Middle East North Africa. Publishing backwater or exciting publishing opportunity?

The Bologna Children’s Book fair has just wound up, and before that the London Book Fair. At end May we have the New York Expo.

Who knew the international book fair calendar was so busy?

Actually that’s just the tip of the iceberg,

Happening right now is the 14th Erbil International Book Fair in Iraq’s Kurdistan.

100,000 visitors are expected.

In Tunisia right now the Tunis Book Fair is happening. A smaller but not unimpressive crowd of 40,000 expected there.

Just a few weeks ago the big Iraq book fair in Baghdad took place. The Baghdad International Book Fair clocked one million visitors.

Just before that was the Muscat International Book Fair in Oman that also attracted one million visitors. And before that the big Cairo International Book Fair attracted millions. Yes, plural.

And of course there was the Riyadh International Book Fair in Saudi Arabia. That also clocked one million visitors.

Let’s not mention here the Alexandria Book Fair and the Emirates Book Festival not long finished, that between them usually pull in 100,000 visitors.

Or the Casablanca International Book Fair (550,000 visitors this year) that together mean over 5 million people have already visited book fairs in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region so far this year. And it’s only April.

The Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is coming up shortly. 300,000 visitors is typical. So is the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival in the UAE. 250,000 expected there.

Then there’s the Manama International Book Fair in Bahrain (220,000) and the Kuwait Book Fair (300,000) and the Beirut International Book Fair in Lebanon (350,000) and the Amman fair in Jordan and the Palestine fair and the Jerusalem fair in Israel and the Doha fair in Qatar and…

Later this year we’ll see the Sharjah International Book Fair and the Algiers International Book Fair in Algeria. Last year they welcomed over 2 million visitors each.

No time here to mention many more. Just to say that, by year’s end, somewhere between 12–15 million people will have visited book fairs and festivals in the Middle East-North Africa region. And we can add another two million if we include non-Arabic-speaking Iran. The Tehran International Book Fair is a regular 2- million crowd-puller.

The global book market. It’s so much bigger than you think.

Every country in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia now has a dedicated publisher portal, as do countless other countries around the globe.

In May we’ll be doing a double-whammy roll-out, starting with East Europe and Eurasia in early May to mark the turin and Thessaloniki Book Fairs, and then to mark New York Book Expo at end May we’ll complete our roll-out of portals across the Americas. Yes, by end May there will be an author & publisher portal for every country in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

StreetLib. Serious about the global book markets.

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