Translated material
Biblio-rebus
Irina Rosenberg
Publishers would like to earn more, but this is hampered by the low effective demand of the Russian reader
Publishers would like to earn more, but this is hampered by the low effective demand of the Russian reader
(Photo: Alexander Sorin )
At first glance, the economic crisis of 1998 did not particularly affect the development of the book market. The shelves of central stores are bursting with a variety of books, and people are crowding around the counters. “The number of buyers has even increased, and the assortment has also grown,” say the managers of the Biblio-Globus store, one of the largest in the country. “Previously, we constantly offered 25-26 thousand book titles, now - 38-40 thousand.”
Official statistics published by specialized publications also give no reason for alarm. In April, Book Review reported that 46,156 book titles were published in the country in 1998, 1,130 more than the previous year. In 1999, growth continued, and publishers already released 47,312 titles. After the crisis, almost all publishing houses expanded their genre range.
Meanwhile, one of the main indicators of the state of publishing is not so much the number of published titles as circulation. And over the past 10 years they have decreased by 4 times. If in Soviet times there were 10 copies of books per year per resident of Russia, now there are three. The reason is not that a lot of political literature was published in Soviet times - its share was no more than 5%. It’s just that back then there were multimillion-dollar circulations, but now they produce as many as can be sold.
In 1998, the total circulation of literature published in the country decreased to 407.6 million copies (in 1997 it was 435.9). In 1999 it grew to 412 million. But this happened mainly due to the addition of new types of literature. Almost all the publishing houses we surveyed admit that circulation as such is falling. According to Oleg Bartenev, vice-president of the corporate publishing group AST (which unites approximately 30 Russian publishing houses), the circulation of even the most popular literature is declining.
Moreover, the expansion of the assortment is partly due to the reduction in circulation. “Circulations have fallen, which means that in order to balance income, we need to publish more different types of literature; it’s easier to protect ourselves from seasonal declines, for example, if a publishing house specializes in various kinds of educational and encyclopedic literature for schoolchildren, then the main peak of sales occurs at the end of summer - beginning of autumn , and if there is other literature in the assortment, this allows us to fill the vacuum,” explains commercial director of the Olma-press publishing house Igor Yanak.
The mood of even major publishers cannot be called optimistic. “For many publishing houses in April of this year, sales volumes fell by 10% compared to the same period last year,” says Oleg Bartenev. From August 1998 to the present day, books have risen in price by 2-2.5 times. “There is no problem of publishing literature, there is a problem of their consumption. During 1999 alone, books went up in price by 70-80%,” says independent book expert Yuri Maisuradze. “After the crisis, the demand for books decreased by 35-40%,” believes Sergei Kondratov, chairman of the board of the Terra holding company.
Senka's hat
Although books have become more expensive in ruble terms, in dollar terms they are cheaper than before the crisis. The average retail price of a hardcover book is approximately 30 rubles, that is, a little over a dollar. Until August 1998, a book cost fifteen rubles, that is, 2.5-3 dollars. According to Sergei Kondratov, this year book prices will increase by only 10-15 percent (unless, of course, some catastrophe occurs and the book publishing business is not deprived of benefits, see subset).
As almost all the publishers we interviewed assure us, prices are being kept down by freezing employee wages, royalties, and reducing profit margins. Publishers have switched to cheaper paper, simplifying book design, and making covers cheaper. Perhaps the most noticeable change in the book market has been the decline in high-quality illustrated literature printed on coated paper. Before the crisis, such literature was printed abroad, mainly albums, children's books, books on cooking, housekeeping, knitting and embroidery, etc. Now printing abroad is too expensive, and publishers have returned to Russian printing houses, and are resorting to the services of Western printers only in rare cases. But in Russia, firstly, there are very few printing houses capable of performing high-quality color printing. Secondly, illustrated books began to be printed not on expensive coated paper, but on ordinary offset paper. Naturally, the quality suffers from this - the illustrations are not as bright, the book looks poorer. But there is nothing to do. “For example, our illustrated books, printed in Russia, retail for 150-180 rubles,” say representatives of Olma Press. “If we printed them on chalk and abroad, their price would not be less than 300 rubles. Who would buy them then?"
At the same time, publishers complain that production costs are rising due to falling circulations. Some even say that they are teetering on the brink of unprofitability, losing working capital. And so on and so forth. “The problem is that a book in Russia costs less than it should cost,” the head of one of the large publishing houses, who asked not to be named, is convinced. “We should raise prices several times. This is the only way to develop.” Many provide a number of arguments in defense of this point of view. To achieve success, a publishing house needs to work with new interesting authors (and good authors need to be paid well), buy the rights to good Western literature, attract good translators, use high-quality printing, and finally, invest in new projects, some serial editions of fiction, encyclopedias , reference books, etc.
