GDL - Publishing in Italy

A snapshot of the sector: figures, trends and prospects.

Presented every year at the Frankfurt Book Fair: the latest updated data on the Italian book market.

The GDL

Giornale della Libreria, GDL in short, is the monthly journal of the Italian Publishers Association, published since 1888.

The AIE

The Italian Publishers Association (AIE - Associazione Italiana Editori) is the trade association for Italian publishers – and foreign publishers active in Italy – of books, magazines, periodicals and digital publishing products. The AIE represents, at the national level, businesses which produce and handle content, regardless of the format through which it is channelled, and it is an attentive, well-informed observer of the cultural and educational scene in Italy and the trends which are taking place.
www.aie.it

Books and publishing content: the state of publishing in Italy

A snapshot of the sector: figures, trends and prospects
Report 2011

A modest plus sign returns to the book market in 2010, but with a few signals of uncertainty in 2011. After two years of decline there is a return to growth in the book sector (+0.3%), confirmed as the largest of the content industries in Italy. Readership among Italians has risen, reaching a figure of 26.4 million (+ 1.7 per cent over 2009). The market for e-books began in 2010 and grew in 2011, both in terms of titles (up 329%, from 1,619 titles in Italian in January 2010 to 6,950 last December) and turnover. Still non-existent in 2009, it is estimated to have reached a value of 1.5 million euro in December 2010. This is still a small share of the whole market (0.04%) but one which is inevitably destined to grow in 2011, both in the number of Italian titles accessible on e-readers (already 18,000 in September 2011) and turnover, reaching around 3-4 million euro by the end of 2011. This is all happening in the context of a new legislative background, with the approval in July 2011 of the renewed law on consumer prices for books which ended a situation of uncertainty for operators.Total market sales of 3.4 billion euros

3.4 billion euro, total market sales
E-books: 1.5 million euro sales and 0.04% of the market
Good performance from the digital market overall: it represents 9.9% of the total
Sales channels: consolidation for trade (+4.2%), with the traditional bookshop in the lead (+2.6%), and a boom in online bookshops (+24.5%)
Readership is on the rise in Italy: in 2010 26.4 million Italians read at least one book per year; 968 thousand more than the previous year
Production: drop in titles (down to 57 thousand), new books (122 million copies) and copies overall (208 million)
Exports: fewer books but more rights sold abroad
What about the first half of 2011? Positive: +2.1% overall in trade channels with some signs of uncertainty

For more infos read our 2011 report.

Report 2011 on the state of publishing in Italy

Presented on October 12th 2011 at the Frankfurt Book Fair: data, figures and trends on the Italian publishing sector in 2010.
Download the excerpt or read the full report available here.

Available Reports