English

Again this year, independent publishers will be in Frankfurt. To contact and meet them during the Fair, consult the document below!

Not to be missed, Thursday, 15 October, from 13h to 14h, Hall 3.1 (Weltempfang)
“Independent feminist publishing across borders – a dialogue between 4 feminist publishers from 3 continents” – a round table organised by the Alliance, in partnership with Litprom and the Fair – with Renate Klein (Spinifex Press, Australia), Susan Hawthorne (Spinifex Press, Australia), Colleen Higgs (Modjaji Books, South Africa) and Müge Gürsoy Sökmen (Metis Publishers, Turkey). Facilitated by Juan Carlos Sáez (JC Sáez Editor, Chile).

Preparations for the 5^th edition of the International Bibliodiversity Day are underway all around the world.
The B Day video is available, to be widely distributed around you! You will also find ready-to-use posters here, that you simply need to download and use! Activities and meetings are planned in Mexico, Argentina, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Italy…

Follow B Day activities on this blog and on Facebook. And find out what is happening in your country and/or city!

A celebration - the 21^st September 2015!
Celebrate bibliodiversity with us on the 21^st of September.
For the 5^th International Bibliodiversity Day: picnics, debates, readings, books appearing in unusual places... And coming soon, a video!
Write to us for more information, or to tell us about events going on in your country!

MICA and the Alliance’s Spanish-speaking publishers meeting (Argentina), 2-6 September 2015
In parallel with MICA (Argentina’s cultural industry trade show), 16 Argentinian publishers from Bolivia, Chilli, Colombia, Spain, the Canary Islands, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay will get together in Buenos Aires thanks to support from MICA, the Argentinian Book Chamber and Argentinian members of the Alliance. On the agenda: the implementation of the 80 recommendations promoting bibliodiversity in Latin America and Spain, the creation of a map of Latin America’s public policies...
The publishers will also participate in MICA events: copyright exchanges, co-publishing days, round-table discussions about the concentration of publishing and bibliodiversity...
The program for the Spanish-speaking publishers meeting will be available on the Alliance’s site soon. More information about MICA here!

The International Committee of Independent Publishers meeting - ICIP (Paris) 9-11 October 2015
The ICIP is made up of 6 representatives of the Alliance’s linguistic networks and will meet in Paris for 3 days: the governance of the Alliance, a report and implementation of the recommendations and project resulting from the International Assembly of Independent Publishers, meetings between Alliance partners, freedom of expression and publishing, copyright in Europe and the rest of the world... a busy program!
The CIEI program will be available on the Alliance site soon.

A new website!
A new design, new functions and an improved “Resource Center”: Discover the new Alliance website in November 2015!

The Alliance will be closed from the 10^th to 21^st August. We wish you a great August in the meantime!

17 publishers from West Africa will meet in Dakar for this workshop facilitated by the Digital Lab of the Alliance, and through the support of the International Organization of the Francophonie, in partnership with Wikimedia France, the Afrilivres association and the Senegalese publishers association.
The workshop will include 3 sessions: training on Wikipedia (facilitated by Georges Fodouop and Donatien Foffi, two volunteer members of Wikimedia); the promotion of publishers lists on social networks (facilitated by Nicolas Gary, director of publication of the ActuaLitté Website); the development of Websites for African publishing houses, based on the Web template developed by the Digital Lab of the Alliance (facilitated by Mouhammed Diop, Senegalese developer).

17 independent publishers members of the Alliance will attend the Paris Book Fair, from 20 to 23 March 2015. The Alliance and publishers will also take part in meetings and roundtables… Consult the list of participants and programme through the link below!

