Rania Khallaf looks into the increasing female presence in the publishing industry No longer a traditionally male business, publishing has been shared by women since they started, some 10 years ago, to found their own houses. Publishers like Dina El-Ghamri, owner of Bardi Publishing House (the name means papyrus; the logo is composed of two quills), started with modest passions -- a fascination with children's literature, in this case -- which have since surpassed their expectations. El-Ghamri had worked in publishing in France for a year, but had little knowledge of the local market. Many "cultural differences" she noticed on moving from France to Egypt have presented obstacles: "I had this rosy dream of publishing creative and unorthodox books for children. Market requirements were a different story. For example in 1996, when I ran a series of plastic arts basics for pre-school children, even though I didn't have a single competitor, the books just piled up." El-Ghamri believes the USAID Book Programme, which buys thousands of copies for the benefit of school libraries throughout Egypt, to be behind the surge in female publishers in the country. A difficult business, according to El-Ghamri, the job involves not only fierce competition but "a mafia-like network in which there is no set recipe to produce a success"; required, in addition to skill in dealing with authors, managing printing and distribution, are experience and a harmonious team. "The greatest problem is that you have to build experience all by yourself; no one is there to teach you any rules. Slowly, in time, you develop expertise." The dilemma implies that a publisher must have a perspective on life and culture -- something to which El-Ghamri half jokingly attributes the rise in the number of women publishers. Such "vision" finds expression in, among other boos, Al-Muwatin Al-Salih (The Good Citizen) -- a way of explaining concepts of citizenship and the international community to children. Unlike other specialists, El-Ghamri publishes no translations to help build the industry: "I say no to ready-made products. It's part of my responsibility to develop production teams including illustrators and printers. Two years ago I held a writing workshop in search of an outstanding book. My dream is that Egypt will be recognised as a leading player on the children's book arena." And she is proud of her work: "I hope the day will come when parents won't think twice about buying a book that carries the Bardi logo." Balsam Salaheddin, owner of Balsam Publishing House, is an engineering masters who, following another degree in business and a short stint working with a relation with another publishing house, has struck out on her own; yet her work consists almost exclusively of translations: "It took me some time to study the market and find out about my rights -- including making changes in the text. Not only did I participate in book fairs like Bologna but I had to take an extensive course at Standford University. I still have a lot to learn." Aware of the scale of her project, she does not set out to compete with older, larger publishers: "my main goal is to produce books in outstanding Arabic; I want to revive the language at a time when children are drawn to English books because of the quality of printing and gripping style. They need books with a new concept and message." Among Salaheddin's triumphs is veteran writer Neamat Ahmed Fouad's To my Daughter, a classic mother-to-daughter monologue first published in 1956, now attractively reprinted with original illustrations. Along similar lines, Salaheddin is among very few Egyptian publishers interested in young adult books: "we have a gap in this age group; we really need to address questions of parenting and education, especially sex education." The quality of Salaheddin's books makes for an exclusive price tag, with books distributed only in Cairo and Alexandria -- a failure she intends to remedy with a series of less expensive publications aimed at school children everywhere in the country. This is as much a business as a publishing decision: Salaheddin wants to keep up with growing demand; partly the result of the USAID initiative, this tendency, together with the Book Programme itself, is something from which she says she has learned much. "Revenue is not so bad," she says. "At least we are not landing a loss. But we do need to be in more places and this requires a new publicity policy." For her part Salaheddin believes the female publisher phenomenon is "only natural", especially when it comes to children's books: "women by nature know children's needs." It is the timing that remains intriguing, but according to Salaheddin, "Generally speaking, people in Egypt are more open to change now than ever before, not only in publishing but in cinema, theatre and other areas. And compared to medical engineering," Salaheddin pronounces after a pause, "publishing is hardly exactly a male career. I for one thoroughly enjoy every aspect of the process." Publishing translations requires, in addition, negotiating rights. It all adds up to a stressful profession: "Sometimes, particularly during the printing phase, I find myself very tense, because once a book is printed you cannot do anything about it, you cannot correct any mistakes. It doesn't affect my personal life, though: my conviction is that the busier you are, the more organised you become." Her dream of publishing the Arabic version of the originally Italian series Stilton Geronimo, she insists, requires highly qualified personnel and an airtight marketing plan. On Qasr Al-Aini Street, a strategic part of downtown Cairo, the two-year-old Afaq Publishing House looks as if it has been there for decades. Formerly a kebab restaurant, the popular Hati Al-Hikma, it was evacuated following a tax evasion charge, when Sawsan Badr and the co-owners of the house, which specialised in literary and philosophical titles, opened it: "When we established the bookshop, it was from scratch, and we decided to furnish it in a traditional way." One of the greatest challenges initially facing Basheer was finding a male partner for distribution and marketing -- something that would be successful only if one "avoided emotions". A Nile TV anchor and the frequenter of a small bookshop on the same street, Basheer had developed a friendship with Mustafa El-Sheikh, one of the shop managers. Two years later, setting out on his own, he offered her this opportunity. By September 2004, after six months of preparation, the house was opened to the public: "We tried to avoid problems, often with young authors relating to distribution and contracts." For Basheer the first priority is maintaining a good reputation, while nurturing a loyal readership, not distribution remains the principal challenge: "Reading priorities have changed considerably over the last 30 years and unfortunately both literary and social science books -- my two main interest -- are no longer as popular as, say, religious books." Basheer is not against religion, but the quality and content of the bestsellers in question is a far cry from her ambition, for which she has been branded a dreamer: to publish books that help people better understand life. A young house, Afaq is nonetheless participating in book fairs in Tunisia and Morocco as well as Egypt. Competition does not phase Basheer: "The field is open. As far as I'm concerned, I wish all the shops could turn into bookshops." For Mona Hosni, co-partner of the newborn Emerald for Publishing and Advertising and an American University in Cairo graduate, entry into the business arose out of her dream of starting a magazine: "when my children grew up I wanted to start a concrete project -- a magazine about Sufism was the ideal. Now the plan is to publish books on art and Sufism, the kind of books that help people improve self-knowledge." A publishing house is no profit-making endeavour, Hosni concedes; just something that she enjoys. She adds that, though it was never a plan of hers, she finds herself facing the biggest challenge of her life. Book publishing is but part of the activities of Emerald, which has an exhibition space and an advertising department, "the way to generate income", Hosni explains: "I realise that success in this field requires time and money, but I feel I want to do many things." She dreams of artistic catalogues of the work of such innovators as the late Abdel-Hadi El-Gazzar, including an account of his life and work. Establishing a publishing house is not the difficult part, with the increasing number of authors and the amount of money needed: "what's difficult is marketing. While there are two large-scale marketing departments in Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar, they are overwhelmed, never looking for new business. Otherwise there are hardly any marketing companies to work with." She has therefore performed this role herself, visiting bookshops in person to ask about their preferences, then following up by phone: "It is hectic -- a whole other job, actually." As Salaheddin argues, however, this may no longer be necessary: many are thinking of establishing private distribution companies. "I already started working with one," she said, "to avoid bureaucracy and huge companies." After 10 years and 102 books, El-Ghamri agrees: "In Europe it is not the publisher's responsibility to distribute their product. It is another mechanism that requires another mentality." Still, Salaheddin maintains, the business has not grown sufficiently in terms of the number of popular bookshops -- notwithstanding such new arrivals as Diwan, Kutub Khan and Volume I -- which do not measure up to the country's population." All female publishers seem to agree that it is a question of throwing some money into it to start with, then waiting. Ironically it is the big companies and the requirements of the market in which they operate that terrifies them.
