Literature

In view of the digital revolution, many critics in Germany again see the end of the Gutenberg galaxy as imminent. The numbers, however, show that the medium book, like the German book market, is still alive and going strong.

Pessimists who prophesy the end of the printed book should visit the throngs at the Frankfurt Book Fair. With 448 exhibitors from 108 countries in 2007, the international hub of the book trade set a new record for participants. In 2008, there were more visitors than ever before, nearly 300,000. In 2009, the Leipzig Book Fair, now also established as a reading festival, also reached an all-time peak with 143,000 visitors: an increase of over fourteen per cent from the previous year.

Unrivalled diversity

Just how alive and strong the medium book is, may be seen by a glance at the statistics for the German book market. In recent years, sales have risen continuously – by 3.4 percent in 2007, and by 0.4 percent even in 2008, the year of the financial crisis – and now total more than 9.6 billion euros. Between 2006 and 2008, the production of titles has remained at a high level, with 94,000 to 96,000 new publications; in terms of copies, 2008 saw more than a billion books and print products being produced for the first time. Of these, around 88 percent were first editions, while twelve percent were reprints. In 2002 this ratio was still 76 to 24: a clear indication of the growing importance of new publications for the market.

But publishers still also maintain their “backlists”. The current Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher (i.e, German Books in Print), for instance, contains an imposing 1.2 million titles – also a record. No other branch of the German economy offers nearly so great a number of diverse products.

The book market is more than books

People often complain about the bewildering range of the book offerings. On closer look, the German book market falls into many individual sub-markets or market segments. An initial distinction can be made by format: in 2008, 71.1 per cent were hardbacks, 24.1 per cent were paperbacks, and 4.8 per cent were audio books, with the paperback market accounting for a much higher proportion in fiction (51.3 per cent).

According to recent statistics relating to book production by value, 31.8 per cent fall under the category of fiction and non-fiction, 16.2 per cent about equally under specialised books in the humanities and social sciences on the one hand and the natural sciences and technology on the other, 14.4 per cent under school books, and 4.0 under children’s books.

Other large areas are made up of various printed material that is hardly noticed, but that plays an important role statistically and economically. For example, around 500 million address books and brochures were produced in 2008, which is roughly half of all print products produced in Germany. Last year, however, the area of fiction and specialised books also increased in volume by 10 million to 265 million copies.

German readers love translations

Book trade statistics invariably reflect the specific cultural behaviour of a society, and the group data compiled by the German National Bibliography enable us to make a few interesting observations on this head. They show how the German reader’s desire for light novels waxes and wanes, that his health consciousness has risen and his pleasure in cookery books increased. Books on sport flourish especially in years of football world championships or Olympic Games, and when the fine arts turned out to be a trend subject in 2007 because of the Documenta in Cassel, sales of comics, cartoons and caricatures really took off: within just one year, the number of titles published increased from 743 to 1261. In paperback production too, whodunnits, thrillers and historical novels made further gains.

In addition, German readers proved to be quite open to translated books: 8.8 per cent of new titles produced in 2008 were translations, whereby the most translated language was, as might be expected, English (66.9 per cent). The following places went to French (11.5 per cent), Italian (2.8 per cent) and Spanish (2.6 per cent). Studies have shown that 76 per cent of the books on the German bestseller list were by foreign, predominantly American and English authors; in France or Italy the figure is only about 40 per cent, and in Finland only 20 per cent. When it comes to suspense and entertainment, the German reader obviously prefers to put himself in the hands of foreign rather than native writers.

The cultural transfer works less well, and less reliably, in the reverse direction: while German publishers concluded 9,225 licensing contracts in 2007 (4.5 per cent more than in the previous year), the figure was only 7,605 in 2008 (down 17.5 per cent). There is still a general upwards trend to be seen here, however, as the figure was only 4,133 ten years ago. The licensing partners are scattered all over the world. The most important target countries were, most recently, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and China, with the entire (!) English-speaking world only then following; Korea, Italy, Spain, Hungary and France complete the top ten. The problem is well-known: in spite of good connections to the American market, where German book and media concerns are well anchored, they succeed only seldom in placing a German author there.

Blurred business profile

Statistics on the German book market are annually compiled by the German Publishers and Book Sellers Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels) in its publication Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen (i.e., The Book and Book Trade in Numbers). Founded in 1825, the Association is internationally unique in that it seeks to consolidate the (often differing) interests of producers and distributors. Its approximately 6,000 members represent the main professional characters of the German book trade: 1,777 publishers, 3,925 book shops, 80 businesses engaged in the intermediate book trade and 30 independent sales representatives are currently members.

Many of these may be found in the 2009/10 Address Book of the German Book Trade, which lists 22,300 production and distributing businesses in the book trade. Among the 15,000 publishers listed there, however, are a great many associations and institutes that bring out publications only occasionally, and small businesses that sell books and leading stationers are also counted as distributors. The business profile of the German market is therefore somewhat blurred.

Norderstedt is ahead of Leipzig

Geographically, there is a neck-on-neck race between Berlin and Munich publishers for the highest number of publications: in 2008 both cities each brought out something in the region of 9,500 titles. Next came Stuttgart (4,114), Hamburg (3,763) and Frankfurt am Main (3,569); Cologne came sixth (2,051). Surprises were the old publishing city of Leipzig in thirteenth place, six places behind Norderstedt and two behind Herzogenrath: a single big publisher can bring a city well to the fore in the rankings.

The problems of the retail book trade are quite different, for here it is a question of the smoothest possible distribution of shopping opportunities for consumers. In this respect, the German book buyer is very spoiled: probably no other industrial country in the world has as dense a network of full-fledged bookshops as does Germany. Approximately 5,000 retailers, plus their affiliates, ensure that a place where a book can be purchased or ordered lies within reach.

A marvel of logistics

The customer in German-speaking countries takes for granted that a bookshop will have his ordered book for him on the next day. But this feat is by no means a matter-of-course: only very few countries can offer such a service. Its basis is an elaborate logistical system organised in Germany by the highly developed intermediate book trade, namely book wholesalers, who buy and deliver at their own expense, and publishers’ distributors. The modern warehouses of these businesses are veritable marvels of technology and computerised process control. Thanks also to the computerised systems of which bookshops are a part, the ordering and transport of books has been streamlined to a high degree.

The book price control, which has been practiced in Germany for more than 120 years, serves to safeguard the diversity of offerings and, above all, protect small and medium-sized bookshops. The price control was anchored in law in 2002. There is hardly another country where it is defended with such vehemence, for there is a fear of deep-reaching changes should it be discontinued. The book price control, however, has not be able to prevent the recent rapidly advancing tendency to concentration, particularly in the retail market, and the shift of market power to the disadvantage of publishers. Yet all in all, the present degree of concentration is far from comparable to that in France or Great Britain.

The digital challenge

The German book trade has sought to take the initiative in facing the challenges of the future brought about by media technology. The offering of e-books is being continuously expanded, and under the direction of the Publishers and Book Sellers Association the complete text database Libreka has been created, which is intended to safeguard publishers’ control over their copyrights. Most probably still greater revolutions await the German book trade in the digital age. But that the book, in whatever form, will continue to play an important role in the media system may be looked upon as certain.