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Digital migration has taken off in the UK and US, but not in other countries to any significant degree, while small and medium-sized publishers are urged to look to foreign markets to increase bottom lines.
Those were some of the revelations from a look into the global publishing market by analyst Ruediger Wischenbart, in a report for the International Publishers Association presented at yesterday’s “Global Publishing Statistics” seminar at London Book Fair.
Wischenbart said that in the US and UK, the number of titles produced was increasing, but the market value of the publishing industry and publishers’ revenues were not, “which shows us that the economic situation of these markets is quite strained”.
In response to a question from the audience about the impact on digital books globally, Wischenbart said the only countries currently being significantly affected were the US and UK. He added: “Watch the digital model grow in many countries, particularly Asia.”
In terms of opportunities for publishers in the UK, Wischenbart afterwards told The Bookseller Daily: “The small and medium-sized publishers should understand that there is a global opportunity in each of them, in all markets. There are opportunities because you can find an audience and consumers in all these places which you could not reasonably do 10 years ago.”
He added: “In China, definitely reading and writing online is an enormous industry. There have been huge authors started online which have then migrated into the printing world.”
With respect to the Indian market, he said: “We need to open our minds and eyes and look at a diversity of models—there is a lack of international players such as Amazon there.”