Andrew Yap and Jacqueline Ng – the founders of the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale, known as the world’s biggest book sale are a husband and wife duo behind the brand.
Andrew and his wife Jacqueline started their journey in 2007. They established BookXcess, a small bookstore dealing in remaindered books from international distributors. A few years into the business, the founders realised that the demand for physical books was rising and people were more inclined to buy a book when the price is right. Being in the remainder book business, they were able to keep the prices of the books low and affordable.
In 2009, the founders decided to go big and host a pop-up book sale that would offer books of various genres and offer up to 90 percent off the recommended retail prices. Thus, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale was born. The Sale became an instant success, becoming an annual event that managed to cultivate a growing interest in books among its visitors. In 2011, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale rolled out its largest offering yet, with 1.5 million books on offer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia over a span of 11 days, gaining it the title of the World’s Biggest Book Sale.
In 2016, the sale began to venture outside Malaysia, with its first international sale in Indonesia and Thailand.
As of 2018, it has been to 16 cities in seven different countries, including Malaysia. The Sale had a presence in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. This year, the Sale was also introduced in Myanmar, Korea and Pakistan for the first time.
How did the idea to organise such an innovative book sale come about?
We always wanted to make books affordable and accessible to people. With that idea, came Book Xcess, a small remainder bookstore my wife, Jacqueline and I started back in the days. But we felt there was a need for greater access to affordable books. With that in mind, we organised the first Big Bad Wolf Book Sale in Malaysia in 2009. It’s been 10 years now! Over the years, we have evolved tremendously and with our mission to cultivate reading habit around the world and build a new generation of readers, we started organising book sale in other countries in 2016. In 2018, we visited 16 cities and seven countries. The first half of this year, we’ve managed to organize Big Bad Wolf Book Sale in three new countries Myanmar, Pakistan and South Korea. This will be our second time in Pakistan after organising the Sale in Lahore early this year.
The sale arrived in Pakistan for the first time this year. What are the key learnings from the launch in Lahore?
Lahore was very welcoming! There was an overwhelming response from Lahoris who were hungry for books. The variety of books from wide selection of genres and categories had appeal to every reader. There were approximately 100,000 supportive visitors to the sale. A large portion consisted of families with children and students were also seen streaming into the sale. It was great to see that books were a part of the family culture.
How did you decide on making the book sale 24 hours?
The idea of a 24 hour-book sale came about when we realized that many people couldn’t make it to the Sale during the day due to work commitments. When we first started it in Malaysia, we could see crowds pouring in especially before the door closed for the day. With hosting it 24 hours non-stop, customers had the luxury to come whenever convenient, without having to worry about when the Sale is closed!
The book sale can be said to be changing the world, one book at a time and contributing to our society’s development. What are your objectives with bringing this event to Pakistan with regards to the socio-economic gaps you have identified in the region?
Instilling reading habits is important as it’s the main source of knowledge and crucial to cognitive growth. We see great potential in Pakistan with Pakistanis’ high demand of English books to be more affordable and accessible. By bringing the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale here we want to provide an opportunity to readers to get hold of quality, English books at 50 percent – 90 percent off its recommended retail price. I also hope that parents will have the chance to purchase books for their young ones and through this a new generation of readers will be built.
In 2016, the sale began to venture outside Malaysia, with its first international sale in Indonesia and Thailand
What do you hope to challenge or overcome by bringing this event to Pakistan?
Wherever the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale has been, it has been a catalyst of change in the reading culture in that place. I hope that through this Sale, we’ll see a rise in the number of readers who read English books in Pakistan. With the globalization of the world, learning English has become crucial. English is the language that connects the world and used to communicate for businesses, education and more. Further, staying true to making books accessible to everyone including the underprivileged, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale also believes in giving back to the community. Through its CSR arm, the Red Readerhood (RRH), 1,839 books were donated to a local NGO called Slumabad earlier this year. 1,339 of these were collected from visitors at the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Lahore 2019 and 500 were pledged by the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale itself. Slumabad is a local NGO that aims to provide access to education, health and economic opportunities to kids living in the slums of Pakistan. This time around, we will still be collaborating with a local non-profit organization and visitors are encouraged to purchase as well as donate the books at the Red Readerhood corner during the Sale.
Reading is important to develop children’s minds and is a habit that must be instilled from when they are young to be effective. What are some of the kinds of books that parents can expect at the sale that can encourage children to read more?
There will be one million books at the Sale ranging from crime thriller, romance, sci-fi, young adults, self-help, business, to cookbooks, and more! In other words, there is a book for everyone. For parents, we understand that it is important to develop the habit of reading since young and hence, we will have a large assortment of children’s books ranging from activity books, story books, colouring books and more. We also have a series of magical books.
What are magical books?
Parents will find these unique Magical Books, or also known as Augmented Reality (AR) books, at the Sale. It is a book that comes-to-life and interacts with its readers. Using cutting-edge AR technology that revolutionizes reading for the next generation, children will be able to read, play and learn through these Magical Books, which is also a way of getting your children to be more excited to pick up a book. You can expect to find a range of classic children’s stories such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks or education titles such as Let’s Learn Counting and Let’s Learn ABC at the Sale.
Now that the sale has come to two cities of Pakistan, are you hoping to expand to other cities or open to establishing a more permanent presence of the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale in Pakistan?
We would like to visit more cities in Pakistan but as of now, we just want to focus on making Karachi a good and successful event. During our Sale in Lahore, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale also collaborated with local organisations such as the Punjab Group of Colleges, Pakistan’s Largest Educational Network and we are happy to say that the collaboration will continue for the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Karachi 2019. We are also working with local publisher, Children’s Publications to bring Urdu language books to the Sale.
The writer is a freelance journalist. He can be reached at [email protected] and Tweets at @KhurramZiaKhan