By Xing Daiqi BEIJING: The slogan of this week’s 16th Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) is “To see what the world is reading.” But with China’s position as the engine of the global economy reinforced under the present financial crisis, the world is increasingly curious about what China is reading. Still, in spite of the economic downturn, more than half …
Images from the Beijing International Book Fair, Part 1
By Publishing Perspectives BEIJING: There’s almost too much to see — there’s the old, like the Forbidden City, and the new, such as the CCTV Tower and the Bird’s Nest — but this week all eyes in the book world are on the China National Exhibition Center, where the annual Beijing International Book Fair is taking place. We at Publishing …
What to Expect at the Beijing International Book Fair
By Edward Nawotka BEIJING: Trying to take in the totality of Chinese publishing is a lot like sitting down to a Chinese banquet and trying to figure out what to eat first. With thousands of publishers, both state sponsored and independent, putting out some 300,000 titles each year (about the same number as in the US), there’s a lot on the …
In Paris and Frankfurt, Cookbooks Get “Fair” Treatment
By Edward Nawotka BEIJING: “I’ve been going to the Frankfurt Book Fair since 1995 and the number of cookbooks on offer at the show has quadrupled since that time,” says Edouard Cointreau, chairman and founder of Gourmand International, speaking from Beijing, where he’s busy filming a cooking series for the Chinese Food Network. “In the US alone, cookbook sales have …
By Turning Authors into Speakers, Publishers Profit, Even in Recession
By Karen Holt NEW YORK: US publishers’ in-house speakers bureaus, essentially nonexistent just five years ago, are turning out to be surprisingly recession-resilient — one of the few upbeat notes in this overall gloomy time for the book industry. Publishers are splitting appearance fees of between $5,000 and $20,000 (sometimes more) with their authors, representing a welcome source of found …
Venezuela Strangles Book Imports, Bankrupting Bookstores and Publishers
By Emily Williams CARACAS: In bookstores all over Venezuela the bookshelves are emptying. Readers’ hunger for new and classic titles is as strong as it ever was, but a policy change that the government made over a year ago is gradually choking off the flow of imported books, which make up 80% of the market in Venezuela, resulting, naturally, in …
Personal Tragedy Drives International Zine, E-Book Publisher
By Edward Nawotka CHICAGO: Five years ago Dusty Sang lost his only child, his 24-year-son Ryan, to complications related to bipolar disorder. “At that moment everything changed,” says Sang, who was then working as an entertainment lawyer with both musicians and authors. “Suddenly I felt the need to leave my work as a lawyer behind and do something for Ryan.” …
Kenya’s Storymoja Strives to Connect the African Continent
By Tolu Ogunlesi NAIROBI: “Words are the most important thing about coming together, said Kate Adie, the BBC’s former Chief News Correspondent, “and that is what Storymoja is all about.” Adie was speaking in Nairobi at a party held to round off this year’s Storymoja Hay Festival, which took place from July 31 to August 2. It is the first spin-off …
Alaska is Perfect for Reading
By Gwen Dawson ANCHORAGE: Before Sarah Palin you betcha’d her way into the cultural consciousness, Alaska was perhaps best known as the setting for the hit television show Northern Exposure. The cliche was that it was a remote, distant and icy land, a place marked not by the works of man but, rather, by his absence. The few people who lived there there …
The Most Hated Book Down Under
Editorial by Andrew Wilkins MELBOURNE: Australia is a nation of booklovers, but you won’t find many fans for a new Australian paperback, ISBN 9781740372817. In fact, there’s an argument for saying it’s “Australia’s Most Hated Book.” That’s because it’s a report by an Australian Government think-tank, the Productivity Commission, which recommends (among other things) the abolition of the copyright protections …