English

Representatives from 6 European collectives (Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia and Switzerland) will meet in Paris, at the invitation of the International Committee of independent publishers (ICIP). The main objectives of this meeting are to share knowledge, discuss business issues, plan partnerships, and build the foundations for future exchanges. This is only the first step towards strengthening an independent publishing open to the world, and guaranteeing bibliodiversity.
A part of this meeting will focus on the governance of the Alliance, as well as an assessment of the Bibliodiversity Observatory, some few months after its creation in July 2016.

Bibliodiversity… it is the daily life of independent publishers, what drives them. Why make it a special day, then? To celebrate Spring Day in the Southern Hemisphere, for books to occupy public spaces, to share, connect, exchange, discuss, and have fun… Because diversity of ideas is essential to the construction of democratic societies, because independent publishers are its actors, together with authors, translators, illustrators, booksellers, librarians…

This year, some planned festivities and activities include:
• In Quebec, Mémoire d’encrier publishers, in partnership with the Maison de la Syrie (‘the House of Syria’), facilitate a Quebec-Syria literary meeting
• In Syria, Atlas Publishing convene booksellers and publishers in the heart of Damas
• In Chile, EDIN collective will distribute a list of independent publishers’ works in the country’s main libraries; filmed activities will be held throughout the day
• In Colombia, public spaces (parks, public places) will be animated by publishers from the REIC collective…
• In Italy, the independent publishers members of the FIDARE get themself heard through a call
• In Spain, the ministry of Culture is launching a campaign in favor of bibliodiversity
• In Peru, the collective of independent publishers EIP is organizing an Independent Book Fair, from 23 to 25 September, to follow on facebook
• In Argentina, the collective of independent publisers EDINAR is planning bookcrossing, literary meetings...

Follow all the activities on the Alliance website and social media.

And have a look on the official B Day 2016 video!

Year of publication of the Pan-African version: 2016, 11,5 X 19 cm
First publication in France: Grasset (2013)

Co-publishers: Apic (Algeria), Eburnie (Ivory Coast), Ikirezi (Rwanda), Jimsaan (Senegal), Ganndal (Guinea), Graines de Pensées (Togo), Le Fennec (Marocco), Proximité (Cameroon)

A Fair Trade Book co-publishing.

In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries. It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.

Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.

Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.

A translation from English into French followed by a co-publishing between 5 publishers in France (éditions Charles Léopold Mayer), Switzerland (éditions d’en bas), Mali (Jamana) and Cameroon (Presses universitaires d’Afrique).

From October, 19^th to 23^rd, meet the independent publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair: more than 25 publishing houses from all around the world will be there!

You can find the publishers’ contact on the attached document. Do not wait to make an appointment!

The International Alliance of independent publishers demands that Turkish authorities immediately release publishers, authors and journalists currently detained. It is necessary to guarantee freedom of speech and publishing in Turkey. The Alliance joins the Turkish Publishers Association’s condemnation of the summary closure of publishing houses and media as a clear human rights violation, and urges the Turkish authorities to rescind those summary closures.

Through the support of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the partnership established with the Ivorian publishers association (Assedi), the Alliance’s Digital Lab will convene 18 publishers from Sub-Saharan Africa from 23 to 27 May, to a workshop focusing on:
* the production and marketing of digital books (session facilitated by Gilles Colleu, Vents d’ailleurs, France);
* management of the Alliance Press web template developed by the Alliance for publishers who do not have websites (session facilitated by Mouhammed Diop, Senegalese developer and designer of Alliance Press).

The workshop follows on the series of meetings/training workshops designed and implemented by the Alliance since 2010, and is aimed at publishers in particular from French-speaking Africa. In order to share knowledge and encourage ownership, all workshops and meetings of the Alliance are complemented by factsheets published on the Digital Lab website, and personalised online tutorials.

The workshop will be held at the occasion of the Abidjan Book Fair (26-28 May, Palais de la Culture), and will provide the opportunity for publishers to share the collective stand of the Afrilivres association. The Afrilivres Prize will be awarded on that occasion, in the presence of the recipient of the 2015 prize: Valesse publishers from Ivory Coast.

After studying political sciences, Laura Aufrère was for 5 years coordinator of the French confederation gathering not-for-profit cultural professional initiatives from a variety of disciplines (music, theater, outdoor and circus, visual arts, etc.), rooted in the solidarity economy movement (UFISC). She is now a PHD student in management, looking specifically into critical approaches in the organisation theory and the digital humanities fields. She studies commons and social and solidarity economy initiatives, focusing specifically on work and labour organisation, cooperation and governance issues, and social protection. She joins the Alliance Board in 2016 and is now its President.

Vice-President of the Board of the Alliance since the General Assembly of June 20, 2011, Luc Pinhas is a former student of the École normale supérieure in Saint-Cloud. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies and teaches at Paris 13-Villetaneuse University, where he is currently in charge of a master’s degree on “Book Marketing”.

The label “Fair Trade Book” is attributed by the International Alliance of independent publishers to works published in the context of international publishing agreements that respect each other’s particularities: fair co- publishing. These fair copublishings enable the sharing of costs linked to intellectual and physical production of books and therefore ensure an economy of scale; an exchange of professional know-how and a common experience, while respecting the publishers’ cultural contexts and identities; and a distribution of works on a broader scale by adjusting prices for each geographic zone.

Download the format epub here!