ISBN:

978-2-9519747-4-6 (Spanish version)

978-2-9519747-5-3 (French version)

978-2-9519747-6-0 (English version)

© International Alliance of Independent Publishers

French translation: Danielle Charonnet

English translation: Lynne Bolton

Publishing is sharing one’s passion for a text. That entails being fully familiar with, and really involved in, the sphere of debate in which one wishes to include it. Works are not published within the “bubble of the global village”, but within a particular living culture.

In developing societies, furthering and encouraging the contribution of books to public debate and cultural development, and thus participating in the construction of meaning, is no superfluous exercise; rather, it is a contribution towards economic, democratic, social and cultural development, which are inextricably linked.

This is the conviction shared by both the Prince Claus Foundation, which places the connection between culture and development at the very heart of its interventions, and the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, which brings together and promotes independent publishers; that is to say, those not controlled by states, big international finance groups or religious influences.

It is in this context that we asked Octavio Kulesz, an Argentine philosopher, formerly a traditional publisher (Libros del Zorzal) now turned digital publisher (Teseo), to carry out a study on the prospects of digital publishing in developing countries.

It is indeed our conviction that, far from invalidating the publisher’s function, the incredible acceleration in the circulation of works and cultural production brought about by the digitization of communications makes the publisher’s role all the more decisive within the new structure of knowledge exchange now being built.

However, the professional operations and the economic models that govern book publishing will be turned upside down as a result.

Insofar as these operations have, in recent decades, led to a form of automation or industrialization of publishing within that segment of the industry that has been taken over by large financial groups, thereby damaging bibliodiversity, one can hardly feel sorry about these changes and the announced disappearance of a golden age that has in fact never existed.

One of Octavio Kulesz’ great merits is that he does not, for all that, feed the myth of digital salvation, but instead formulates concrete proposals that will enable independent publishers, as the mediators they are, to integrate their own projects and their own backlists into this new context.

In fact, as the reader will see on this website, the approach adopted is to propose an evolving, interactive study constructed in constant dialogue with publishers from developing countries, from the viewpoint of training, organization and experimentation as well as lobbying activities.

We hope it will be a tool that enables the economy of the digital circulation of knowledge and cultural products to thrive on the prospect of development for each one of our societies and cooperation between them, and not on undefined and univocal discourses that will only lead to dramatic identity withdrawals.

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.

As is well known, there are marked contrasts in the assimilation of these technologies from region to region. The industrialized nations – in particular the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea –[1] have access to extremely efficient Internet services and plentiful human resources. Their firms therefore enjoy a considerable margin for action when it comes to testing out hardware, software and new digital publishing business models, which means that companies like Amazon, Apple, Google or Sony are taken as references in the media and at professional events all over the world. Now, it is clear that in the case of countries from the South, infrastructure limitations and low rates of human development hinder the advancement of electronic publishing such as it is known in more advanced regions.[2] And certainly what little news that comes out about digital publishing in the developing world is usually related to incursions undertaken by those same actors from the North.

Thus, the conclusion reached in numerous articles and international conferences is that, in order to promote electronic publishing, the countries of the South have no choice other than to await the arrival of successful models from the North. However, this assumption is highly objectionable. For a start, so far it has not proven easy to identify a “successful system”  of digital publishing, even in advanced countries; indeed, the sales figures for publications through Amazon’s Kindle Store[3] or Apple’s iBooks are not widely available, which prevents us from knowing the extent to which in themselves these publishing platforms constitute as lucrative a model as is publicized.[4] In fact, the constant changes in setting sale prices, defining formats and applying digital rights management (DRM) – or not – show that even the major players are still feeling their way.

Secondly, we must ask ourselves how useful it would be to reproduce the prototypes from the North in the South, as in addition to the disparities in infrastructure, there are also enormous cultural, linguistic and even religious differences. Let’s not forget that digital models represent more than just a tool: with a notable dose of egocentrism contained in its very name and the attraction produced by a logo that refers, amongst other things, to biblical sin, an iPad may well captivate a young Westerner – educated in a particular tradition –, but it won’t have the same effect on someone from India or the Cameroon. And, as we will point out later, the experience of reading from the screen of a cell phone means something very different to a Chinese user, for example, than it might do to a European one, due to the qualitative difference in the characters used in each case. Of course, a company like Apple will certainly find a highly profitable niche among the most affluent classes in developing countries, since the cultural and consumption patterns of these sectors merely imitate those of the North. But the interesting thing would be to find out what digital models might be a hit not just with the wealthiest 20% of the citizens of developing countries, but with the rest of the inhabitants, that is to say with the bulk of humanity.[5]

Thirdly, given the enormous population, and above all the accelerated economic growth observed in many countries of the South, it is hard to believe that the developing world isn’t making its own contribution to the electronic age. In addition to the countless IT service providers in India and hardware manufacturers in China that support the Western platforms from behind the scenes, there are original and innovative digital publishing projects being carried out at this very moment in the South – local platforms that will one day be able to compete with foreign ones. In fact, some of these ventures are so dynamic that instead of debating who will be the future Apple of China or the Amazon of South Africa, perhaps we will soon be asking ourselves who will be the Shanda of the US or the m4Lit of the UK.

