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Book market to exceed 70 mln euros

The Romanian book market will exceed 70 million euros, some editors said, cited on Friday by the daily Adevarul. All relevant players say the market grew significantly in the past five years concurrently with their turnover. Surprisingly, there are neither surveys nor statistics related to this field. Thus, there are no data explaining the Romanians' cultural habits since 1990. The only available researches for 2005-2007 show the TV is a clear winner among cultural preferences. The last study relating to the domestic book market conducted by the Romanian Editors' Association (AER) dates from 2001.

Immediately after the fall of communism large amounts of books were being published and sold out as 'the dam had been removed and all the accumulated water was streaming out', Adevarul quotes Nicolae Manolescu, literary critic and president of the Romanian Writers' Union (USR) as saying. As the production price rose due to the repeated price increase of paper reaching 222 times a year, the book price grew as well and Romanians began to buy less and less, Manolescu said. As many as 4,200 publishing houses were registered in Romania last year, 1,000 of which did not publish any kind of writings, he added. As regards the remaining 3,200 houses, at most 700 publish literature, only 10 of which being really important, the USR president said.

Especially the works of literature increased their sale figures in the last years, publishing houses inform. More and more printing houses publish translations of world literature, but also 'self-help' books.

The AER is looking for a specialized company that should conduct a book market survey, 'one of the few Romanian markets for which no statistics have been carried out', executive manager of AER Cristian Juncu reported. In the absence of such survey, 'the landscape remains gloomy', sociologist Radu Malureanu says. In his opinion, the book market has low standards. 'The offer molds the demand. Let's not forget many houses publish commercial novels', he explained, and added almost every blockbuster is to be found in bookshops, as well as the 'supermarket books', that teach you how to become a boss or be attractive to women.

The number of published books has grown year by year since 1990, while the circulation has dropped steeply. While as many as 2,914 books and leaflets were published in 1990, last year saw a 300-percent increase, with 12,378 printed works, the National Statistics Institute (INS) informed. Circulation decreased by more than 80 percent, from 57,727,000 copies available on the market in 1991, to 8,751,000 in 2007. The figures are, however, relative: some houses register the published books at a later date or they do not register them at all, chief of the Legal Archive of National Library, Maria Raducu said.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: market houses books

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