Since I received the news in October 2010 that my application had been accepted, I have been lucky enough to work with total freedom on a topic that has always fascinated me. I am profoundly grateful to Laurence Hughes, Thierry Quinqueton, Clémence Hedde and the entire team at the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, as well as to Christa Meindersma, Adriana González Hulshof, Albert Ferré, Joumana El Zein Khoury and the Prince Claus Foundation, for this wonderful opportunity.

I would also like to thank Ramy Habeeb and Arthur Attwell, my colleagues and friends from the Digital Minds Network, who have contributed invaluable testimonies and information. Laura Díaz’s collaboration in systematizing this wealth of material has, it must be said, been absolutely vital.

I also wish to express my gratitude to Pablo Rossello, Claire De Braekeleer, Beatrice Pembroke, Mary Godward, Agustina Odella, Susan Amor, Huw Jones, Gelya Morozova, Fatme Masri, Paula Silva, Robert Ness, Donna McGowan and all the members of the British Council who have offered me their support for this project and for so many other initiatives in recent years.

I am similarly indebted to Emma House, Simon Littlewood and Claire Anker, from the Association of UK Publishers, for giving me the chance to take part in personal exchanges with professionals from India and China in December 2010.

I have been enormously helped too by the advice of Marifé Boix, Dieter Schmidt, Martina Stemann, Tatjana Simon, Lei Ren, Olga Ditsch, Akshay Pathak, Mary Therese Kurkalang, Vladka Kupska and other representatives of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Finally, I am grateful for the generosity of the 120 publishers, booksellers, librarians, agents, programmers and distributors from over 40 countries that have responded to the online survey, as well as to all those colleagues who have agreed to share their perspectives on the subject of digital publishing in developing countries, and in particular to Gabriela Adamo, Anuj Agarwal, Hayat Alyaqout, Christian Ambaud, Sergey Anuriev, Livia Azevedo Lima, Charles Bolufer, Bruno Baldo, Karin Betz, Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Catherine Blache, Christoph Bläsi, Diego Bresler, Ignacio Camdessus, Eugenia Campos, Carlo Carrenho, María Laura Caruso, Ekaterina Chekulaeva, Alice Cicolini, Russell Clarke, Gilles Colleu, Peter Collingridge, Ricardo Costa, Emily Chuang, David Dauvergne, Pablo Di Julio, Marta Díaz, Leandro Donozo, Joanna El Mir, Sékou Fofana, Etienne Galliand, Marco Ghezzi, Chloé Girard, Miriam Goldfeder, Chris Gruppetta, Jacques Guégané, Sofiane Hadjadj, Pablo Harari, Mónica Herrero, Zhou Hongli, Pitra Hutomo, Ansomwin Ignace Hien, Gabriel Jacobsohn, Hérard Jadotte, Serge D. Kouam, Yevgeniy Khata, Shereen Kreidieh, Eric Kossonou, Leopoldo Kulesz, Alvaro Lasso, Marc-André Ledoux, Jo Lusby, Armel Mahossekpo, Gabriel Mateu, Carole Morrison, Laxmi Murthy, Jean-Claude Naba, Ezio Neyra, François Nkeme, Sebastián Noejovich, Herny Odell, Per Oystein Roland, Juan Pampin, Ximena Ramos Wettling, Eun-Jung Park, Vladimir Prohorenkov, Henk Propper, Marie Michèle Razafinstalama, Amande Reboul, Jean Richard, María José Rosolino, Rodney Saint-Eloi, Carolina Sborovsky, Paulo Slachevsky, Mario Spina, Artem Stepanov, Mónica Torres, Mohammed Umar, Richard Uribe, Maarten Valken, Jaime Vargas Luna, Ariel Vercelli, Neeti Verma y Fernando Zapata.