On the one hand, according to the observations of the main actors involved, many of the typical obstacles of publishing in countries of the South can be overcome by incorporating digital technology into the book chain. Indeed, if the Internet connection tends to be defective in these regions, then the infrastructure of the book sector – distribution, retail sales, and printing – is even worse. In some cases, then, certain technologies can be employed to help skip the “Gutenberg stage” and work directly in digital form by making use of the equipment already available.

Likewise, the electronic solutions that certain countries of the South have implemented to overcome their problems of content distribution can also serve as a model for others, thus facilitating South–South knowledge and technology transfer. For example, the rich prospects for mobile phones in India, China and South Africa represent a fruitful precedent for the Maghreb and the Middle East.

Lastly, the rapid economic growth experienced by many nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa has increased the funds states have available to them to invest in infrastructure, training and research and development (R&D). Sooner or later, these countries will have to ask themselves what kind of digital publishing highways they must build and they will be faced with two very different options: a) financing the installation of platforms designed in the North; b) investing according to the concrete needs, expectations and potentialities of local authors, readers and entrepreneurs. Whatever the decision of each country may be, the long term impact will be immense.

Firstly, the digital publishing projects already under way in developing countries – some of which have had a great impact on their societies – have not yet been sufficiently promoted in  the media and at global events, which forces any researcher to delve much deeper into the particular context of each country.

The problem that then arises is that, at least in these regions, classical publishers do not always see electronics as an ally but rather as a danger that threatens the very foundations of culture. This negatively affects the dissemination of autochthonous digital projects, which lose visibility in the local press and media and can only be found in other types of arena, such as conferences on technology or gatherings on Internet start-ups.

Moreover, because of the very nature of the technologies involved and the countries concerned – many of them in the midst of transformation –, digital publishing in the developing world is so extraordinarily dynamic that any investigation of the topic dating from more than two years ago becomes an archaic document. Bibliographic searches thus prove to be far more complex.

Lastly, the developing world is geographically and culturally so vast that it is scarcely possible to carry out a detailed study of the experiences undertaken in every country, which forces us to make choices that are always difficult.

In addition to the questionnaire, we conducted around 30 in-depth interviews, many of which will form part of a blog on independent publishing in the digital age. Particularly important was the possibility to work face-to-face with several of the publishers consulted, in Frankfurt (October 2010), Sao Paulo (December 2010), London (December 2010), Burkina Faso (December 2010) and Buenos Aires (February 2011).

As far as the bibliography is concerned, we must admit that the books available on the topic were of no real use. As we have already pointed out, any text on online publishing prior to 2008 constitutes a veritable relic. So we resorted to a vast catalogue of articles and papers, most of which come from online sources and can be looked up in the footnotes.

The topic in question has shown itself to be so dynamic that we have opted to publish these – still provisional – results in digital format, not just because of the easy access that characterizes the Web, but also because of the possibility of including hyperlinks in the text and exchanging comments with readers. We hope that, in this way, those professionals who are interested can contribute new information, different perspectives and other articles that will no doubt enrich the original study, which will thus – at least for a time – avoid the fate of those books crystallized in printed form that today prove obsolete.

Given the huge volume of existing information, we have limited the research to six major areas: 1) Latin America; 2) sub-Saharan Africa; 3) the Arab World; 4) Russia; 5) India; 6) China. This list includes emerging countries from the BRIC group as well as other nations with lower rates of growth. Of course, our selection leaves out a considerable number of nations – such as Indonesia, Pakistan or Mongolia – that might provide noteworthy examples of electronic publishing; although to a certain extent, some of the trends present in the areas studied may serve as a starting point for approaching these countries of Asia whose economic, cultural, political and religious ties with India, China or Russia are significant. In any case, this type of analysis will have to wait until a later date. The reader will also observe that even within the areas chosen, some countries do not receive a mention while others – such as South Africa in the sub-Saharan region – are dealt with in extenso; this is due to the particular selection of sources we have made, which  by no means exhausts the extensive range of possible cases. We might also be inclined to think that the experiences described are representative of regional trends, insofar as the problems of an African, Arab or Latin American country are more similar to those of its neighbours than those of the US or Europe. But, once again: those countries not mentioned should be the object of future research.

We have attempted to focus on real cases of digital publishing, the technologies involved and the difficulties of migration faced by the players from traditional publishing. The reader will see that on various occasions we have described the situation of local e-commerce, even in relation to products that are not electronic, since the topic seems to us to provide a key background to the issue under study. On the other hand, given that we have limited ourselves to book and magazine publishing, we have not looked in depth at other branches – such as news publishing or e-learning – that would merit a separate investigation.