And in the margins of the Fair:
Partial meeting of the French-speaking network: 2015 perspectives and discussions on “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Publishing”
24 March 2015, Centre national du livre (CNL), Paris/ for members of the Alliance only

Meeting with independent publishers or authors from the Maghreb, facilitated in partnership with the Arab and Hebraic World Sorbonne Association (SAMAH)
24 March 2015, 19h00, University of Sorbonne, amphi Guizot (17, de la Sorbonne St - 75005 Paris)

The socio-economic environment, historical approach and political context are only some of the factors to consider in appreciating, in all its complexity and diversity, the notion of an independent publisher. Independent publishers in Chile, France, Benin, Lebanon, or India work in specific contexts that have direct consequences on their activities. However, although the situation differs from one country to another, it is possible to agree on some criteria in order to define what is an independent publisher. Independent publishers develop their editorial policy freely, autonomously, and without external interference. They are not the mouthpieces for a political party, religion, institution, communication group, or company. The structure of capital and the shareholders identity also affect their independence: the takeover of publishing houses by big companies not linked to publishing and implementation of profit-driven policies often result in a loss of independence and a shift in publishing orientation. Independent publishers, as defined by the Alliance’s publishers, are originating publishers: through their often-innovative publishing choices, freedom of speech, publishing and financial risk-taking, they participate in discussions, distribution, and development of their readers’ critical thinking. In this regard, they are key players in bibliodiversity.

Solidarity publishing partnerships, collaborative spaces, resource centre, Intercultural and face-to-face meetings... discover the programme of the Alliance in 2015!

The world (of ideas) is wounded

After the attack this Wednesday, January 7^th 2015 against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the 400 publishers of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers offer their most afflicted condolences with friends and family of the victims.

Today more than ever, solidarity is essential —we think about the journalists, cartoonists and publishers from all around the world who risk their lives for freedom of expression. We also hope that these attacks will not serve to feed more islamophobia and xenophobia in Europe.

We will continue with determination and conviction, as we have expressed it in the Declarations of Dakar (2003), Paris (2007), and Cape Town (2014), to work with journalists, authors and creators to struggle against any form of suppression of the word, and to foster fair speech.

9 January 2015, 400 independent publishers from 45 countries in the word,
members of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers

On 23 October this year, the “Terres solidaires” reading Committee selected the next two titles to be published in the collection.

As every year, the committee, composed of book professionals and mediators in Africa, held a continent-wide virtual meeting. After several hours of exchanges and discussions it is, once again, two great African literature novels that were selected: Léonora Miano’s La saison de l’ombre (initially published by Grasset publishers in 2013, 2013 Fémina prize winner) and Hubert Haddad’s Palestine (initially published by Zulma publishers in 2007, 2008 Cinq Continents prize winner). These two novels will be available in Africa in 2015 and 2016 respectively, at a price adapted to local readers’ purchasing power, through an African publisher collective that will copublish these books.

Click here for more information on the other 9 titles published in the “Terres solidaires” collection, as well as on the collection’s publishers and countries where books are distributed.

The Alliance wishes to thank and acknowledge the exceptional work of the reading committee members:
• Saïd AFOULOUS (journalist, Morocco)
• Layla CHAOUNI (Le Fennec publishing, Morocco)
• Élisabeth DALDOUL (elyzad publishing, Tunisia)
• Yasmin ISSAKA-COUBAGEAT (Graines de Pensées publishing, Togo)
• Ludovic KIBORA (journalist, Burkina-Faso)
• Rachid MOKHTARI (journalist, Algeria)
• Jean-Claude NABA (Sankofa & Gurli publishing, Burkina Faso)
• François NKEME (Ifrikiya publishing, Cameroun)
• Serge POUTH (journalist, Cameroun)
• Felwine SARR (teacher, researcher and bookseller, Senegal)

Since its creation, “Terres solidaires” collection is supported by the International Orgainsation of the Francophonie.

The “Terres solidaires” collection was created in 2007, to strengthen the circulation of African literature in the Francophone space. Publishing houses that contribute to the collection are based in sub-Saharan Africa and in North Africa. Initially created to republish books written by African writers published in France and make them accessible to an African readership through the solidarity co-publishing process, it is now republishing books originally appearing on African publishers’ lists. Such is the case with Munyal, les larmes de la patience, by Djaïli Amadou Amal, the 13^th title of the collection, originally published in 2017 by Proximité publishing, based in Yaoundé, Cameroun.

Publishers select texts and work in close collaboration throughout the editorial process. The principle of a selling price adapted to the buying power of the readership (on average 3 500 FCFA, or 5 Euros) remains one of its pillars.

