By Edward Nawotka ABU DHABI: On the opening day of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), the organization responsible for the event, has launched Abu Dhabi Distribution (ADD), a new private company to facilitate book distribution to the GCC countries, the Maghreb and the Levant, as well as servicing Arab communities …
The Digital Book in Practice: Valentine’s 14 Languages, Multiple Formats, Wireless Delivery
By Alex de Campi BROOKLYN: Imagine a graphic novel series, released every month simultaneously in 14 languages and across all major wireless platforms (Kindle, e-Reader, Android phone, iPhone), hopefully soon via the Web and, eventually, in collected print editions. Every month, you pay 99 cents and get 70-75 screens of action, adventure and suspense. In its first fortnight after launch, in …
German Buch News: Germans Buying More English-language Books; Reduced VAT for Books Challenged
By Siobhan O’Leary Berlin Verlag, and its British parent company Bloomsbury, have distributed Bloomsbury’s English-language titles in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 2005. The books are distributed via Berlin Verlag’s distributor Prolit. This week, Prolit will also begin distributing the popular science titles of Bloomsbury’s subsidiary A&C Black. As reported in Buchreport, part of the reason for this expansion is the news that …
German Buch News: Libri, KNV End Distribution Agreement; Salt is Cookbook of the Year
By Siobhan O’Leary German book wholesalers Libri and KNV are ending their year-long experiment in combined distribution on December 31st. According to Buchreport, the fact that the two wholesalers had very different systems and procedures prevented them from realizing the cost savings they’d anticipated. In addition, certain regions lacked infrastructure for distribution leading to further problems. LitVideo and Lübbe are working …
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 …
Digital Distribution Means Global, Not Local
By Andrew Savikas, vice-president, O’Reilly Media Within a few years (or sooner) more people will read the books we publish at O’Reilly Media in digital form than in print. While it won’t happen that quickly for other publishers, it will happen. That doesn’t mean that print books will go away — it just means that publishing will be about digital …
Spain’s Big Three to Form New Digital Distributor
By Emily Williams MADRID & BARCELONA: Spain has not been on the leading edge of the digital revolution up to this point. Now, after years of observing how the market has developed in other countries, the biggest publishing groups in Spain have decided the moment has come to take a big step forward – and they will do it together. …
Bonus Material: The Dual Nature of Romania’s Bookfest
By Hannah Johnson ROMANIA: For five days, June 17-22, publishers and the general public gathered in the Romexpo-Complex in Bucharest for the 2009 Bookfest, Romania’s book festival. Visitors had free access to the show’s 13,700 square meters of exhibition space to browse and buy the 25,000 titles on display. Publishers expressed satisfaction with this year’s festival and sold more books …
Kotobarabia’s Arabic E-Books Extend Borders
By Chip Rossetti CAIRO: Most of the difficulties faced by Arabic-language book publishing stem from two basic problems: government censorship and very limited distribution. But with e-books, Ramy Habeeb, founder of the Egypt-based publisher Kotobarabia, has managed to bypass both seemingly intractable problems. As the first e-publisher devoted exclusively to Arabic-language titles, www.kotobarabia.com now offers over 8500 books in 31 …