Down but not out.

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From The New Publishing Standard:

[O]ne of the regular features of our global publishing industry coverage has been the phenomenon that is Big Bad Wolf, the Malaysia-based reseller of remaindered English-language books that astonishes at every turn by selling said books, by the million, in countries where English is not the first language.

Take Indonesia for example. Since its first event in 2016 Big Bad Wolf has been taking typically 5 million books at a time to Jakarta, and millions more to smaller Indonesian cities, stacking them high in huge halls, and attracting hundreds of thousands of eager buyers.

And doing the same thing, with millions more books across, in 2019, more than thirty cities in ten countries, from Taiwan to the UAE, from Pakistan to the Philippines, from Sri Lanka to South Korea. And also Thailand, Myanmar, and homeland Malaysia, in addition to Indonesia, for those curious.

This year started with high expectations to far exceed that. A debut event in Phnom Penh, Cambodia kicked off the 2020 Big Bad Wolf calendar, quickly followed by visits to Yangon in Myanmar, Manila in the Philippines, and Pahang in Malaysia before arriving in Indonesia in March.

But despite having thermal scanners at the entrances to check visitor temperatures, the Jakarta event was a race against time as Covid-19 spread across the country, and in fact the event was wisely called off early when it became clear the virus was gaining ground in Jakarta.

And then the Big Bad Wolf fell silent, with no events lined up in April or beyond, and with the home country Malaysia under a strict lockdown.

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard