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The Alliance

International Committee of independent publishers (ICIP), Paris, 6-8 October, 2018

The ICIP meeting is a special occasion where the activities of the Alliance’s respective networks, upcoming projects, strategic issues and governance of the association are discussed.
It is a crucial annual meeting in the life of the Alliance, often decisive in terms of objectives and choices.
This year, new coordinators and vice-coordinators are joining the ICIP: we propose an “ICIP induction day”, enabling newcomers to understand its functioning and role.
This meeting will further provide an opportunity to examine decisions taken at the previous ICIP and analyse their impacts on the current governance of the Alliance and ahead of the future Assembly of the Alliance (2019-2021).
Finally, a meeting session will be focusing on cultural rights.

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Frankfurt Book Fair (Germany), 10-14 October 2018

Have a look!
HotList and WomenList

In partnership with the Kurt Wolff Stiftung (collective of German independent publishers) and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Alliance presents two thematic selections on the “Reading Island for Independent Publishers” stand (Hall 4.1 / D36)!

  • HotList: the energy of Latin American independent publishing through more than 30 books published in Argentina, Brazil, Equator, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela! The HotList is available online here!
  • WomenList: more than 30 novels, short stories, essays and comics on feminism, women’s struggles, their emancipation across the world – these titles are from independent publishers’ lists from all continents. The WomenList’s books can be seen online.

Roundtables to attend!

  • “African Children’s book publishing”: Christine Warugaba, Furaha Publishers (Rwanda), Sophie Batiskaf, Dodo Vole (Madagascar) and Corinne Fleury, Atelier des Nomades (Mauritius) / Wednesday 10 October, 10.00-11.00 / Reading Island for Independent Publishers (Hall 4.1 / D36)

For the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, the Alliance is partnering with Lettres d’Afrique, BIEF, the Kurt Wolff Stiftung and the Frankfurt Book Fair; and would like to thank the organisations and people who have collaborated to the drafting of our programme (African Books Collective, Afrilivres, PEN International...).

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WomenList: A thematic and international selection - Frankfurt Book Fair 2018

More than 30 novels, short stories, essays and comics on feminism, women’s struggles, their emancipation across the world – these titles are from independent publishers’ lists from all continents.

There is a resurgence of the Women’s Movement following #MeToo and other events and a greater awareness of structural violence against women. Now is the time to know about books being published all around the world by independent publishers, in different languages and across a wide range of issues from the political to the imaginative.

To read through all the books of the WomenList is a reminder of just how much violence women have suffered – from rape, torture, and mass violence against women to indifference and neglect in the case of child abuse, to survival in war, sexual slavery and marriage forced by custom. But there is also resistance and optimism whether it be Pussy Riot or women rebelling against patriarchy as well as the inspiration of women in the vanguard of environmental projects or gathering together the works of women poets.

There are voices from so many places around the world – from Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Morocco, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey... Languages include Arabic, English, Indonesian, Farsi, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish. Women write poetry, short stories, political tracts, novels, biography, graphic novels and again more. These are words that matter: women’s voices are loud. It is time to listen!

The WomenList is an initiative of the International Alliance of independent publishers, through a partnership with the Kurt Wolff Stiftung (collective of German Independent Publishers) and the Frankfurt Book Fair. The WomenList is presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair on the “Reading Island for Independent Publishers” stand (Hall 4.1 / D36) and is also available online, on the Alliance’ website. The catalog of the WomenList was made by Julie Agor (Oréka graphisme).

The WomenList was born in the wake of the HotList (selection of books published by independent Latin American publishing houses and presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2017 and 2018 – Hall 4.1 / D36).

Read here the article published by Publishing Perspectives, October, 5, 2018

In 2019, a new international selection will be showcased in Frankfurt, on another theme... succeeding the WomenList 2018!

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HotList 2018: The Independent Publishing from Latin America in Frankfurt!

The International Alliance of independent publishers celebrates the remarkable vitality of independent publishing in Latin America at the Frankfurt International Book Fair through a selection of books from Latin America: the HotList 2018!

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Through a partnership with Kurt Wolff Stiftung (a collective of independent German publishers) and the Frankfurt Book Fair, independent Latin American publishers in Frankfurt will be exhibiting, at the “Reading Island for Independent Publishers” stand (Hall 4.1 / D36), more than thirty books of various genres: novels, short stories, art books, essays, children’s literature, and poetry... from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela!