Read more here...

The Digital Lab was created by the International Alliance of Independent Publishers to support independent publishers in their activities, reflections and digital practices. As a space of reflection, exchanges and discussions on digital bibliodiversity in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere, the Lab also offers digital tools adapted to the needs of independent publishers while respecting local ecosystems.

The Alliance Lab is built around four focus areas:

• Tools and resources for professionals
• Reflections and discussions on digital publishing, including innovative initiatives in the countries of the South (surveys and analyses);
• In situ workshops (capacity building and peer exchanges on digital matters);
• A personalised tutorial offered to member publishers of the Alliance.

The Lab is updated and facilitated by independent publishers, the team of the Alliance and also through partnerships with independent professional organisations and collectives from various continents.

Read here the pre-print version uploaded on Academia.edu 21 May 2019

Final version, to be published in two parts, in Logos: Journal of the World Publishing Community (https://brill.com/view/journals/logo/logo-overview.xml)

Part I: Volume 30 (2019): Issue 3, Part II: Volume 30 (2019): Issue 4

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2019

Abstract:

In terms of languages, markets and labels, African publishing represents a field of constant discourse. It also continually questions not just the way we look at books, but also our relationship with them and with the international publishing industry. The time has long passed when the leading discourse on publishing in Africa was devoted primarily to a “book famine” related to the African economic crisis of the 1980s. Over the past three decades, the African book market has done nothing but grow on the continent, diversifying its increasingly dense and transnational production through the circulation of books and of publishing information. Nonetheless, quite often African publishing is presented in terms of the difficulties faced by its stakeholders, rather than those stakeholders’ agency, their capacity to develop their markets. Indeed, history has shown that the African publishing industry is a mirror of the globalisation of publishing and of its economic flux. That being the case, the economic challenges that one can observe in the African industry is thus a reflection of the imbalances, alternatives – also margins – of a world of books that is increasingly concentrated. In this sense, African publishing invites a two-fold interrogation: in Africa it must advocate a cultural and economic legitimacy within evolving socio-political situations and an outward-looking educational market. Internationally, it must position itself in terms of non-African publishing of literature and non-fiction that makes up the majority of African intellectual production in the world. By examining the discourse around African books, African publishers’ discourse, and the evolution of African books in French since the 1980’s, this article aims to question the relationship between the book industry in Africa and the globalisation of books phenomenon in order to bring to light a network of exchanges, tensions, and influences that turns the African book market into a veritable “glocal” space.

Read the article here (in French).

Thierry, R. (2019). Les éditeurs d’Afrique francophone sur l’échiquier du « glocal »
(1980-2019). Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture, 10 (2).
https://doi.org/10.7202/1060972ar

Contact the Alliance team to get a free digital version of this issue dedicated to public book policies.

Publication: June 2019
The Bibliodiversity Journal is copublished by Double ponctuation and the International Alliance of independent publishers.
See other issues of Bibliodiversity Journal here: “Self-publishing”; “Committed publishing”…

Overview of the issue:
From censorship to safeguarding, public initiatives in the book sector are varied.
This issue proposes academic articles, professional’ views and two previously unpublished regional analyses (sub-Saharan Africa and Spanish-speaking Latin America), taking us from Russia to Switzerland, via Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Quebec, France and Argentina.
All contributions seek an answer to this question: does the intervention of public authorities support editorial diversity?

Contents of the ‘Public book policies issue’:

• “Introduction: action taken by public authorities to support books”, by Étienne Galliand, Editor-in-Chief of Bibliodiversity Journal

• “Federalism and cohesion – New book policies in Switzerland”, by Carine Corajoud, historian (Switzerland)

• “A relative autonomy – A comparative analysis of the room for manoeuvre
  in public publishing in France”, by Hélène Seiler-Juilleret, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Higher School of Social Sciences, France)

• “Negotiating control, promoting reading – Independent publishers and the Russian State in the 2010s”, by Bella Ostromooukhova, Paris Sorbonne University (France and Russia)

