Abu Dhabi: E-publishers are becoming increasingly popular participants at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (AIDBF) with the e-zone having grown by 20 per cent this year, fair organisers said.
Despite this expansion, international publishers are still arguing that the UAE market is not very keen on e-books with piracy being a main concern.
“Piracy remains a big problem for both print and digital [books], in both English and Arabic. I would say most of the territories in the region have very good copyright laws, however actually enforcing them and trying to take action against piracy is very difficult, particularly when it comes to digital publishing,” said Emma House, Director for Publishers Relations at the UK Publishing Association who was giving a lecture at the ADIBF.
“I think that also is probably another reason why most Arab publishers who publish in Arabic aren’t selling digital e-books as well,” she added.
The expert also revealed that the Middle East is largely reliant on print books and that e-commerce is relatively low in comparison to other parts of the world.
“Making online payments is still something that people in the Middle East struggle to become comfortable with especially in Northern Africa but not so much in the Gulf region,” House said.
However, major UAE-based publishing houses explained that the lack of sales is the main reason for not employing efforts in creating digital content readers.
“We tried online publishing around three years ago and sales were not as high as expected. Therefore we felt like sticking to print is a safer option. Even as a publisher, we prefer print books as they are simpler for us to manage because we are so used to dealing with them,” Anil Varghese, Senior Buyer at Jashanmal National Company told Gulf News.
Similarly, an All Prints spokesperson revealed that piracy of digital content is not considered a significant issue in the UAE and does not play a major role in the reason why online content is not popular in the UAE.
“Making paper-based books is a consumer-based decision that we are comfortable with,” he added.
