Ask anyone about the United Arab Emirates, and the answer usually revolves around its iconic saillike Burj Al-Arab tower or its financial center, Dubai, the Middle East's most modern metropolis, famed for megaprojects and billion-dollar deals. Abu Dhabi, 120 kilometers southwest of Dubai, tends to be an afterthought, despite its status as the capital city of the UAE.
It's high time for perceptions to change. There is ample evidence pointing to the rise of Abu Dhabi as the region's cultural center, and much of its progress in literature, publishing and reading is attributed to one organization: the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH). From the professionally run Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF), which it jointly organizes with Frankfurter Buchmesse, to hosting the 2010 IPA Copyright Symposium, ADACH has been busy modernizing the region's publishing and bookselling industry and facilitating cultural exchanges between the Arab-speaking region and the rest of the world.
The many divisions under ADACH are focused on producing quality works, original and translated. Qalam, for instance, was launched at ADIBF 2008 to nurture young Emirati writers, and it has since published some 20 titles. Five of these publications have been translated into German for a Frankfurt launch, including a short story collection, Apocalypse Bus; a novel, Grief Has Five Fingers, and an anthology of poems, A Pure Path Next to You. Publishing manager Mohamed A. al Shehhi is also working on translating selected titles into English for the world market. Translating foreign language classics and contemporary titles has been the key function at Kalima since day one in November 2007. Director Ali bin Tamim is responsible for keeping its goal of translating 100 titles per year on track. So far, his team has translated, among others, The Halo Effect, Kafka on the Shore, Age of Turbulence, Rasmus and the Vagabond and The Sign, with Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father and Nadine Gordimer's The Pick-up in the works.
The National Library, on the other hand, has intensified its reading promotion activities and research on anything book related. It has also just made available the world's only Arabic encyclopedia of poetry on CD-ROM and online. This encyclopedia, of which director Jumaa Abdullah al Qubeisi and his team are extremely proud, contains all Arabic poems that have been produced since pre-Islamic times. But Arab works are not the sole focus of the National Library. “We plan to translate works from the surrounding regions, from the memoirs of Mughal emperors to those of the great Buddhist emperor Ashoka. We aim to become the repository of all knowledge that has been produced, regardless of culture or religion,” says al Qubeisi, who is also the director of ADIBF. Meanwhile, a massive digitization project is underway that will make available the National Library's archives and manuscripts to the rest of the world, especially to scholars. “There is also our new library project that will include a library of music and another that caters to teenagers, which will stock comic and manga titles from around the world,” adds manager of technical services Khalid al Dhaheri.
Also busy at work is Dubai-based al Maktoum Foundation. Launched in May 2007 with a $10 billion personal endowment from the vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, this nonprofit organization will host the first Dubai International Children's Book Fair next February. Renowned American and European children's authors will be attending, and participation from non-Arab publishing houses is expected to hit 59%. The foundation also sponsors the Dubai International Poetry Festival (DIPF) besides initiatives such as the Oktub program, to nurture young Arab authors; Tarjem, to translate leading works into Arabic; and Turjuman, to improve translation quality in the Arab world. So far, Tarjem has translated no fewer than 620 titles, of which 80% are English originals. “We also have the Book in a Capsule project, which circulates monthly summaries of the most prominent management, business and leadership books to business leaders in the UAE,” says Ali Saif al Shaali, publishing director of the foundation, who lists China Inc., Blue Ocean Strategy and How Countries Compete among 19 titles that have been summarized so far.
As for recognition of creative efforts, there is ADACH's prestigious and well-funded Sheikh Zayed Book Award, now in its fourth year, which selects outstanding works in publishing, writing and translation from the UAE and the rest of the Arab-speaking world. Another award, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, was established last year and the first batch of recipients announced at ADIBF 2009. Dubbed the Arabic Booker Prize, it is a collaborative effort by the Booker Prize Foundation, the Emirates Foundation and the Weidenfeld Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Outside Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the other five emirates are not slacking either. Sharjah boasts its own well-established book fair, aptly named Sharjah World Book Fair. Organized by its Department of Culture and Information and held over 10 days, this 28-year-old fair is one of the oldest and the biggest in the region with more than 700 publishers and 40 countries taking part in 2008. Its focus on children's books and rights deals has been one of its most outstanding features. In fact, its 2008 children's section was the biggest in its history. Meanwhile, translations (mostly English to Arabic) have grown significantly since the November 2007 launch of a translation institute.