In our treatment of each region, we have generally preferred a descriptive tone to any taking of sides, on the conviction that exposing the facts by highlighting the voice of local actors is in itself a sufficiently strong commitment. Indeed, approaching the reality of the South in its own autonomy, and not as an imperfect reflection of the North, may open the doors to a new program.

Moreover, we have avoided as much as possible the temptation to issue simplistic proclamations that don’t necessarily help build beneficial tools. On the topic in question it is always enticing to make pronouncements along the lines of “the software used in the South should always be open source, in order to fight the big corporations” or “we shouldn´t use technology from the North”, etc. Instructions of this kind transmit a great deal of intensity, but they are a priori difficult to prove: the interesting thing would perhaps be to find out which open source software is advantageous in which cases, which technology from the North is worth using and which isn’t, in what way, etc.

Nonetheless, we have included step by step a significant number of proposals for the International Alliance of Independent Publishers and the Prince Claus Foundation, which we will come back to and expand on in the last section of the study. All of these recommendations are guided by the same principle: to consider the situation of developing regions with their own specificities, in order to deploy their true potentialities. As we understand it, the regions of the South do not need any “equalization” implemented from outside; equality is not the goal here, but rather the starting point, insofar as all the regions have enormous intrinsic strengths. Instead the objective would be to contribute from the inside towards enabling entrepreneurs from the South to successfully compete with their colleagues from the North and even manage to surpass them.

The exposition is therefore organized into the sections listed below, which may well be consulted separately but acquire greater meaning when read in the following order:

1. Latin America
2. Sub-Saharan Africa
3. The Arab World
4. Russia
5. India
6. China
7. Conclusions, proposals and action plan

Business models have yet to be invented for Latin American electronic publishing, although certain actors are already carving out a clear direction. With new social sectors being incorporated into electronic consumption year by year, accelerating investment in several countries and the liveliness that characterizes its online literature, digital publishing in Latin America will have a lot to show for itself in the years to come. Traditional publishing houses, however, will have to strive to take advantage of the opportunities of the new age.

Sources: Anuario estadístico de América Latina y el Caribe, December 2010; Cepal; Cuent, David: “América Latina es el segundo mercado de celulares más grande del mundo”, BBC Mundo, 7th October, 2010; Internet World Stats, “Internet usage statistics”, (2010), Internet World Stats; CERLALC.

Around the same time, the first sales platforms for electronic books were inaugurated – some of which are still active –, such as Elaleph or Librosenred, both from Argentina.[1] The file formats most commonly used were EXE,[2] PDF and LIT.[3]

For various reasons, those pioneering platforms did not manage to become immediate commercial successes. No doubt the main ones were the fact that Latin American consumers were unaccustomed to reading from a screen and the limited number of online payment options.[4] This last reason also explains why the very first online stores selling paper books achieved a lower level of growth than expected.[5]

Similarly, one fundamental element contributed to the poor development of electronic books: in the early 2000s, in almost every Latin American country, traditional publishing showed signs of great dynamism, [6] which is why publishers viewed the digital option with less interest.[7] Moreover, the image of music stores closing down or traditional record companies in decline due to the unauthorized reproduction of CDs and MP3 files led most publishers to postpone any experiment with electronic formats.

However, since the mid-noughties, the appearance of certain actors, trends and digital tools has brought about a profound change in the publishing landscape.

Although the technology available in most of Latin America is not of the same level as that used in the US, POD nevertheless proves to be more competitive for print runs of up to 300 copies. This reality, in addition to the fact that various on-demand printing houses offer services for distributing books through the Internet, has led numerous publishers to adopt a policy of stock reduction. The main POD companies in Latin America include Bandeirantes and Singular (Brazil), Bibliografika, Docuprint and Dorrego (Argentina) and Publidisa (Mexico).[2]

The region has also witnessed the emergence of purely digital bookshops, that is to say stores that only sell electronic books: such is the case of Gato Sabido (Brazil) and the recent Biblits (Mexico). Opened at the end of 2009, Gato Sabido began with 400 titles in Portuguese and has worked ceaselessly to increase its backlist. It formed an alliance with the British company Interead to offer over 100,000 titles in English and market the e-reader Cool-er. After Interead went bankrupt in mid-2010, the economist Carlos Eduardo Ernanny, the founder of Gato Sabido, made it clear that his company would continue striving to find new content suppliers.[3] Gato Sabido’s texts are sold with Adobe DRM.

