.