In light of the coronavirus pandemic, South African publishers have decided to postpone or cancel all upcoming book launch events until further notice.

Last night, because of the global spread of COVID-19, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a national state of disaster. The announcement included a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people.

See also:

• Durban’s Time of the Writer book festival cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic (alternative digital version being planned)
• 2020 Franschhoek Literary Festival cancelled because of COVID-19
• Love Books and The Book Lounge cancel book launches until further notice – but will need your support, so keep buying books! (Home delivery available)

Read the press statements from publishers here:

 

Penguin Random House South Africa

Penguin Random House has decided to postpone all forthcoming book launches for the time being. The risk to our authors, staff, bookshop partners and readers is too great and we believe we should be doing everything we can to contain the Coronavirus in these early days of its spread in South Africa.

Thank you for your understanding. Please be well, and stay safe and healthy.

 

Jonathan Ball Publishers

 

Pan Macmillan South Africa 

In line with the announcement by President Ramaphosa to limit the impact of the COVID-19 virus and to protect citizens, Pan Macmillan South Africa will be working to limit exposure as far as possible whilst continuing to ensure business continuity.

We expect our books to be in stores as scheduled and eBooks will be available at all times. We are working closely with our online retail partners to ensure that stock is available. Many physical stores will be delivering to customers too.

Events
All book launches and author events will be postponed over the next six weeks.

Office
Our office will remain open with skeleton staff but we will limit any meetings with external people over the next few weeks. We are in the process of setting up a WhatsApp contact number for business queries and will send that out in the next day or so.

As unfortunate as these events are, in the interests of ensuring the health of all citizens, we support the national interventions.
Stay safe!

 

LAPA Publishers

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: The Corona pandemic has necessitated LAPA Publishers to postpone all book launches and other social events until further notice. This is in keeping with South Africa’s national preventative measures and recommendations. ‘We are prioritising the health and safety of our team, authors, readers and business partners,’ says Sylvia de Wet, CEO of LAPA Publishers. ‘In the meantime we’ll continue to deliver service and products of the highest standard to our clients.’

BELANGRIKE AANKONDIGING: Die Corona-pandemie het LAPA Uitgewers genoodsaak om alle boekbekendstellings en ander sosiale geleenthede tot verdere kennisgewing uit te stel. Dit is in ooreenstemming met Suid-Afrika se nasionale voorkomingsmaatreëls en aanbevelings. ‘Die gesondheid en veiligheid van ons personeel, skrywers, lesers en sakevennote is vir ons prioriteit,’ sê Sylvia de Wet, LAPA se uitvoerende hoof. ‘Intussen sal ons voortgaan om diens en produkte van hoogstaande gehalte aan ons kliënte te lewer.’

 

Jacana Media

We hope that you are safe, healthy, relatively un-panicked and looking forward to some social distancing so that you can get on with the business of writing. It’s a tough time for us all, and we thought it might be useful if we shared some of our ideas on how we see our publishing schedule rolling out.

First of all, the Jacana Media team are going to be doing some pretty serious social distancing. We are going to limit as many contact meetings as we can, exchanging them for WhatsApp video, Skype or Zoom calls.

The office will remain open, but in the most limited sense, with all calls re-routed to our cell phones.

Launches will have to be delayed. Authors who were planning to visit from the UK and the US have had to put their author tours on hold.

Some of our publishing may also be delayed if it makes strategic sense to hold it back, but we will keep going full tilt at getting everything ready for release at dates that we will shuffle as seems appropriate. We will discuss possible delays with any of you who may be affected by our planning.

With our best wishes
Bridget and Maggie

 

Bookstorm

Bookstorm has decided to postpone all forthcoming book launches for the time being. We do not want to put our authors, staff, bookshop partners and readers at risk and we believe we should be doing everything we can to contain and prevent the spread of the virus.

Thank you for your understanding. Please stay safe and healthy.

Categories Fiction Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Jacana Media Jonathan Ball Publishers LAPA Publishers Pan Macmillan SA Penguin Random House SA Umuzi