Biblits, the first digital bookstore native to Mexico, will appear on the Internet in February 2011 – at least this is what has been announced by its founders, Manuel Dávila, Eduardo Ávalos and Feli Dávalos.[4] This store will not use DRM, as Dávila explains:

We are against digital locks. At Biblits, when you buy a book you also purchase possession of it. It is your copy and you can share it with whoever you want as many times as you want. What is more, if you lose it, the Biblits site gives you a spare copy.[5]

Among the few local aggregation initiatives, we must mention Xeriph, a company also founded by Carlos Eduardo Ernanny, of Gato Sabido. The funds invested in the project are 100% Brazilian, although the platform has numerous external suppliers: the technical support, for example, is carried out in India. Just like the books marketed by Gato Sabido, the backlists distributed by Xeriph are sold with Adobe DRM, at the price set by the publisher. In any case, Ernanny urges local publishers to adapt their business models to the new era, to avoid the same problems of overpricing found in international platforms:

At the moment, publishing houses are trying to work with the margins of a market condemned to extinction. The model must be reconsidered and challenged. Ignoring these changes or not listening to the consumer is institutional suicide.[3]

Another platform, which is also Brazilian, is the recently created Distribuidora de Livros Digitais (DLD). This was an initiative originally developed by Objetiva, Record and Sextante, which was later joined by Planeta, Moderna and Rocco. These publishing houses represent 50% of traditional publishing in Brazil.[4] Following the model of Libranda (Spain), and with a planned investment of over 1 million dollars, DLD will only supply bookstores[5] and aims to occupy a dominant position in the Brazilian digital book market. It is worth noting that the pricing policy encouraged by DLD is the opposite of that of Xeriph, judging from the declarations made by Sergio Machado, the president of the Record group:

Bookstores, particularly national ones, were very concerned about the threat posed by Amazon. One of our priorities is to prevent any cannibalization of prices taking place in Brazil through unfair competition.[6]

The upshot of this criticism against “cannibalization” appears to be that DLD will seek to prevent the price of e-books from collapsing. Of course the only way to achieve this result would be either by means of a law on fixed prices for e-books or else through exclusivity agreements, ensuring that publishers don’t hand over their archives to more than one distributor, as is now the case with Libranda in Spain. It remains to be seen then which of the two business and pricing models will prevail: whether it will be that of DLD – regulated prices, without competition – or that of Xeriph – prices adapted to the requirements of readers, who demand cheaper e-books.

With regard to formats, the e-books produced by Latin American publishers are generally distributed in PDF, and only a small proportion is sold in ePub.[7] This can be explained by the relative ease of exporting a book to PDF, with the help of the page layout programs most commonly used in the region (InDesign and, to a lesser extent, QuarkXPress). Few publishers today have the necessary know-how to convert their books to ePub, which is the reason why they are forced to outsource that service to different providers, at a cost that varies between 50 and 100 dollars per title.[8] So, unless sales justify a change of strategy, most publishers will continue to produce their e-books in PDF.

Other gadgets like the Apple iPad are for the moment so prohibitively expensive that they end up being considered luxury products intended more for the entertainment of the well-to-do (whose patterns of consumption are comparable to those of the US or Europe), than for use by the wider public. Nevertheless, some entrepreneurs such as Tapps (Brazil), Moebius (Argentina) and The Crab Group (Mexico) have already begun to develop content created for this model of tablet. The e-book Rapunzel was designed by Tapps as an iPad application in which readers can help prevent the protagonist of the story from falling from a tower, among other interactive possibilities. Moebius, for its part, is a comics label created in 2008, which in conjunction with the applications company Moosgo has produced an iPad version of Don Quixote. Lastly, the company The Crab Group has developed various iBooks, including most notably El manuscrito Borges, by Alejandro Vaccaro[3] and La tregua (The Truce), by Mario Benedetti.[4]

Even if, as we explained, the Apple device is currently a luxury product in Latin America, at least it can be used as an outward-looking commercial platform, as Cristián Parodi, Moosgo’s director, points out:

The digital distribution of content using these devices enables access to other markets that were previously out of reach due to high costs and existing regulations. Now, thanks to iTunes and other online platforms, it is possible to produce content in Argentina and sell them all over the world.[5]

In addition to the imported devices, there are already others designed in Latin America, which may currently end up being more expensive than the foreign ones, because of the lack of economies of scale and because many of the electronic components also come from abroad. We will have to see what happens in the future if internal demand greatly increases and e-readers begin to be manufactured entirely in situ. Brazil is the clear protagonist in this field also. The Alfa device, created by the technological group Positivo,[6] is equipped with WiFi, touch screen, 2GB of memory and can be bought from Livraria Cultura for about 480 dollars. Also, the Leitor D, made by the company Mix, was launched in mid 2010; it comes with an analogue keyboard and can be obtained through a dedicated webpage, at a cost of 410 dollars. Mix, a company specializing in software, has developed numerous educational applications that will be available in the next version of the device.[7]

There are also digital publishing houses (POD and electronic books) with a literary profile, such as El fin de la noche and Blatt&Ríos[1] (Argentina), or an academic one, such as Teseo (Argentina) and ITESM[2] (Mexico). The business model adopted by these publishers is generally oriented towards institutional sales and “the Long Tail”.[3]

Other digital publishing companies champion open access and Creative Commons licences, and are supported by contributions from sponsors and donations. One notable case is LeerLibrosLibres (Argentina). This site, directed by the designer Mario Spina, brings together works on art and culture that can be downloaded free of charge, in PDF format. The platform is entirely constructed using free and open source software.

