Malta’s President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, on a state visit to Bulgaria, visited the Sofia City Library, which often works with the Maltese National Literacy Agency on educational and literacy initiatives between the two countries.
Addressing an audience of adults and children in the Bulgarian capital, President Coleiro Preca said that,
a country that appreciates books is a country with a soul,
and spoke about
the importance of connecting countries through literacy (and that) relations between countries should not stop at a political level, but need to be worked on by means of a bottom-up approach.
Malta’s National Book Festival is in November. With a population of less than half a million Malta is not a significant book market, but clearly takes its literacy and literary obligations seriously.
Ebooks are available from Maltese libraries through OverDrive, but of the Big 5 ebook retailers none offer localised retail to Malta, although ebooks can be downloaded from Apple and Amazon. But according to Kindl.Info Malta is one of the many countries where Amazon allows downloads from the US store but then imposes a $2 surcharge.
The same surcharge applies to Bulgarians wanting to use the Amazon store, although Google Play Books and Apple offer a limited service.
For a look at China’s interest in the Bulgarian book market check out this post on TNPS from December, to mark the Sofia International Book Fair, which regularly attracts about 50,000 visitors.
Malta has done an excellent for her citizens through OneDrive still this work should continue . Ne books are added really late some times 3-5 years later . that is the only improvement that they hope will take in consideration