Last March, the spotlight was firmly on Sharjah when it became the headquarters of the newly established UAE Publishers Association, chaired by Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan al Qasimi, daughter of Sharjah's ruler as well as founder of the Arabic children's book publisher Kalimat. Needless to say, the Ministry of Social Affair's decision to base the association in Sharjah speaks loudly of the emirate's growing influence on the UAE's book publishing industry.
For overseas publishers, there is much to explore and learn about the UAE and the Arab-speaking market. The UAE publishing industry, said to expand 15% to 20% annually, is estimated to be worth $2.7 billion. And what about the wider Arab-speaking region? A combined population of more than 300 million people can't be ignored by overseas publishers, distributors or rights agencies. Big players such as Pearson Education, Random House and HarperCollins have already set up sales offices either in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, although their functions are mostly limited to sales and marketing.
What are the challenges and issues facing the UAE book industry? Where are the markets? PW sits down with several domestic players to talk about their experience in publishing, creating content and distributing books in the UAE and the wider Arab-speaking region.
For the Child
In a region so rich in oral traditions, bedtime reading is not a common activity and early reading is only a newly introduced concept. “The growing popularity of the English language among youngsters has also seen Arabic children's books taking a backseat to English books. Somehow, children have come to perceive reading in Arabic as difficult and boring. Additionally, parents and schools find it essential to equip children with English, further shrinking the Arabic children's book market,” explains editor Dareen Charafeddine of Sharjah-based Kalimat (kalimat.ae), the first UAE publishing house to specialize in Arabic books for children. “In short, there is little incentive to develop Arabic children's titles or invest in such publishing programs.”
This did not stop Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan al Qasimi from founding Kalimat two years ago. Within this short period of time, al Qasimi and her eight-member team have published 40 titles by native authors and illustrators, with plans to release 50 books for 0-to-16-year-olds every year. Its main series on themes such as parent-child relationships (Zein), childhood experience (Yasmina) and Arabic fables (Kalila Wa Dimna) have been selling very well. Kalimat also addresses topics rarely found in Arabic children's literature such as coping with death and being left-handed. On introducing the sensitive topic of death in Jaddati Wal Qamar (Grandma and the Moon), Charafeddine says, “We know very well that parents, teachers and the community in general might not be receptive to this subject. It is actually a simple story about a girl out for evening walks with her mother singing to the moon and asking about the grandmother whom she misses a lot. She does not understand why grandma is no longer around. Jaddati explains death as a natural process that everybody needs to accept, and it does so without even mentioning the word death.”
Currently, the Kalimat team is busy producing a YA title by one of the Arab world's bestselling children's authors as well as several picture books, including one story about a girl with stubborn curly hair who wishes to have straight locks, and a book/CD pack about a chicken that lives in a rooftop pen but dreams of flying free like a bird. “Our bestsellers are books that offer more educational value, as parents prefer them to those that are purely for fun or leisure reading,” adds Charafeddine, pointing to titles on the alphabet, numbers and colors. “Novelty series for babies, the Yasmina series, Yaday [My Hands] and Law Kuntu Taeran [If I Were a Bird] are some of the popular titles at international fairs, and we hope to sell their rights soon.”
Near and Dear To the Region
When it comes to region-specific publishing, no one does it longer (30 years and counting) or has a more extensive distribution network than Motivate Publishing (booksarabia.com). Founded by British-born Ian Fairservice, who co-owns it with Obaid Humaid al Tayer, minister of state for financial affairs for the UAE, Motivate offers 24 magazines and a catalogue of more than 250 titles.
Publishing primarily in English with selected titles also in Arabic, French, German or Russian, its Arabian Heritage series boasts the most comprehensive collection of published works by explorer Wilfred Thesiger as well as exclusive titles from writers/photographers Ronald Codrai, Patrick Lichfield and John Nowell. Recent bestsellers include My Vision by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (100,000 copies sold), Don't They Know It's Friday by Jeremy Williams (an introduction to cultural and business etiquette in the Arab region) and the Life and Times series by royal photographer Noor Ali Rashid, which tracks the development of the UAE through the lives of its leaders. Among its Gulf Business series, Edmund O'Sullivan's recent bestseller, The New Gulf: How Modern Arabia Is Changing the World for Good, is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and contemporary framework of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region.