• “Morocco: escheated books – The shortcomings in state involvement in the books and written word sector”, by Anouk Cohen, CNRS (France and Morocco) and Kenza Sefrioui, Ph.D. in comparative literature, literary critic and publisher (Morocco)

• “Government policy on books in Tunisia” – A publisher’s view, by Nouri Abid, Med Ali publishers (Tunisia)

• “Government policy on books in Syria” – A publisher’s view, by Samar Haddad, Atlas Publishing (Syria)

• “Government policy on books in Lebanon” – A bookseller’s view, by Michel Choueiri, bookseller (France and the United Arab Emirates)

• “Government policy on books in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. A cross-sectional analysis of data collected in 12 countries”, by Luc Pinhas, University of Paris 13 Villetaneuse (France)

• “Publishing and public authorities: the Quebec case – Or the influence of public action on editorial independence?”, by Pascal Genêt, Sherbrooke University (Quebec-Canada)

• “Laws, public policies, institutions and measures to support books and reading
  in Latin America – An analysis of data gathered in 10 countries”, by Andrés E. Fernández Vergara (University of Chile)

• “From culture towards business – An analysis of a state support programme
  for local publishing in Buenos Aires: Opción Libros”, by José de Souza Muniz Jr., Federal Centre for Technological Education, Minas Gerais (Brazil)

Publishing & the Book in Africa: A Literature Review for 2018
The fourth in a series of annual reviews of select new literature in English that has appeared on the topic of publishing and the book sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the pre-print version here.

To be published in The African Book Publishing Record, Volume 44, Issue 2, (May 2019)

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2019

African Book Industry Data & the State of African National Bibliographies:
Read the Pre-print version here.

Published in The African Book Publishing Record, Volume 44, Issue 4 (Dec 2018): 363-389.

Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © Hans Zell Publishing Consultants 2018

Read here the article “Au Maghreb, il y a urgence à structurer le secteur du livre”, by Kenza Sefrioui (En toutes lettres, Marocco), published by Le Monde Afrique (8 February, 2019)

Abstract of the issue:
Self-publishing is less and less perceived as an egocentric, narcissistic act – perhaps even spiteful. Bypassing the selective function of a third party (the publisher) in favour of a direct relationship with the potential reader - whether by choice or by necessity, when one has been rejected by those “in the know”- seems on the contrary perfectly in tune with the signs of our times, which advocates for transversal relations, fewer intermediaries and direct relationships between producers and consumers, quicker channels, wariness towards experts, elites and comitology.
If self-publishing is uninhibited, it is vibrant in its digital format, where entry requirements are now minor. However, is self-publishing a vector of bibliodiversity?
The notion of “independence” is also questioned by this development in terms of production. Indeed, the United States has often spoken of “indie” authors or ebooks, this figure of the independent author being now also assimilated and claimed in the French context. But what kind of independence are we talking about?

Contents of “Self-publishing”:

• Self-publishing: a vector of bibliodiversity? / By Sylvie Bosser, University of Paris 8

• Self-publishing in French literature. A historical overview of a multidimensional publishing practice / By Olivier Bessard-Banquy, University of Bordeaux-Montaigne

• Self-published authors on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Motivations, identities, practices and expectations / By Stéphanie Parmentier, University of Bordeaux-Montaigne

• Self-publishing of comics. A specific route into publishing / By Kevin Le Bruchec, University of Paris 13

• The (in)visible third party. Mentoring emerging writers: a process that encourages self-publishing / By Marie Caffari and Johanne Mohs, Berne University of the Arts

• Self-publishing: a unique phenomenon by its nature, scope and actors. Analysis of self-publishing in Latin America and beyond / By Daniel Benchimol, for the CERLALC

• Literary self-publishing in Morocco. Conditions, challenges and social significations of an growing cultural practice / By Kaoutar Harchi, Centre for Research on Social Links

• Self-publishing in Iran. A story of a dilemma against a backdrop of audacity / Case study of Azadeh Parsapour, publisher

• Les Éditions du Net. An interview with Henri Mojon / By Sylvie Bosser, University of Paris 8

A study published by African Studies Association (ASA) and African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK), to read here!