The dark cloud cast by coronavirus has noticeably increased people’s appetite for reading, which they are doing to both learn and resist. Publishing houses are among the sites people have taken to in dealing with this emergency, especially with the cancelation of international book festivals and disruption of commercial libraries' market. Thus, alternative solutions arose to meet the high demand and deliver books to their reader’s hands after being decontaminated.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Ahmad Mazrouk, the executive director of Kalimat Publishing & Distribution, which has been publishing, distributing, and selling books for three years, says that the coronavirus pandemic has changed various aspects of the way in which books are sold, adding that: “Health measures and precautions must be taken continuously to ensure the safety of readers and those involved in delivering them.”
Marzouk says that demand has grown noticeably under the current circumstances, demand for religious books has generally increased and self-help books have been especially sought. He also says, “Though we were free to sell without restrictions before the crisis, we found that things have slightly improved during this period, and we can say that the precautionary measures did not prevent readers from obtaining what they wanted, and the number of Internet sales has multiplied.”
Mohamed Al-Fraih, director of publishing and translation at Obeikan Publishing overall demand increased by 15-20% recently, mostly for novels, biographies, and self-help books, but the demand for medical books is negligible.
Mahmoud Al-Yafi, the Sales Officer at the Arabic Literature Center, believes that the demand for books is still strong though it is lower than it had been before the crisis, due to the center's reliance on retail stores sell their books, noting that stories and novels make up a large portion of current sales. The novelist Sahar Bahrawi, tells Asharq Al-Awsat that she supports the idea of readers' preferring novels. Se believes that "Novels have the advantage of spiritual travel, as they take the reader to another place and make him or her feel the characters and live alongside them. Stories were humans’ first means of entertainment, and they have the time and space to read them while in isolation.”
The writer and novelist Rashad Hassan attributes people’s preference for novels to the fact that the reader finds his or her desire in the novels, especially since many stories that revolve around deadly plagues, written in different eras, appeared during this pandemic. Readers became curious and wanted to discover what is happening or what this pandemic will lead to, especially since the whole world is living in uncertainty.
