With attendees from some 40 countries, this week’s International Alliance of Independent Publishers conference reflected an issue-driven, reader-focused community.

Conference Provides a Safe Place for Debate

ore than 150 publishers from at least 40 countries—members of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers—met in a four-day conference in Spain that closed Friday (November 26) in Pamplona-Iruñea. The event was organized in conjunction with the Association of Independent Publishers of Navarre (EDITARGI).

This year’s conference held particular meaning for many, after 18 months of online meetings during lockdowns.

As the alliance president Laurence Hugues said in her opening remarks, it was a space in which the network could debate ideas with respect; a place to rethink publishing. “We’re here to celebrate independent publishing,” she said, “with its diversity of voices, languages and expressions.”

Publishing Perspectives readers are familiar with the alliance in connection with the Tehran Book Fair Uncensored, but we know it less well for its own conferences. That’s in part because the last such conference before this month’s gathering was held in Cape Town in 2014. Founded in 2002, its membership of some 750 meets every four to eight years.

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