“The publishing industry here is regulated, but censorship is not as much an issue as is generally believed. There are, however, cultural sensitivities,” says Jonathan Griffiths, general manager of Motivate's books division, who adds that copyright law, which is in line with that of the rest of the world, is in place and is enforceable. “Overseas publishers should also note that the Gulf region is not a single, uniform Arab market. There are cultural and language variations.” Population shifts, he points out, were the region's most significant change in the past five years. “Tracking demographic movements as new cities spring up and population grows is part and parcel of our business. We also have a large tourist market that expands and changes over time, and we need to be aware of the origins of these visitors and their needs in terms of reading materials,” says Griffiths, whose team will be launching Living in Qatar, the second title in the Living In series and Sheikh Mohammed: Life and Times, a Noor Ali Rashid photography book that traces the life of Dubai's ruler. The latter has chalked up pre-pub sales of close to 20,000 copies.
Despite the global economic doldrums, the company's sales remain strong, due mostly to the success of the Arabian Gallery that it has set up in various bookstores around the region to showcase Arabian-themed books and art prints. “We want to continue expanding our imprints, leverage our magazine publishing capabilities and build our publishing services to include packaging for international publishers.”
Something for Everyone
Prolific aptly describes Arab Scientific Publishers (asp.com.lb). Since its inception in 1987, it has published more than 2,400 titles, 88% of which are translations. And four out of five titles in its translation list are of American origin.
“ASP was established to meet the pressing need for IT titles, professional reference books, school textbooks and exam guides at all levels. Since then, the market has changed and the demand for novels as well as publications on current affairs and popular culture has grown significantly. We now publish everything from fiction to nonfiction for children, young adults and adults,” says Beirut-based CEO Bachar Chebaro, who runs the company with four siblings. “Eleven years ago, we launched our online bookstore, neelwafurat.com, named after the region's two famous rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates. It is now the largest Arab online bookstore with more than 300,000 titles.” Among the company's top sellers are the biography of Prince al-Waleed of the Saudi royal family and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. The latest from Brown, The Lost Symbol, and an ambitious three-volume Arabic dictionary are in the works and set to be available by year's end.
A year ago, Chebaro started Thaqafa, an imprint mostly focused on original Emirati and Gulf works. And given its many joint ventures with the region's top institutions and companies—the al Maktoum Foundation (Dubai), the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, Kalima (Abu Dhabi), the al Babteen Foundation (Kuwait), Islam On Line (Qatar), el Iktilaf (Algeria) and al Aman (Morocco) among them—more high quality original works are in the pipeline. “Our attention, up until five years ago, had been on translating international works. But now that we have quite a selection of originals, we are hoping that some, especially the novels, will find their way to the international market,” adds Chebaro.
The lack of specialized distributors in the region, however, annoys him. “I would like to see such companies take over the logistics so that publishers can concentrate on what they are supposed to do—publishing.” And his advice to overseas publishers looking to increase their market presence and sales in the region: “One way to reduce piracy is to allow foreign titles to be reprinted locally and then appoint local publishers to distribute them regionally. Also, note that illiteracy rates in certain countries are as high as 40%.” But Chebaro is happy to see the emergence of more private publishing companies in recent years. “We now have classy international book exhibitions such as the ADIBF and we will be hosting the IPA Copyright Symposium next year. All these mark the progress of our publishing industry and recognition of our copyright protection stance,” says Chebaro, who is also secretary-general of the Arab Publishers Association, adding that he would be even happier if more great Arabic works are made available outside the region. “This would bring Arabic and other world cultures closer.”
Content Is King
Content creation is big business to Abu Dhabi-based twofour54 (twofour54.com), named after the geographical coordinates of the city. “The Arab region has some 300 million people, all bound by a common language. But little content has been produced in the past. This means there is a big potential market in the Middle East for publishers and authors,” says CEO Tony Orsten, who points out that the region's most pressing need is to develop and build its talent pool. “And this is where twofour54 tadreeb comes in. This division's job is to update and upgrade the skills of media professionals to the highest international standards as well as to promote the media industry as a serious career choice to students and graduates.” At the same time, twofour54 ibtikar provides creative talents with business expertise and funding to get their media businesses off the ground, while twofour54 intaj offers state-of-the-art production and postproduction facilities. The tadreeb division has put more than 350 students, of whom 30% came from outside the UAE, through the company's various courses.