The HotList is also available online, an opportunity to discover the wealth and creativity of independent publishers all year round.

Discover also the WomenList: a thematic and international selection created in 2018, celebrating women’s struggle!

Context…

  • 2009: The members of EDINAR (collective of Argentinian independent publishers) present a selection of the best books from their list at the Buenos Aires Book Fair. This selection is then promoted in independent bookstores across Buenos Aires.
  • 2010: Argentina is the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. However, Argentinian independent publishing is poorly represented. The Argentinian independent publishers, in partnership with the Frankfurt Book Fair, decided to present a HotList on the stand of independent German publishers: a showcase of the diversity and quality of their offering.
  • 2017: The HotList 2017 opens to independent publishers from Latin America! Thanks to the collaboration with the collective Kurt Wolff Stiftung (independent German publishers), a selection of about 40 titles from publishers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay is exhibited in Frankfurt on the “Reading Island” (Hall 4.1).
  • 2018: Following the success of the 2017 edition, the HotList is repeated and opens to Brazilian publishers. In addition, a thematic and international selection is launched: this year, the theme of “women’s struggle” is selected in the WomenList 2018, showcasing more than 30 titles edited by independent publishing houses from all continents.

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The B Day is coming!

On 21 September, it is the first day of Spring in the Southern hemisphere… and the Bibliodiversity Day!

Don’t miss this 9th B Day – an initiative launched by Latin American independent publishers, and then disseminated all around the world. Picnics, readings, bookcrossing, discussions… the activities are gathered on the B Day blog and in the social networks.

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Oneness vs. the 1% - shattering illusions, seeding freedom

Author(s) : Vandana Shiva ; Kartikey Shiva
Publishing countries : Australia, India, United Kingdom
Language(s) : English
Price : 350 INR (4 €); .95

Widespread poverty and malnutrition, an alarming refugee crisis, social unrest, economic polarisation... have become our lived reality as the top 1% of the world’s seven-billion-plus population pushes the planet—and all its people—to the social and ecological brink. In Oneness vs. the 1%, Vandana Shiva takes on the Billionaires Club of Gates, Buffett, Zuckerberg and other modern Mughals, whose blindness to the rights of people, and to the destructive impact of their construct of linear progress, have wrought havoc across the world. Their single-minded pursuit of profit has undemocratically enforced uniformity and monocultures, division and separation, monopolies and external control—over finance, food, energy, information, healthcare, and even relationships.

Basing her analysis on explosive little-known facts, Shiva exposes the 1%’s model of philanthrocapitalism, which is about deploying unaccountable money to bypass democratic structures, derail diversity, and impose totalitarian ideas, based on One Science, One Agriculture and One History. She calls for the “resurgence of real knowledge, real intelligence, real wealth, real work, real well-being”, so that people can reclaim their right to: Live Free. Think Free. Breathe Free. Eat Free.

Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker and activist, a leader in the International Forum on Globalisation, and of the Slow Food Movement. Director of Navdanya and of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and a tireless crusader for farmers’, peasants’ and women’s rights, she is the author and editor of several influential books, including Making Peace with the Earth; Soil Not Oil; Seed Sovereignty, Food Security: Women in the Vanguard; and Who Really Feeds the World?
Vandana Shiva is the recipient of over 20 international awards, among them the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (1998); the Horizon 3000 Award (Austria, 2001); the John Lennon-Yoko Ono Grant for Peace (2008); the Sydney Peace Prize (2010); the Calgary Peace Prize (2011); and the Thomas Merton Award (2011). She was the Fukuoka Grand Prize Laureate in 2012.

Kartikey Shiva is a shatterer of illusions, grower of freedom, and agent of light.

A co-publishing of the English-network of the Alliance: Women Unlimited (India), Spinifex (Australia) and New Internationalist (UK), 2019.
ISBN (Women Unlimited, India): 978-93-85606-18-2
ISBN (Spinifex Press, Australia): 978-19-25581-79-9

Oneness vs. the 1% , Australian cover:
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Oneness vs. the 1% , UK cover:
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US, Canada, UK, Italian, Australian, French and Spanish rights sold. All others available.

