Dubbed as the world’s biggest book sale, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale has made its presence known in over 30 cities around the world. From its home base, Kuala Lumpur, all the way to Phnom Penh as its latest addition, husband-wife duo Andrew Yap and Jacqueline Ng has brought the joy of reading to millions.
“We never expected to receive such tremendous support. Our dream has always been to sell books at an affordable price,” said Yap. Both Yap and his wife started off their journey in 2007 with a small bookstore called BookXcess that dealt primarily in remaindered books from international distributors.
They eventually realised that they could not create a bigger impact with just their bookstore and had decided that they had to be bold and create something that would be the talk of town. This resulted in the birth of the first Big Bad Wolf Book Sale.
“We took the risk to create a bigger impact and to sell books at a lower price and that’s when we created our first Big Bad Wolf Book Sale,” said Yap.
Starting the journey
In 2009, Yap and Ng decided to go big and hosted a pop-up book sale in capital city, Kuala Lumpur that would offer books of various genres at affordable prices. Yap says both he and Ng needed to test their new strategy and to their surprise the demand for affordable books went off the roof as visitors would often sweep off all the books during the sale. Eventually, the strategy worked and the book sale model grew bigger with increasing interest and earning a title as the World’s Biggest Book Sale.
In 2016, the duo decided to venture outside of Malaysia, taking the book sale to Indonesia and Thailand and three years later, they expanded into 32 cities in 10 different countries, establishing a presence in Philippines, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates among other countries. 2020 saw Cambodia as the 11th country and Phnom Penh the 33rd city for the book sale to come into.
Bringing reading culture to Phnom Penh
“Big Bad Wolf Books firmly believes in making a positive impact on the lives of people by engendering a love for reading and creating a sense of curiosity about the world,” said Yap, who believes that was the drive behind bringing the book sale with over a million books to Phnom Penh.
“This is in conformity with our goal to changing the world one book at a time. Our single-minded pursuit of this goal has taken us to different corners of the world, with many frontiers to be conquered,” added Yap.
He goes on to say that the book sale must be viewed in a broader context in regards to the long-term impact it would have on the book industry and readership in the Kingdom.
This year, the team behind the world’s biggest book sale is planning to organise the Book Sale to at least 45 cities and adding onto the effort, they have also partnered with Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) to further expand the access to affordable books to all members of society in the Middle East and Africa regions.
“We always believe that it only takes one book to convert a non-reader to a reader.
“This is a platform that we have created to inspire people by empowering them to achieve their dreams with the knowledge received,” concludes Yap. — KhmerTimes
Andrew Yap.
