At the UNESCO-designated heritage site of Manarola, Italians use a ledge in a Cinque Terre village as a perch for reading. Image – Getty: Alena Kravchenko
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Cipolletta: ‘Losing Ground’
In it’s pre-Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20) news conference in Milan today (October 9), the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE), the European Union’s fourth largest book publishing market was reported to have seen a 0.1-percent decline, year over year, on the first six months of 2024—this after the market’s big jump in 2021.
The “State of Publishing” report has prompted AIE president Innocenzo Cipolletta to tell members of the news media, “The country needs an organic policy for books and reading, [a way to] immediately restore the €100 million (US$109 million) in support for a sector that has been lacking for the past two years.
“In the year of Guest of Honor Italy at Frankfurter Buchmesse, we want to be an example for the rest of Europe again.”
Italian publishing closed 2023 with a turnover of €3.4 billion euros (US$3.72 billion)—a figure that indicates stability compared to the previous year (+1.1 percent).
AIE in its news conference this week has presented the first Italian industry figures for 2024, referring only to the trade market—consumer books bought in bookstores, online and in large-scale distribution—and seeming to disagree “with what some might say is a stagnation of the market.”
The figures being discussed are a -0.1 percent value in sales in the first six months, which reached €675.8 million (US$739.6 million) confirmed, and this just a week before the Italian market presents itself as guest of honor at Frankfurter Buchmesse next week.
Officials are pointing to Italy’s success overseas, with 7,838 international translation contracts rights sold, a demonstrably stable performance compared to the previous year (7,889 contracts) and quadrupled compared to 2001 (1,800).
These, then, are forming the main figures of the State of Publishing 2024 Report from the association, a week ahead of Buchmesse.
A Book Business ‘Struggling To Grow Again’
Cipolletta’s comments in a news conference introducing these figures to the Italian press placed some context on the numbers at hand. His years at the helm of the Confidustra have given him an industry boss’ gift for candor.
“Italian publishing, after the leap that took place in 2021” coming out of the pandemic, he said, “is struggling to grow again.
“And indeed, if we take inflation into account, [the trend looks to be] “losing ground.
“The number of copies sold is also declining,” Cipolletta said. “These are worrying signs for a country that has no real organic policy for books and reading and indeed, in the last two years, has seen at least €100 million in public resources to support the sector disappear.”
Anyone following Italy’s recent political developments will remember that The Giorgia Meloni conservative government was sworn in two years ago, on October 22, 2022—the modern Italy’s 68th government.
“The publishing industry has shown solidity and capacity for renewal in recent years,” Cipolletta went on, “emerging strengthened from the COVID-19 crisis. Without organic and long-term industrial policies, today we risk losing the challenge of innovation with respect to epochal changes such as that imposed by artificial intelligence.
“In the year in which we are guest of honor 2024 at Frankfurter Buchmesse, let us once again become an example for other European countries.”
A bit more from the report:
- Copies sold in the first six months in the trade market are 46.1 million, down 900,000 from the previous year.
- Physical bookstores reached 53.7 percent of sales and continued the recovery started after the 2020 crisis, when they weighed in at 49.1 percent.
- Online sales came to 41.7 percent (down slightly).
- Large retailers 4.6 percent (down).
- Finally, in genres, the positive trend of fiction’s leadership i the Italian market has been confirmed, especially fiction by Italian authors, which grew over the same period of the previous year by 5.4 percent.
- International fiction held a +3.1 percent share. Children’s books registered down -2.8 and comics, which had shown real growth in the last three years or so turned up with a negative result, sown -4.8 percent.
More on the Italian book market is here. More from Publishing Perspectives on comics and other graphic narrative formats is here. And more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here.