It is also worth highlighting the ventures that experiment with enhanced reality, such as Manoescrita (Argentina). This publisher sells printed books that are reinforced with multimedia contents available on the Web. Thus, when the book The Pied Piper of Hamelin is placed in front of the webcam, texts, animation and melodies emerge from its pages. María Laura Caruso, the director of Manoescrita, explains:

We wanted to create a different publishing space, one that provided responses to some of the dichotomies of the publishing world. For example, the relation between books and new technologies.[4]

Nevertheless, there are interesting things happening in informal web portals for hyper-brief texts intended as SMS messages. One such case is Cuentos Pulgares (Argentina), a collective writing project that proposes the creation of micro-stories. Augusto Jacquier, one of the promoters of the initiative, explains:

While I was waiting to be given an appointment to get my driving license, a friend sent me some haikus. And while I was there something happened that occurred to me in a narrative manner, and I wrote a 160 character story, which is the limit for any standard cell phone message (…). The challenge is to generate something with what you have got. New technologies, such as the cell phone, give rise to new practices that have infinite potentiality.[3]

For Latin American literature – for all the actors involved –, the shift towards online platforms brings with it huge advantages in relation to ease of circulation, distribution and visibility. Its scope and possibilities reach towards the universal, and the timeless, which is what literature is concerned with. Moreover, within Latin America the digital medium enables “native” readers to discover texts in their own dialect without having to go through the hurdle of Iberian publication. In simple terms: Argentine readers, for example, can read any Uruguayan or Chilean writer who publishes their work online, without any longer having to wait for a Spanish publisher or transnational publishing house to select that Chilean or Uruguayan for their catalogue and distribute them. Let’s say that this is a step towards specificity: regional modulations, lexical choices peculiar to a community at a certain moment (captured and presented for reading almost simultaneously), its trends and affectations. In this sense, online literature has great documentary potential and, within the vast digital world, it veers towards detail and idiosyncrasy, which is also what literature is all about.[1]

With regard to academic publishing, there is also a definite trend towards putting content developed by local universities and research institutes on the Web.[2] These repositories aim to satisfy the bibliographic needs of a region that cannot always afford to pay thousands of dollars in subscriptions to access specialized texts. While virtual academic libraries enable researchers and students to consult different materials with Creative Commons[3] or similar licenses, many have decided to go a step further and create free repositories of works including some that are under copyright protection, which has provoked heated debates and even led to lawsuits. One such example was the legal action taken against Horacio Potel, an Argentine philosophy professor who had been uploading books by Derrida and Heidegger to the Web since the early 2000s.[4] Following fierce controversy in the graphic[5] and digital media,[6] the legal offensive, originally orchestrated by the Argentine Book Chamber, came to nothing, since the Public Prosecutor’s Office ended up dismissing the case against Potel in November 2009. It is interesting to observe that although the case did not prosper, it did not lead to any noteworthy developments in legislation either, which means that the current situation remains unclear. In any case, it is obvious that there is a tension in Latin America between, on the one hand, the traditional model of supply (publishing based on traditional copyright and the sale of printed copies) and, on the other, an avid demand for digital content. It will be very difficult for traditional publishers to hold back the tide of mass digitization, since as we will see in the case of Russia, many of the unauthorized virtual libraries are located abroad or are part of closed social networks. An (anonymous) expert in digitization recently declared to the newspaper Página/12 (Argentina):

Circulation on the web is more complex than with printing firms. It is uncontrollable and unstoppable. You upload a book by Sartre and within a month it is on thousands of hard disks all over the planet. (…) Things that sell on a large scale are those that are digitized the most, as happens with music. There were users who came to us and said ‘Digitize the Da Vinci Code! I have a right to read Dan Brown!’. Until we decided not to accept requests on the list; and if it was a work of fiction we would wait a year for it to circulate. That way we managed to get rid of those people who ask for a book that just came out yesterday.[7]

Leandro Donozo, the director of the prestigious independent publishing house Gourmet Musical (Argentina), explains how piracy weighed on his decision not to venture into selling electronic books:

The main reason why I don’t publish electronic books is piracy. I am reluctant to release a copy, to release my master copy: when I release a normal PDF, that is my master copy; there is no difference between the file I send to the printer’s and the file I release. And I don’t want to release that because I know that as soon as I do, at least 100 people who might buy the book won’t buy it, because they would rather download it; they wouldn’t even buy it if it was cheaper. And I can’t find anyone who can give me a technical basis as to why what didn’t work with the MP3 is supposed to work with the electronic book. An equation needs to be found, and for me that is the main obstacle. I don’t have the commercial solution, and I don’t know whether anyone does.[1]

For a considerable number of Latin American publishers, the electronic age – and the possibility that texts may end up being copied ad infinitum – constitutes a threat to the book business itself. And there is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in operation here, which could escalate in the coming years: since publishers are scared away by the digital option, there is very little content available in electronic format, thereby increasing the chances of texts being digitized on a massive scale without authorization.

