The Arab-speaking world, which totals an estimated 250 million people worldwide, has been a relatively untapped market of potential new readers, with only about 330 books translated into Arabic each year. That market has recently been opened to more publishers, thanks to the efforts of Kalima—Arabic for “word”—a new, nonprofit cultural initiative dedicated to translating a wide variety of books into Arabic. Kalima partners with Arab publishers by funding the translation, publishing, distribution and marketing of these books. Twenty-six U.S. titles are included in Kalima’s first batch of 100 classic and contemporary titles that it plans to translate in the next year, from
Alan Greenspan
When the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” series decided to go global with its newest edition, “The Remarkable … Revealed,” the company took a chance by tweaking the typical foreign publishing model. Rather than licensing full publishing rights, as many publishers do, Ripley chose to handle printing and work directly with foreign distributors. “We’re finding that, with licensing, [foreign publishers] don’t [always] have the commitment we do,” says Norm Deska, executive vice president of intellectual property, Ripley Entertainment. “We’re looking to better establish our brand with a high-quality annual book, and the only way to do that was to do it ourselves.” Ripley, whose
Book Expo America (BEA) has announced that the conference keynote by former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Dr. Alan Greenspan has been moved to the Special Events Hall at 5:15 p.m. on Friday, June 1. Reportedly the session was moved to a larger venue at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Center convention facility in anticipation of a large turnout. Dr. Greenspan will be interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, who is also Dr. Greenspan’s wife. The interview will focus on the process of writing his new book “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” which is
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