In its second edition, the Abu Dhabi Publishing Forum (ADPF), organized by the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi from 28 to 30 January 2019 under the theme “The Future of Electronic Publishing: Technologies and Challenges – Global Experiences”, held a session entitled ” E-Book Industry in the Arab World “.
The session witnessed the participation of Aru Juu, the Director of the Seoul International Book Fair in South Korea; Mary Bergeron, the Senior Director of Licensing of International Content at EBSCO Information Services (USA); Sayed Dijrevi, Arabic Content Manager, Amazon, Kindle; Dr. Sherif Shaheen, Professor of Libraries and Information Science at Cairo University (Egypt); Shadi Al Hassan, Founder of Rufoof E-Publishing (Jordan); and Saudi Writer Mohammed Alghadban.
The participants presented some statistics on the prevalence of e-book among readers in different regions of the world, where the prevalence of e-books readers in Britain, for example, was found to be up to 29% and in America 28%. According to the figures, sales of e-books in Spain exceeded 13 million euros in 2017.
Speakers discussed the advantages of e-publishing industry –which promise great opportunities for publishers, including the savings on printing, shipping and storage of printed books, and keeping books in the hands of readers for long periods. Challenges of e-publishing, notably piracy and infringement of intellectual property rights, were also touched on.