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Muhammad. A final reckoning

Author(s) : Hamed Abdel-Samad
Publishing countries : Germany, Canada, France
Language(s) : Farsi
Price : 14 €

This nonfiction title by a German-Egyptian academic examines stereotypes throughout the history of the prophet Muhammad. The main theme of the book is a representation of the life of Mohammed and the emergence of Islam. Osama bin Laden’s actions, as well as the crimes of Islamist terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State, are also attributed to Muhammad’s willingness to spread Islam through violent subjugation and partial physical liquidation of people of other faiths.

Hamed Abdel-Samad, the author, is born near Cairo in 1972. He worked for UNESCO, at the Institute for Islamic Culture at the University of Erfurt, and at the Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich. Abdel-Samad is a member of the German Islam Conference and, according to his publisher, is “considered to be one of the most renowned Islam intellectuals in the German-speaking world”.

The book was first published in German (Mohamed. Eine Abrechnung) by the German publishing house Droemer Verlag in October 2015.
Publishers from the Persian network of the Alliance have translated and co-published the book in Farsi in 2018: Forough Publishing and Pouya Publishing (Germany), Khavaran Publishing (France) and Pegah Publishing (Canada).

2018 - 250 pages - 13 X 20,5 cm - ISBN: 978-3-943147-63-6

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Solidarity with Shahidul Alam (Bangladesh), August 8, 2018

STATEMENT
August 8, 2018

The International Alliance of Independent Publishers (IAIP), a network of 553 publishers worldwide, expresses its shock and dismay at the late-night abduction and detention of acclaimed photographer and human rights activist, Shahidul Alam, in Dhaka. Shahidul Alam has been a partner-colleague of the IAIP, in which context we have interacted with him on many occasions.

We believe that the charges against him under Section 57 of the ICT are an attempt to intimidate him by using a draconian law to stifle his right to free speech. He has been held without due legal process, and we have received disturbing reports of brutal treatment meted out to him in detention.

The right of peaceful protest, and the defence of that right, are fundamental to democracy and to upholding the rule of law. The IAIP extends its support to, and expresses solidarity with, Shahidul Alam, and reiterates its commitment to the freedom of expression in Bangladesh as well as in the rest of the world.

See here the film make by New Internationalist (UK) in support with Shahidul Alam.

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Camille CLOAREC

After a master’s degree in French Literature at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Camille CLOAREC worked at the Maison de la Poésie in Nantes and was also the coordinator of literary life at Ciclic (the center of book, cinema and digital culture for the Loire Valley Region), before being in-charge of the book and debates office at the French Embassy in Canada. In 2019, Camille began learning Telugu (Indian language) at Inalco.
Camille joins the Alliance team in July 2020; she is in charge of the management of the the association’s language networks and the co-publishing and translation projects within the Alliance.

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Producting and commercialising e-books in West Africa, Cotonou (Benin), 9-13 July 2018

15 publishers from 10 countries meet in Cotonou for a workshop dedicated to creating ePub files from Indesign. The workshop will also be an opportunity for discussions on the commercialization of digital books between the publishers: Cassava Republic publishers (Nigeria) will share their experience - a cross between French and English speaking Africas!

This workshop, supported by the International Organization of La Francophonie, was organised with the support of Ruisseaux d’Afrique publishers in Benin, a member of the Alliance. Ruisseaux d’Afrique publishers celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2018, offering activities throughout the year. The Alliance will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Ruisseaux during the workshop!

Since 2010, the Alliance Lab offers capacity-building workshops to independent publishers in French-speaking Africa. Several publishing houses in French-speaking Africa have developed a digital strategy.

The Alliance Lab regularly publishes surveys and analysis on digital publishing:

The Alliance Lab provides tools:

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Bibliodiversity Observatory

Children’s book trade between France and francophone Africa

In this remarkable document, Marion Van Staeyen highlights the persistent imbalance in the book trade between France and francophone Africa, between North and South, specifically concerning children’s books. Some alternatives are appearing, however, to promote access to northern markets for African publishers. Many stakeholders in the sector – among them the International Alliance of independent publishers – are calling for an active and direct redress of the trade imbalance between North and South. A graduate in sociology and editing, Marion Van Staeyen is a second-year master’s student at University of Paris XIII, majoring in the book trade. She is currently attending classes at Sherbrooke University in Quebec, thanks to a partnership between the two universities.

Documents in French.

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Solidarity with Iranian publishers, August 2009

Publishing countries : Iran

In view of the worrying situation in Iran and the attacks on freedom of expression, the publishers of the Alliance wish to express their solidarity with their Iranian colleagues. They demand the right to publish freely and call for increased cultural and editorial exchanges with Iran.

