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Spain’s books market experienced declining sales for the third straight year in 2011, despite a resilient bricks-and-mortar bookshop sector and a marginal rise in digital revenue.
Spain’s publishing trade body, Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (FGEE), released its report on the state of the 2011 Spanish book industry earlier this month, showing a €118.46m (£93.1m) year-on-year slump in value sales, down to €2.772bn. That is a 4.1% drop on 2010, and the market has declined by 13% in value since the industry’s high-water mark of €3.185bn in 2008.
Volume sales slumped even more dramatically, with 119.8 million books sold, 12.5% less than the previous year. This continues a trend; in the last five years, volume sales have declined in Spain by 20.3%. Book production actually increased, however, with 83,258 new titles published in 2010, a jump of 4.3% over 2010. The average selling price was €13.87.
Unlike the UK, however, the market decline is not coming from traditional bricks-and-mortar bookshops. At 38% of the market, independents remained the main sales channel, with revenue rising 2.9% year on year to €1.05bn. Sales through indies have risen 6.5% since 2007, while market share has gone from 31% to 38%.
Chain bookshops—the next biggest sales channel at 17% of the market—had a 2% rise to €481.4m. With Amazon.es launching in the autumn, online sales enjoyed a huge leap in percentage terms (32%), but at €20.77m they still represent less than 1% of the overall market.
Sales channels experiencing losses were supermarkets (-5.4% to €274.14m) and kiosks (-30.1% to €129.38m).
In 2011, Spanish publishers hugely increased their e-book production. Frontlist digital titles published in 2011 rose by 243.3% over 2010, to 40,328, a 576.6% increase compared to 2009. Additionally, there were 81,170 backlist titles digitised in 2011.
Increased production did not translate into huge e-book sales gains, however. Digital revenue totalled €72.6m for 2011, just a 3% rise on 2010; although it is a 41.6% rise on 2009. Yet digital only represents 2.8% of the overall market.
Javier Cortes, president of Spanish publisher Grupo SM and elected FGEE president in April, said: “Publishers have made a great effort to significantly increase the range of digital titles, however this has not been translated into an increase in consumption. We firmly believe that a policy determined to combat piracy and regulation that equates digital book VAT with paper books could help drive this market.”