Book sales continue to fall
Turnover of books has fallen by four per cent this year. Fiction for adults has fallen by ten per cent.
The decline of four per cent includes case law, fiction, entertainment books, cheap books, works and series as of 30 November, statistics from The Norwegian Publishers Association, writes Dagsavisen.
Adult literacy is down by about ten per cent, and the decline is 20 per cent for translated literature for the same target group, according to the association.
The translated literature for children fell by 12 per cent this year, while Norwegian fiction literature for children is the only category with growth. Since last year sales have increased by almost 14 per cent.
Editor Vebjørn Rogne in Bok365 says to the newspaper that the decline has lasted for three to four years. He says that book sales halfway through 2018 fell by eight per cent compared with the same time last year. Book sales were going to be the worst book year since 2005, but now sales are more at the 2006 level, which was not a jubilee either.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
It’s a transition fase for this segment, I suppose. The book stores didn’t prepare themselves to the arrival of Amazon, e-books and Netflix, for example. It’s a cultural changing moment. I live here (Bergen) but I’m from Brazil, and there, we have big chains and distributors breaking, and publishers in a very bad moment. So, if the publishers are selling less then before, they print less copies, and the books become more expensive. Then, people buy less. So, it will get worst. The segment most be all rearenged and rethinked.