The Arab book market, on the record

I have spent eight years inside this industry, and I still cannot answer the simplest question about it: how many books does the Arab world publish in a year?

Disclosure. I work in Arab publishing. Where an issue touches a house I am connected to, I say so here, in the first three paragraphs.

Start with one number

Arabic titles, estimated annual output6.2MCopies, not titles. A floor, not a measure.

That figure is the kind this newsletter will chase: a number everyone repeats and nobody sources.

How the market actually works

Authors. Most are paid in copies, or not at all.

Publishers. Small, family-run, and often the printer and distributor too.

The gate. Censorship is less a wall than a toll booth.

What's coming

1. The state as publisher
2. Distribution, mapped
3. Book fairs as the real market

This is v0. Corrections welcome.