Read: The sixth issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
Read: The sixth issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
Publishing countries : Brazil
In Brazil, the “Springtime of books”, an event organized
by the LIBRE organization (a Brazilian federation of publishers), was the occasion to discuss a law regulating the price of books. Approximately a hundred independent Brazilian publishers participated in this great celebration of books, from September 15-17, 2006.
Upon the publication of the Portuguese version of Protéger le livre (“Protecting books”) - a study published in 2003 by the
Alliance of Independent Publishers, Markus Gerlach, author of the study, accompanied by an economist and president of LIBRE, Araken Ribeiro, participated in an in-depth debate on setting fixed prices for books. Proteger o livro is the first co-publishing project between LIBRE and the Alliance of Independent Publishers. We are particularly pleased that Markus Gerlach’s work exists, in addition to the French and Spanish versions, in Portuguese.
Remaining active, the LIBRE organization organized a round table discussion focused on “Proposals and commitments made by Presidential candidates”, with the participation of several representatives of candidates from the principal parties involved in the Brazilian Presidential campaign.
As we can see, the establishment or the rejection of a law on books and readership makes for some serious debate,
particularly in Latin America.
(More info on: http://www.primaveradolivro.com.br/).
Read: The fifth issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
The role played by books in spreading ideas, analyses, imaginary scapes and proposals, in educating and informing citizens, is essential to understand the challenges of our times, to know oneself and others. Read what follows (in French)
Read: The fourth issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
Read: The third issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
Publishing countries : France
The Alliance of the Independent Publishers cordially thanks all the people who contributed to the success of our collective stand at the Paris Book Fair.
Read: The second issue of Bibliodiversity, the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers, has just come out!
Read: The first number of Bibliodiversity the newsletter of the Alliance of independent publishers has just come out!
Publishing countries : Mexico
November 2005, 27-30
International Book Fair of Guadalajara, Mexico
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 13th 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.
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:
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’:
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”:
A study published by African Studies Association (ASA) and African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK), to read here!
International Alliance
of Independent Publishers
38 rue Saint-Sabin
75011 Paris - France