News from the Herd - August '26
- Zebra Audiobook Island at the Buenos Aires Book Fair
- Four Zebra partners on the longlist for the German Book Prize
- Three Zebras at the first Book Bash Festival
- A billion-strong boom in vertical format: How webtoons are changing the world of comics. Kai-Steffen Schwarz on the IGNITE!Publishing podcast
Zebra Audiobook Island at the Buenos Aires Book Fair
In early August, Buenos Aires hosted the Feria de Editores (FED), the most important Spanish-language independent book fair, attended by more than 350 Latin American publishers. We were proud to be a sponsor for the fourth time. Zebra’s Carlos Rojas was there in person and brought along our Zebra audiobook island, where visitors could take a breather from the hustle and bustle of the fair and listen to part of the audiobook we’d recorded live at the fair last year – now also available to listen to on Lismio...
Four Zebra partners on the longlist for the German Book Prize
In mid-August, the Zebras were delighted that four titles from our partner publishers had made it onto the longlist for the German Book Prize: from argon hörbuch, Ingo Schulze’s *Das Wasser im August* was included. Aufbau Verlage were represented by Lilli Tolkien’s *Mit beiden Händen den Himmel stützen*. Tacheles! was represented by two titles: *Memories of Heidelberg* by Heinz Strunk and *Die Lücken* by Shida Bayzar, which ultimately made it onto the shortlist as well. The herd is keeping its fingers crossed for tacheles!
Three Zebras at the first Book Bash Festival
On the last weekend in August, Julia Ramrath, Lisa Gutman and Susanne Opel were out and about on a Zebra mission at the Book Bash Festival. They accompanied our partner publisher, Wunderkind Audiobooks, and helped organise the ‘Night of Horror’ with D.C. Odesza.
Julia even took to the Book Bash stage twice as a presenter herself, hosting two readings organised by Wunderkind: on Saturday, D.C. Odesza’s reading from *Scars of the Beautiful Villain* alongside the audiobook narrators, and on Sunday, Liz Rosen’s reading from *Queen of the Mirror*, alongside narrator Sophia Riedl. It was a brilliant trip and we’re already raring to go and looking forward to the second edition of the festival next year!
A billion-strong boom in vertical format: How webtoons are changing the world of comics. Kai-Steffen Schwarz on the IGNITE!Publishing podcast
In this episode, Daniel Lenz and Albrecht Mangler speak to Kai-Steffen Schwarz, programme director for comics, manga and webtoons at Carlsen Verlag, about the digitally optimised, full-colour comics in the ‘Endless Canvas’ portrait format that are taking the world by storm from South Korea. They discuss the unique characteristics of the medium, the mechanisms of the multi-billion-euro market behind it, the ecosystem surrounding it and – as in almost every good industry discussion these days – how AI is affecting the comics and manga business.
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