Nevertheless, we must remember that piracy is not a challenge that is restricted to digital formats: the latest survey by CERLALC reveals that illegal reprography – for example, photocopies – and piracy on paper are still two of the biggest obstacles faced by local publishing, and these systems of unauthorized copying have been around in the industry for many years. Moreover, it is interesting to observe that the two challenges that top the list of the professionals surveyed by CERLALC – above piracy – are not only not a consequence of the electronic age, but they might even be mitigated by incorporating new technologies into the book chain. We are referring to:

1. changes in macroeconomic variables;
2. low demand.[2]

Without going into details, in relation to the first point, we might suppose that a publishing system that were less dependent on paper supplies would enable publishers to cope better in a context of inflation, devaluation or economic instability in general. With regard to the second aspect, the growing thirst for digital content shown by Latin American readers is a sign that the demand for books is not decreasing, it has just been transformed and now calls for other formats and new mediums. If the publishing industry were to find a way to take advantage of these changes, the benefits would be considerable, as Donozo adds:

In my case, I publish very specific books, books on music, where the electronic book offers me better possibilities than the paper book. For example, sometimes I have to produce books with more pages than I can print, because they would cost me a fortune. In addition, there are times when it is necessary to include materials that are not text - illustrations, musical examples, musical scores, sound, video, references, hyperlinks, bibliographies, internal hyperlinks, indexes of names with internal references – and here the electronic book may be much more efficient. At the same time, I want to publish more titles than I can print. So if I could make more interesting books that were cheaper to produce but were able to produce more titles, selling fewer copies and in a market like music where sound gives the book a new and extremely important dimension, that for me would be a great improvement.

In this context, it is interesting to observe that in a devastated country like Haiti, where paper publishing faces enormous restrictions, local publishers do not hesitate in identifying the huge opportunities that might emerge from new technologies. Rodney Saint-Eloi, the director of the publishing house Mémoire d’encrier, has this to say:

There is a great literary tradition in Haiti; the problem is the segregation of classes. Literature remains linked to the concept of social class. To people who eat, who go to school, who wear clothes, who travel… It is a social distinction. (…) paper exists but it isn’t popularized, democratized. Digital formats will make it possible to widen the sphere of citizenship.[3]

First of all, any professionals seeking to distribute their titles in one of the digital modalities described above will need to have their entire backlist converted into electronic format. The most long-established publishing houses, particularly in the case of small and medium players, have digitized only a relatively small proportion of titles. At present there is very little help available for scanning backlists, unlike what happens in France for example.[1] In this case it would be worth submitting reports to local authorities – Ministries of Education, Culture and Production – in order to obtain support for digitization initiatives.

Moreover, as 77% of our Latin American survey respondents acknowledged, it would be essential to implement training activities to help update the working methods of small and medium publishing companies. For example, the survey reveals that publishers use very few software options other than Microsoft Office and Adobe InDesign, and virtually no personalized tools. Another difficulty is related to the insufficient legal knowledge publishers possess regarding the digital world. A typical case arises in copyright contracts. Very few small and medium-sized publishing houses have modified their contract models in order to market their works in electronic format; what is worse, some have even begun to sell digital copies without signing any ad hoc addendum with the authors, under the mistaken conviction that clauses like “the work may be published in paper format or in any future format” grants them the power to do so with electronic versions. As Mónica Herrero, a copyright specialist (Argentina and Brazil) points out:

Many publishing companies habitually include that line about the future format, but it is useless because copyright is interpreted in a restrictive manner, that is, if it is not explicitly stated what is being granted, the interpretation will always (in the event of a dispute) be in favour of the author, who is the party considered to be most vulnerable.[2]

On other occasions publishers feel disconcerted by the overly demanding contracts of certain digital aggregators; publishers may indeed be accustomed to signing exclusivity agreements with territorial distributors for their paper books, but the same course of action proves very risky in the case of electronic marketing. Thus it would be advisable to add to the training activities topics related to the new book chain and its business models – many of them yet to be invented. [3]

These professional updating activities should be designed according to the local actors involved and would require the commitment of institutions currently operating in the region. A number of interesting initiatives of this kind have already been carried out, such as the Congresso do Livro Digital (Sao Paulo, March 2010), the third Publishing Conference, organized by Opción Libros (Buenos Aires, September 2010) and the Primera Muestra Internacional del Libro digital (Bogotá, August 2010).

