Dubai: As technology advances, bookworms are finding more alternatives to consume literature than just through the printed word. Although the number of e-books in Arabic is much smaller than in English, publishers and translators are working to bridge the gap.
In 2018, Amazon announced Arabic-language support for the Kindle e-reader, opening the door to literature to a much larger audience.
From novels to self-help books, biographies to poetry and much more, a growing number of Arabs are finding affordable means to acquire knowledge in e-books and audiobooks. Nevertheless, reading a printed book is still the most preferred option for most people.
“Honestly, I don’t think there is a problem with reading books in the Arab region, as some might think, as much as a problem with selling books,” Salah Chebarro, CEO of Beirut-based Nilvafurat, told Arab News.
Nilvafurat, one of the largest online bookstores in the Arab world, is a portmanteau of two Arabic names for the Nile and Euphrates rivers.
The bookstore sells printed books from Arab publishers in various cities around the world. It has a stock of 15,000 e-books for sale, which can be read through the iKitab application, as well as 800,000 printed books.
While printed Arabic language books are far more popular than e-book counterparts, sales of the latter are slowly increasing as a result of rising prices for printed versions. (spa)
“When you look at the number of pirated books downloaded, they are in the millions,” Chebro said in an online interview from the Lebanese capital. “People like to read, but they don’t like getting paid to read.”
However, “the plight for publishers, distributors and bookstores in the Arab world … lies in shipping (books) and other logistics related to the geography of the Arab region.”
For example, in the US it costs roughly the same to ship a shipment of printed books weighing 2 kg from New York to Los Angeles as it does from Cairo to Amman.
This is due to the geographic distribution of the Arab region, which makes transportation, shipping, exports and imports more complex and costly, Chebarro said.
Saving on shipping costs is one of the main factors behind the growing popularity of e-books in the Arab region. Other factors include the savings of space required to store and carry print books, as well as the speed of online book purchases, which can be finalized in the blink of an eye.
While some maintain their preference for the printed word, there are many advantages to reading on gadgets. Yemeni-British Dhuha Awad, a creative facilitator based in Dubai, says she likes the dictionary function in digital English books.
“I can type in the word I’m looking for, and the gadget will display all the lines that contain that word (in the digital book). Plus, I don’t have to carry the book I’m with me all the time.” studying,” Awad told Arab News.
Her library has approximately equal numbers of digital and printed books, and she uses the e-book format to save time and physical space. “If I love a book and want others to read it, I make sure I have it on paper. But if I’m not sure, I’ll buy the digital format first,” she said.
Quickfact
• Global e-book revenue to exceed $16.1bn in 2021 and could reach $18.7bn by 2026.
• The number of e-book readers worldwide is expected to reach 1.1 billion by 2027.
• According to publishers, e-books account for about 10% of total book sales.
• In 2018, Amazon announced Arabic-language support for the Kindle e-reader.
Growth in the e-books market in the Arab region is being led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, said Ali Abdel Moneem Ahmed, digital publishing consultant for Liberty Education in the UK, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, during a panel discussion in Sharjah. The Publishers Conference is held every November on the sidelines of the 2022 edition of the UAE’s Sharjah International Book Fair.
Ahmed said that more and more publishers are offering online platforms with digital versions of their books. Publishers are also collaborating with audio-ready platforms such as Storytel and Audible.
In the markets of the three aforementioned Arab countries, e-book sales of classic books are projected to “increase by 14 percent (in 2021),” Ahmad said. “This is separate from online publications, which have grown by 50 percent.”
Despite the growing sales of e-books, there is still room for further growth. According to publishers, e-books account for about 10 percent of total book sales.
“It’s a promising (sector) … and it’s growing every year. But we haven’t yet reached the percentage of Europe and America, where about 30 percent of book sales are e-books,” Chebro told Arab News. told.
Global e-book sales are very high, with figures varying between different sources and websites.
According to WordsRated, a US-based non-commercial research organization, global e-book revenue exceeded $16.1 billion in 2021, and is expected to cross the $18.7 billion mark by 2026.
Statista, another US-based market and consumer data provider, expects the e-book segment to reach $13.6 billion in 2022, with an estimated annual growth rate of 3.38 percent, reaching more than $16 billion by 2027.
Saudi Arabia tops the list of buyers and readers of both digital and printed books in the Arab world. (spa)
The number of e-book readers is expected to reach over 1.1 billion by 2027, with the majority of revenue expected to be generated by the US. The country is the world’s largest book market, with revenues estimated in billions of dollars.
About one million books are being published annually in the US, in addition to the four million self-published books annually.
By comparison, the revenue of the Arab book market is between $100 and $150 million. According to figures shared by Chebarro with Arab News, only one million books have been published in the Arab region in the past five decades.
Publication statistics in the Arab world are related to a number of socio-economic factors, chief among them personal income.
“Today, the rate of pirated books in the Gulf region is low compared to other countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Pirated books are a big problem and (are) linked to a person’s income,” Chebro told Arab News.
“We have a long way to go… (but) overall, sales of paper books are increasing, as well as sales of e-books. Neither of them is replacing the other. Each has a market and each has its own customers and readers.
Saudi Arabia tops the list of buyers and readers of both digital and printed books in the Arab world. According to Chebro, it is followed by Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Algeria.
Doha Al-Refai, publications manager at Rufoof Digital Bookstore, told Arab News from Amman in Jordan that fiction, self-esteem and mental health, and biography top the list of topics of interest to Arab readers.
The store, which offers 25,000 Arabic titles for a monthly subscription fee, operates like a kind of online library – not selling digital or print copies of books, but allowing readers to read books on its website.
“We do not distribute or sell books to readers. We distribute to the publisher,” Al-Refai told Arab News.
Rufoof has “solved a problem for a broad spectrum of readers, where people don’t need to buy books, whether paper or digital, but can read as much as they want throughout the month.”
Saudis, Emiratis and Egyptians are among Rufuf’s top customers. While Egyptians are among the most voracious readers, Gulf states also have a high number of customers, Al-Refai said, adding that the website has plans to expand into audiobooks.
Audiobooks are a promising field with great potential, according to many publishers. Chebro and Al-Refai said the Arab region is expected to produce about 8,000 audiobooks in 2021, with Al-Refai saying Rufuf has accounted for 5,000 so far.
Egyptian author Amer Hussein says the digital format has helped increase access to literature for those who are unable to afford the rising book prices.
“Arabs living in various places such as Australia, Europe and other cities far away from the Arab region find it difficult to obtain Arabic books,” Hussain, who lives in Dubai, told Arab News.
“The distribution of books through digital formats gives people anywhere in the world the opportunity to read books as they are published in the Arab region.”
He said, personally, he prefers audiobooks because he can listen to them while stuck in traffic or on a plane.
Many readers and writers would agree with Purva Grover, a Dubai-based author from India who has three e-books under her belt, who told Arab News via email: “The world has more books (in any format) than we have , the more books are available. Be it e-books or print, the future is just as bright.
“Reading is now more about sharing – I read a good paragraph and I want to screenshot it immediately and send it to my friends, put it on my social accounts or tag friends – so e-books helps us do all this, and so encourage and spread the word about reading in this age of technology.”