At twofour54's October 2008 launch, 13 partnerships with some of the world's largest and most influential content creation companies were announced, including Random House; CNN, which is adding a fourth broadcast hub in Abu Dhabi to its existing roster; and HarperCollins, which is localizing its bestselling Big Cat guided reading series for children and launching a new series of Arabic dictionaries in English, French and Hindi. By October this year, the partnership number is set to at least double. “We have also inked our first coproduction agreement for Driver Dan's Story Train, a fun and educational Arabic/English TV series aimed at preschoolers,” adds Orsten.
“Our Khalifa campus, located within a free trade zone, offers companies that share our vision attractive fiscal benefits such as a tax-free environment and 100% foreign ownership. For publishers interested in setting up office in our campus, twofour54 tawasol, our business support service division, would assess their full business requirements and help them with visa, residential sponsorship, accommodation and more. One of our key roles is business facilitation. Using our unrivaled knowledge of the publishing sector and its players—translators, authors, publishing houses, etc.—we would introduce like-minded businesses and individuals to our network of publishing partners.”
Adds Orsten, “The past few years have seen a renaissance of the Arab publishing industry and culture-related segments. Abu Dhabi in particular has emerged as a driving force behind the professional and commercial development of the region's publishing industry, and the emirate is fully and financially committed to promoting the long-term expansion of the book business.” Orsten, who is busy finalizing the blueprint for a new waterfront office, says: “Twofour54 will continue to develop the infrastructure that will enable us and our partners to evolve and keep pace with Abu Dhabi's development into the regional center of excellence for content creation.”
Getting Books To the Masses
A chain of retail stores in the UAE and Bahrain as well as bookshops at Abu Dhabi and Bahrain airports differentiates Jashanmal National (www.jashanmalbooks.com) from other regional booksellers. “We also supply to companies such as Carrefour in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar,” says general manager Narain Jashanmal, whose great-grandfather founded the company in Iraq in 1919, which today has diversified into home appliances, stationery products and courier/logistical services, to name a few.
Jashanmal's retail network accounts for nearly 20% of the UAE's English-language book market, with another 7%—8% taken up by its Carrefour wholesale deal. In Bahrain, where it operates a university bookstore, its market share is a whopping 70%. Over 95% of its revenue comes from trade books, mostly fiction, cookbooks and children's titles. “A huge percentage of English-language books imported into this region come from the U.K., selling at around the original cover price,” adds Jashanmal, who prefers to call censorship “decency standards” and points out that it affects magazines more than books. “Obviously, titles on eroticism and mysticism and texts on theology and religion receive the most scrutiny.”
The book distribution market in the GCC region, Jashanmal points out, is quite fragmented. “The difference between Dubai's high-end retail segment and Oman's low-end is significant. So overseas publishers venturing into this region need to do a lot of work to get adequate representation for their titles, as no distributor, wholesaler or retailer is capable of providing a one-stop solution.” The market size and demographic diversity compound the problem because, as he puts it, “while this is a fast-growing region, in terms of population it is a relatively small market that consists of various nationalities and ethnicities. This means that the actual market for most titles is likely to be smaller than it appears.” The good news is that sales have grown in the past five years, but so has competition. The retail business has become more sophisticated as players raise their game in an attempt to expand their market share. “This part of the world is not exempt from the factors roiling the global book industry, and I personally believe that e-commerce is the next major opportunity,” he adds, which explains the heavy investment in the online bookstore, relaunched last month with full e-commerce capabilities.
Jashanmal would like to see publishers adopting POD (print on demand) as a serious alternative. “The potential savings in inventory costs are too high to ignore. On our part, we are prepared to invest or co-invest in POD technology and initiatives should the right opportunity come along.” E-books is another area that has caught his attention. “Our online store is capable of handling e-books and MP3 audio books. It is now a matter of sorting out this new digital supply chain to enable direct content delivery to customers.”
