Jakarta Book Fair

THE JAKARTA BOOK FAIR

The Jakarta book fair was held between June 27^th to July 5^th 2009 in Senayan stadium. It was organized by IKAPI or the Indonesian Publisher Association. It is one of the greatest book fair in Indonesia. There are a series of activities in the fair such as book launching, discussion, talk show, and meet the writer.

One of the favorites is book launching. There are some writers who launched their new books here. Prominent Indonesian writers as well as new writers took part in the book launching. Meet the writer and book discussion also attracted many people to come.

Most of the publishers who took part were Indonesian but there was also a Russian publisher. Unfortunately they use their own character that I could not read so I did not even know the name.

The books on display were mostly general books – novels, non fiction, comics, but also Islamic books. As economic and financial condition as well as education of Muslim people is getting better, their purchasing power is also increasing very rapidly. Consequently the demand for Islamic books is growing. That’s why publisher specializing in this market is growing in number. Now even general publisher try to take advantage of the pie.

Since the fair is not only for whole sale but also for retail great discount is a factor that attract many people to come and buy here. So the fair is not only a meeting between publisher and bookstores and library but also a meeting between publisher and reader or customer. Publishers like Serambi, a new star in Indonesian publishing business, give 30 to 50% discount. No wonder the public enthusiastically bought books.

One of the most interesting activity for public is the discussion with online bookstores. This is a new phenomenon in Indonesia so the discussion attracted many people. Five years ago there was very few such stores in Indonesia but today there are tens or maybe hundreds of them. Customers and writers were present in the discussion out of their curiosity. Most of the book stores revealed that their problem is trust. They found it hard to win public trust. Most Indonesian still prefer to go to conventional book stores than buying online. So they will never replace conventional ones in the near future. However, they will become supplementary ones.

For me personally the presence of Google corner was a surprise. The Google office in Singapore came to Jakarta to promote the partnership program with authors and publishers. I attended their presentation in which they told about their free service to author and publisher to advertise books in Google book search. I think I should take part in this program to boost sales of my books.

This fair is held annually in Jakarta. So far there are three book fairs held annually here - Islamic Book fair, Indonesia Book fair and Jakarta Book fair. For writers and publishers, editors, this is a must-visit fair. Some of the books are really good and worth translating into English and other foreign languages.