GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza's first e-publishing house, Khota Books, sells both e-books and hard copies on its website from the comfort of readers' homes.

The publishing house was established by two young Gazans in August 2016 and offers both traditional and self-publishing. It initially published only local writers, but as of January 2018, it's acquiring reprint rights to works by international writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Mahmoud Madi, founder and executive director of the publishing house, told Al-Monitor, “My colleague and I have noticed that young people are not interested in reading books and no longer visit public libraries, which results in a loss of our culture and heritage. Neither did we have any [electronic] publishing houses here in Gaza to promote books written by local authors." He added that many good books have never had a chance in Gaza because printing them is so expensive. Electronic books can be published at a much lower cost.

He added, “My colleague and I decided to create an e-publishing house to publish books online, allowing readers to download and read them, as well as order a hard copy and have it delivered to their doorstep.”