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Publishing in Ivory Coast: a study of the educational sector subjected to offers to tender

Throughout 46 well-documented pages and based on an extensive in-the-field investigation, Stéphane Marill has produced this remarkable analysis of “Publishing in Côte d’Ivoire: a study of the educational sector subjected to offers to tender”. This comprehensive overview comprises an all-new step-by-step guide for publishers wishing to apply for school publishing tenders (read also this article).

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Book trade between Spain and Latin America

This study, available in Spanish, was carried out as an International Alliance of independent publishers exclusive by Elena Enríquez Fuentes (Mexico) in 2008.

Her work demonstrates that there is a considerable bias in the trading of books between Spain and Latin America. This assertion is based on the analysis of exports and imports between Spain and Latin America in 2006 and 2007.

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Towards a Europe protecting bibliodiversity?, April 2009

As the official campaign for the next European elections is being launched, the Alliance has decided to get involved in a positive fashion by formulating three proposals that would be very simple to implement.

These proposals have furthermore been published on the website http://challengeforeurope.blogactiv.eu, with dozens of others, on the initiative of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation in the framework of its “What kind of Europe do we want?” program. Let us hope this impressive corpus of proposals will be a profitable inspiration to the EU’s future elected representatives!

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Freedom of publishing under threat in Canada?, April 2008

An incredible censorship attempt is endangering the very existence of the publisher Écosociété (Quebec – Canada); more than 60 publishers from 30 countries have declared their undivided support for the Quebec publisher and are calling on the pinstigators of the “Noir Canada” affair to respect the rights of freedom of expression and publication.

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How to respond to a call for tenders in the textbook industry?

Through a step-by-step approach, with examples and a pedagogical method, Stéphane Marill gives a precious “vade mecum” for any publisher wishing to respond to a call for tenders in the school textbook industry.

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Protecting the book

Why did the large majority of European countries choose to protect the book, setting its price through trade agreements or legal measures? How were these protection mechanisms, which make the book into a cultural exception permitted by the European Commission, gradually implemented? Markus Gerlach offers a broad analysis the price-fixing of books in Europe: he begins by relating the background of this measure and then analyzes the economic effects. In the end he shows the extent to which the price-fixing of books, apart from its cultural and economic importance, also assumes an eminently political dimension.

“Protéger le livre” by Markus Gerlach (in French) - available in Spanish (“Cómo proteger el libro”), in Portuguese (“Proteger o livro”) and in Italian (“Proteggere il libro”).

Year of publication: 2006, 160 pages, 15 x 21 cm, ISBN 10: 2-9519747-2-8; ISBN 13: 978-2-9519747-2-2

Collection État des lieux de l’édition

Proteggere il libro_in Italian

Cómo proteger el libro_in Spanish

Proteger o livro_in Portuguese

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Des paroles et des actes pour la bibliodiversité

Year of publication: 2006, 288 pages, 15 x 21 cm, ISBN 978-2-9519747-3-9

Collection État des lieux de l’édition

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Éditeurs indépendants : de l’âge de raison vers l’offensive ? (Independent Publishers: moving from the age of reason on to the attack?)

Far from being a caricature, developing a reasoning based on his personal conception of publishing, Gilles Colleu explores some of the characteristics of a typical independent publisher.
What do we mean by independent publisher? Are they necessarily small concerns? Can a major group be independent? In a context of concentration and increasing dominance of financial considerations, how can publishers remain independent while playing their crucial role of putting fresh ideas forward?

Gilles Colleu is a former student of Jean-Marie Bouvaist and has taught alongside him on the Master course at Villetaneuse University. He is now an associate professor in the publishing professions department of the IUT in Aix-en-Provence. He founded the Vents d’ailleurs publishing house and manages it with Jutta Hepke, and for the past 20 years has acted as a consultant to publishers.

In this work, he stresses his conviction that publishing needs to be rooted in a long cycle of cultivation, to build a coherent catalogue and long-lasting business.

NB: pages 94 to 97 of this work feature a full, fresh definition of independent publishing, suggested by the International Alliance of Independent Publishers.

Year of publication: 2006, 160 pages, 15 x 21 cm, ISBN 10: 2-9519747-2-8; ISBN 13: 978-2-9519747-2-2

Collection État des lieux de l’édition

La edición independiente_in Spanish

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