As part of the Kingston Book Festival, the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) hosted a session entitled The Business of Books: Business and Investment Opportunities in the Jamaican Book Industry . Along with Jamaica Trade and Invest, CaribLit was a co-host of the session, with its guests, English publishers, Michael Williams from BIS Publications and Jeremy Poynting from Peepal Tree Press sharing their insights on publishing Caribbean books for the English market.

High on the agenda: ebooks. Jamaican publishers have begun to embrace the digital revolution both as a means of lowering the cost of providing books to the local market and as a way of tapping into the wider international market. The BIAJ noted that several of its member publishers including the University of the West Indies Press, Pelican Publishers, Ian Randle Publishers and LMH Publishing have made major strides in launching their ebook catalogues, while Jamaican self-publishers are independently launching ebooks in growing numbers.

Christine Randle from Ian Randle Publishers and Ronald Robinson from the Office of the Deputy Principal at the University of the West Indies gave updates on their digital publishing initiatives.  Robinson outlined UWI Mona’s initiatives which began with a project in the Faculty of Medicine. The University licensed ebooks from the publishers of the textbooks used and now offer them to students on a UWI-branded electronic reader. The project has expanded to include smart classrooms and a library app that allows electronic borrowing.

UWI is now doing a pilot with Jamaica College to provide sixth form textbooks electronically.

Read the full story in the Jamaica Gleaner.

Publishers and booksellers in Jamaica got a rare chance to interact with representatives from the finance and investment community during a business session organized as part of the Kingston Book Festival.

Billed “The Business of Books: Business and Investment Opportunities in The Jamaican Book Industry” the session was co-hosted by the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ), Jamaica Trade and Invest (JAMPRO) and CaribLit at the JAMPRO offices on Thursday, March 8.

“We realize that many decision makers in the finance and business community don’t understand the business side of the book industry,” said BIAJ Promotions Director, Tanya Batson Savage. “The goal of today’s session was to bring everybody to the table -- explain how the book industry works, how money is made and to talk about opportunities that we’re missing because of access to capital.”

Batson Savage and fellow BIAJ Directors Frank McGibbon and Kellie Magnus (CaribLit Coordinator) presented an overview of the global publishing industry and a detailed breakdown of the Jamaican industry, looking at the number of local publishers and booksellers as well as challenges facing local companies. Key among these were access to capital, high operating costs, inconsistent editorial quality and marketing and distribution support. 

The BIAJ presented a range of potential models for private sector partnership with the local book industry bulk purchases for donations of books, commissioned works, customized publications (including business memoirs and publications based on the content generated by local companies) and joint marketing campaigns.

The association plans to hold follow up meetings with representatives from the participating agencies, including Jamaica’s ExIm Bank and the Jamaican Business Development Corporation to forge more collaboration between the publishing and finance communities. 

See related story in the Jamaica Observer; download the full BIAJ presentation.

As part of the Kingston Book Festival 2013, CaribLit organized an industry networking session bringing together publishers and booksellers from Jamaica and the Diaspora. Co-hosted by Jamaica Trade and Invest and festival organizers, the Book Industry Association of Jamaica, the networking session has already yielded one tangible result: Peepal Tree Press (based in Leeds, UK) and Brooklyn, New York-based Akashic Books have announced their intent to create a joint imprint to publish the work of new Caribbean writers.

Jeremy Poynting, Managing Editor of Peepal Tree Press and member of the Caribbean Literature Action Group, who attended the festival as a guest of CaribLit, noted that the decision came from having the opportunity to interact with Jamaican writers and to brainstorm possible solutions with Akashic’s Publisher, Johnny Temple. In addition to the networking session, the two spoke at the festival’s Industry Workshop, participated in a story-pitching session with aspiring writers during the festival’s book fair and attended an arts mixer with writers, publishers and other representatives from Jamaica’s cultural and creative industries.

Both companies have made significant contributions to the Caribbean literary landscape. Peepal Tree is widely known for its work in publishing Caribbean fiction and poetry, and is home to Caribbean Modern Classics Series – new editions of major, out of print, Caribbean works.  Akashic’s growing line of Caribbean Interest titles includes the work of Kwame Dawes, Thomas Glave and Anthony Winkler and the popular Noir series. 

Poynting noted that both publishes houses are keen on having local input in the editorial  direction of the planned imprint. Further details will be announced at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, which runs April 25-28, 2013. 

Jamaica’s leading publishers and booksellers turned out in full force for the Kingston Book Fair – the highlight of the nine days of activities of the Kingston Book Festival. Among the sixty exhibitors was tech venture eBooksCaribbean, on hand to launch its downloadable ebook card – a marketing tool for publishers and authors.

eBooksCaribbean is a social commerce platform for Caribbean publishers and authors. The company offers publishers and authors a turnkey service for digitizing and selling ebooks in multiple formats through eight of the web’s largest ebook distributors. The company also creates online stores for authors and publishers who wish to sell ebooks through their own sites.  

The downloadable ebook card is an extension of the social commerce platform, allowing authors and publishers to sell their digital publications in brick and mortar retail points of presence. The cards can also be used in off-line marketing campaigns. Similar in size and format to pre-paid phone cards, the download cards carry the cover art of the book on the front, while the back has a PIN code that the reader uses to redeem and download the book from the author’s or publisher’s website or from the eBooksCaribbean site.

“The download card is a tangible representation of a digital product,” says eBooksCaribbean co-founder, Lloyd Laing. “It allows the publisher to have a physical product for customers to touch and feel. They can distribute the cards at book festivals and major events and it gives them a product to sell in real world bookstores. One of the challenges for authors with ebooks is getting attention for their books in the offline world. The card gives them a solution.

“It also gives traditional bookstores a way to participate in digital sales. For everybody in the industry it’s win win.”

The cards come in different grades of paper and plastic, to facilitate publishers who want to promote their cards as collectibles.

The cards were launched at the book fair with Pelican Publishers’ Caribbean Calorie Counter, which first appeared as a print book, is now available as an ebook and will soon be converted into an interactive app.

“We want to make this book available as widely as possible,” says Latoya West Blackwood, Senior Assistant Manager at Pelican. “But identity theft and credit card fraud are issues that Caribbean publishers trying to sell online have to deal with. The download cards allow us to reach the segment of the market that’s afraid to use credit cards online as well as  people who don’t have credit cards but have access to online books.”

For more information on the download cards, visit ebookscaribbean.com.