'Sigh of relief' over Italy's book market

Italy's book market is “leaving the [economic] crisis behind” with “positive signals” including a small rise in the value of print sales.

Research from the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) on 2016 and the first half of 2017, with the addition of research from Nielsen on 2017, was presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Tuesday (11th October). It indicated that the publishing industry in Italy has “consolidated its recovery phase” following the economic crisis of the last few years, through increased turnover for print books and soaring production and revenue from e-books, as well as strengthened exports.

The AIE's president Ricardo Franco Levi described the findings as prompting a "sigh of relief" but added that there was "still a long way to go". 

For the first time, the number of commercially live titles exceeded a million in 2016, reaching 1,032,799 (up 14% on 2015). The research findings also indicate that international sales are improving: in 2016, Italian publishers sold a total of 6,565 publishing rights abroad to their foreign colleagues (an increase of 11% compared to 2015) and bought rights for 9,552 titles (up 10%).

It was revealed that more Italian authors are breaking through in the domestic books market with the proportion of translated titles in the country diminishing. Last year published titles translated from a foreign language made 11.8% of the total (7,400 titles), a drop from 17.6% (11,500) in 2015.

E-book production rose by almost a third (29.6%) with 81,035 titles in 2016 compared to 62,544 in 2015. In terms of revenue, e-books made around 63 million euros and represented a share of 5.2% of trade channels at the end of 2016 (up 23.5% compared to 2015).

According to Nielsen figures obtained by the AIE, the value of print books sold is up by 1% for the first eight months of 2017. The volume of copies sold dropped however (- 1.3%, equal to approximately 740,000 fewer copies sold), although this was a shallower loss from the previous year, when the figure was -3.9%.

However, the AIE said the Italian market is still facing the “problem of problems”: the progressive decline in numbers of book readers (down to -3.1% in 2016), much lower than many other European countries.

"There is a sigh of relief concerning the market, but there is still a long way to go," said Franco Levi. "A lot of work is needed to recover pre-crisis levels. This is particularly true of the worrying decline in reading (-10% of readers since the crisis)."

The trade suffered from the economic crisis with the market "“deteriorated significantly” in 2011 with the following year described as an "annus horribilis".

Franco Levi said that the trade was working more to engage whole families and institutions to promote reading and suggested that tax deductions on books could also help. He said: “Publishers are concentrating on the theme of education working in close cooperation with the institutions: it is starting from there, from childhood onwards and then, progressively, at every subsequent level, that books and reading must become daily companions.”

He added: “Publishers are actively doing their part: with the #ioleggoperché project, from 21st to 29th October, we invite the whole of Italy to work as a team to strengthen school libraries.”

For more information, visit www.aie.it.