To ensure that the proposals do not remain purely abstract in nature, the training would have to be complemented by activities focused on developing professional and commercial links. Book fairs may prove to be a privileged arena for exchange, but so far these events do not appear to have put sufficient energy into digital technologies: 26% of our survey respondents gave a score of 1 out of 5 to the technological updating of local fairs, while 55% gave them 2 out of 5. Lastly, if we bear in mind that 74% of those interviewed acknowledged that dialogue with colleagues from the region constitutes their main source of information, it is at fairs and the different professional conferences organized locally that the greatest efforts for change should be aimed.

These meetings and seminars could help to overcome the paralysis that tends to prevail among the more traditional publishing houses, and even reawaken the flame of vitality and the desire for exploration that no doubt marked their beginnings, decades ago. Although of course the “ecosystems” that emerge from the different initiatives in digitization, training and networking will necessarily have to integrate new actors from the digital world – programmers, web designers, videogame developers, etc – and, in this sense, they will be very different from any other experience that has taken place in the past.

1. A new middle class will be rapidly incorporated into the consumer market, especially in Brazil. Digital products (hardware and content) will no doubt feel the impact, particularly bearing in mind that in a country like Brazil, around 80% of the new middle class considers it “impossible to live without computers”.[1]
2. Various public initiatives will help to reduce the digital gap, especially the plans concerning technological infrastructure for the education sector, such as the Plan Ceibal (Uruguay) and the Plan Conectar Igualdad (Argentina).
3. The promotion of local production in free trade zones such as Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) or Manaus (Brazil) will speed up the appearance of nationally produced hardware designed for electronic reading.
4. There will be a possible expansion of free and open source software, which has been part of the state policies of different countries for several years (Brazil[2] and Venezuela,[3] for example).
5. There may be modifications in legislation: possible exemption from certain taxes on electronic publications, discussions of fixed/variable prices for e-books and wider debate on current copyright laws.
6. The number of events related to digital publishing will increase (book fairs, exhibitions, conferences).
7. The curricula of publishing courses will gradually be updated.
8. Brazil – far and away the country that invests the most in R&D in the region –[4] will play a leading role in both developing electronic reading hardware as well as creating content platforms.
9. Local actors will increasingly compete with platforms from Spain and the US, and their success or failure will depend to a large extent on the quality of the links they manage to establish with the other domestic players: authors, publishers, booksellers, programmers, web designers and videogame developers.

Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a serious lack of infrastructure and human resources. However, the extensive mobile phone network covering the region has enabled the emergence of new publishing actors that have made mobiles their main ally. Traditional African publishers, for their part, appear in general to be optimistic with regard to new technologies: the foundations of the paper book industry in Africa have historically been very fragile, and the leap towards digital may represent a great opportunity.

Sources: World Bank; Book Aid; International Telecommunication Union; Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group.

I think it’s very unlikely the Kindle will make a significant impact in South Africa. It is very expensive for most people (especially when including the shipping costs) and is likely to be purchased by only a few wealthy early-adopters.[2]

Since March 2010, the Worldreader organization has been handing out the device to students in Ghana, to explore the reactions of these young people to digital technology.[3] According to David Risher, the founder of Worldreader and a former executive of Amazon, the medium term objective is reduce as much as possible the cost of each book read using this technology:

Lack of access to books has been solved by e-books. But there’s no market-driven plan to get e-readers to the developing world. [4]

Nevertheless, Jonathan Wareham, a professor from ESADE (Barcelona) who has studied the case, points out that in order to make any progress, Worldreader would have to create a system of content, distribution, pedagogy and administration, as well as obtain administrative, cultural and political support. The challenges, adds Wareham, are immense: the initial objective of the program was to fight illiteracy, but ultimately it is faced with the need to change cultural rules.[5] Risher is at any rate optimistic, as he believes that since the teachers already know how to use the books, the Worldreader program – sometimes called the “One Kindle Per Child” project[6]– will prove to be easier to implement than other initiatives like One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).[7] This is no innocent remark on Risher’s part, since it reveals the rivalry that exists between these two experiments in introducing reading technology into the developing world.

Presided over by Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC is also a non-profit organization, based in Delaware (US), which developed the XO, a low-cost and low-energy-consumption portable computer that can be used in the remotest of places and the most adverse environments. According to its website, OLPC’s mission is to promote the education of school-age children in developing countries. The organization has produced hardware, software and content for over two million pupils and teachers, and has carried out various experiences in sub-Saharan Africa. OLPC receives financial support from companies like eBay, Google, News Corporation and Red Hat.

The question that arises – and one that has numerous implications in the field of digital publishing – is what kind of content Worldreader’s Kindles or OLPC’s laptops offer in Africa. According to information disseminated by OLPC, XO users can access hundreds of thousands of free e-books provided by the Internet Archive Foundation of San Francisco.[8] Of course no specific details are given about what happens with pupils and teachers that require personalized content, in particular when the foreign repositories contain no literature in local languages – as is usually the case.

