The eBook in Italy turns 20, but publishing declines
The eBook in Italy is 20 years old, but publishing is not flying. It is an adventure that started way back in 2002, when Giacomo Bruno, a Roman publisher, was the first to publish and distribute eBooks in Italy. Nine years before Amazon arrived and digital book distribution was as widespread as it is today, Bruno Editore had already realised the incredible potential of the new medium. Bruno Editore CEO Giacomo Bruno himself said: ‘It was 2002 when I had the idea of bringing eBooks to Italy. At that time Amazon was not yet present in our country, but I had already guessed that this new type of digital support would change the lives of millions of readers for the better’.
In 20 years, more than 2,400,000 Italians have downloaded Bruno Editore eBooks.
The publishing front in Italy, however, is unfortunately experiencing a downturn. After last year’s excellent numbers, according to AIE (Italian Publishers’ Association) the first five months of 2022 saw a sharp decline compared to last year. Miscellaneous publishing, i.e. novels and essays sold in online and physical bookshops, declined by 4.5% compared to 2021. Overall, the value lost was EUR 27 million, while the number of copies sold dropped by 1.4 million compared to last year (-3.6%).
The drop was accentuated in May, with a drop of 8.6% in value and 8.2% in the number of copies, compared to May last year.
Despite this drop, sales are still positive compared to the pre-pandemic period. Compared to 2019, in fact, sales still remain positive with +15.3% in value and +15.8% for the number of copies.
These figures are interesting because they confirm the trend identified in the previous AIE report on the first four months of publishing in 2022. On that occasion, AIE noted how the results were weighed down by the increase in the price of paper (over 50% compared to January 2021), inflation at 6.2% (April figure) and the drop in the household confidence index from 117.7 at the end of 2021 to 100 in April 2022.
These first months of 2022 also saw the end of the growth of online compared to physical bookshops, a growth that lasted well into 2019. Online sales dropped to 43%, while physical bookshops exceeded half of sales at 52.4%.
A final piece of data from the AIE, by Pepe Research, finally identified trends in buyer choice. In fact, 59% of respondents said they were influenced in their purchase “a lot” or “quite a lot” by what they read, saw and listened to on social networks. This figure appears to be on the rise compared to the pre-pandemic period, where it stood at around 50%.