In 2010, OLPC France promoted the inclusion of an electronic book in the Malgache language into the XOs on the island of Nosy Komba (Madagascar). Jeunes Malgaches, an independent local publisher, joined the initiative and contributed the first text.[9] According to Marie Michèle Razafinstalama, the director of the publishing house:

OLPC France discovered that when foreign books are introduced, difficulties arise, because there is always the language barrier. In some countries, books in French may work, but the problem is that these books are never adapted. In other words the content is not fitted to the context, and children can’t identify with that type of book.[10]

In addition to that one title in Malgache, the laptops contain 12 electronic books in French. Razafinstalama believes these texts will be less likely to interest pupils, because in primary school children don’t yet understand that foreign language well. Moreover, there still does not appear to be a clear business model for publishers, given that so far it has been a non-commercial initiative: Jeunes Malgaches transferred copyright free of charge, OLPC received the text in PDF version and then adapted it to the device. Nonetheless, a publisher like Sékou Fofana, from the Donniya publishing house, in Mali, sees an advantage in including local texts in the XOs:

In commercial terms there isn’t much to be gained. But in terms of recognition and diffusion it may be a good option.[11]

Regardless of the possible virtues of Worldreader or OLPC, what is certain is that both initiatives are based on a technological platform that seeks to install itself “from above”, in completely heterogeneous contexts.[12] As is to be expected, the difficulties don’t take long to surface: the lack of content adapted to the users and the absence of a business model designed for local creators and entrepreneurs. In other words, they are projects that first get the technology on the ground and then face the problem of generating nothing less than an ad hoc “ecosystem” of people and infrastructure.

Worldreader and OLPC have achieved international renown – no doubt because of the stature of the actors and contributors involved –, but they are not the only projects related to digital publishing in sub-Saharan Africa. On the contrary, there are numerous local ventures that start from very different premises.

Marc-André Ledoux, the head of NENA, has a very strong opinion about the projects imposed on Africa from outside without taking into account the particular conditions of the local context:

In the field of African publishing, international cooperation projects and NGOs only complicate matters, every time they give assistance for a set period to publications that are ‘orphaned’ once this time is up, and left without monitoring or marketing (…). The essential thing is for African publishers to persevere and produce (…). To tell the truth, the key to development in Africa, in my opinion – which is shared by many others – depends on the creation and growth of viable and sustainable small and medium enterprises.[1]

Acknowledgement of the specific possibilities of the region has led some publishers to also explore the POD option. Electric Book Works will soon launch Paperight, a platform that promises to transform any computer with a printer and Internet connection into an on-demand store. In this way, it will be possible to buy books at the local photocopying centre and pay for the cost of printing along with a small amount corresponding to the copyright and publisher’s rights. According to Arthur Attwell:

There may be other ways of harnessing digital as well that will include distributing e-books through libraries and Internet cafés, kiosks, any infrastructure that doesn’t require someone to be spending a lot of money on a device. I think print-on-demand has got a massive future for Africa, and developing countries in general, because of the way it caters to people with low cash flow and who just need a book right now; they can’t afford to get an e-reader or even a netbook computer to read books in the long term.[2]

Another independent South African publisher, Jacana Media, will soon have an Espresso Book Machine, for printing book on demand locally. The machine will allow them to reduce distribution costs and replace the prevailing business model – produce first, sell later – with another, inverted, model – sell first, produce later.

The progress made by POD in South Africa has opened the doors to self-publishing ventures like MouseHand. Part of the publishing company RedHill, it offers authors services  including interior and book cover design and proofreading as well as – most importantly – the possibility of marketing their books printed on demand or in electronic format, through portals like Amazon and Kalahari.

Another significant platform in South Africa is Exclus1ve Books, belonging to the multimedia group Avusa. Since October 2010, Exclus1ves has been selling e-books in ePub or PDF format, like its competitor Kalahari. According to the renowned portal Book Southern Africa, most of Exclus1ves’ e-books come from the US aggregator Overdrive.[2]

Book Southern Africa has set up its own electronic bookstore, called Little White Bakkie (LWB), through Scribd. LWB sells files in PDF format with DRM, at the price set by the publisher. Of the total amount invoiced, 20% goes to Scribd, another 20% to LWB and the remaining 60% goes to the publisher. For the time being, given the payment limitations that exist in the case of Scribd, LWB’s content can only be bought from the US.

In the field of digital magazines, MyMag and CrushMagOnline are two of the more active examples and are also South African. Founded in 2007, the portal MyMag sells magazines in interactive Flash format, with discounts of up to 40% on the price of the printed issue. CrushMagOnline is a free publication on wine and food, also in Flash format, which offers recommendations, restaurant reviews and interviews with chefs. This famous publication   incorporates plenty of multimedia material.[3]