Almost all publishers agree that books are undervalued in Russia. But not everyone considers it reasonable to raise prices, since effective demand has decreased over the past two years. “Books really should cost twice as much, or even four times more,” agree representatives of Olma Press. “Especially those in which a lot of work has been invested.” As an example, they showed the “Encyclopedia of Homemade Cooking,” one of the books in Galina Poskrebysheva’s culinary series. According to them, each illustration for it was made separately: products were purchased, the entire canning process was photographed, right down to putting it in jars. “It retails for 180 rubles, but there’s a lot of labor in it!” - they exclaim. However, according to them, “the majority of buyers have a hard time crossing the price threshold of 100 rubles; for many, 150 rubles is already the ceiling.” “Traditionally, our people have the idea that a book should be cheap,” comments Yuri Maisuradze.
Theoretically, publishers could deliberately reduce circulation, thereby creating a shortage in the market, and increase prices. “But even if we reduce circulation by 20% at once, there will be no rush,” says Oleg Bartenev. “If we raise prices, we will only lose customers. The place of the book will be taken by other media - television, the Internet, CD-ROM. So people will stop reading altogether ". However, these conclusions are based only on general feelings, since no one has conducted serious research on the demand for books in our country in recent years.
Perhaps the book is really undervalued in Russia; in the West it costs 5-7 times more (there, however, the income level is different). It might be possible to raise prices for some publications (for example, for high-quality illustrated literature; those who need such a book will buy it at a higher price). But, on the other hand, if publishers are in no hurry to do this, it means they are really afraid of problems with implementation. But they still cannot come to terms with the falling rate of profit. In the early 90s, profits from publishing reached 1000%. In recent years it has been constantly declining. According to Yuri Maisuradze, today the rate of profit from publishing is 25-30%, and in the West it fluctuates on average between 3-5%, and if someone reaches 10%, this is already considered a huge success. As for the talk about the need to increase royalty rates, as long as there are people willing to work for “ridiculous” money (the average translation fee is 600-800 rubles per author’s sheet), publishing houses will not increase the cost of paying authors and translators .
Publishing houses for the most part are unlikely to lure away authors from each other - it’s more expensive for themselves: after all, they will have to outbid the author for a more substantial sum, and besides, they will have to pay a penalty to the publishing house with which he has an agreement, but whether this will be profitable is unknown. As one of the editors-in-chief noted, the book market can only live according to the laws of the market. This means that book prices will rise according to demand. According to Oleg Bartenev, it will take two years for the price of a book in currency equivalent to reach pre-crisis levels.
But the anonymous supporter of price increases mentioned above believes that publishers are ruining their own lives by accustoming people to low prices. “When the buyer sees that similar books are equally expensive in all stores, he will get used to it and start buying them,” he is convinced. But that's the rub. In order for books to be equally expensive, all publishers must increase their prices. And even if we assume that large publishing houses, in agreement, raise prices, small ones are unlikely to agree to this. “Krupnyak will take over the market, and we will be left with nothing,” comments a representative of one of these publishing houses. And the aforementioned anonymous publisher admitted that he does not raise prices precisely for the reason that “we need to act in a coordinated manner here.”
Publishers complain that circulations have been falling lately and less and less money is left for production development. (Photo: Ruslan Yamalov )
We need to sell better
Of course, the demand for books is constrained by the financial condition of Russian citizens. However, it is possible that one of the reasons for limited demand is that neither the book nor information about it often simply reaches the reader. Books are practically not advertised, and people sometimes simply do not know anything about new products.
Some publishing houses today hold author evenings together with central bookstores and organize presentations of new books. But such events are usually attended by those who regularly visit bookstores. In addition, they are held only in large cities, and even then not in all stores.
“In the USA, four advertising agencies specialize in advertising books, but we don’t have one,” complains Igor Yanak from Olma-Press. We actually do not advertise books on television, in mass-market newspapers and magazines. “Perhaps it is precisely because of the lack of advertising that we sometimes experience problems with the sale of serious literature,” admits Ksenia Atarova, editor-in-chief of the Raduga publishing house. “For example, we published a novel for young people by the Norwegian writer Jostein Gorder “Sofia’s World” about history philosophy, it has been translated into many languages, it has been a success in the world. But I don’t know whether it will work here. But if we advertise books, they will cost more."
How successfully a particular book sells largely depends on the book trade. “In recent years, book production in many regions has increased, but the main book producers are still Moscow and St. Petersburg, controlling 82.5 and 7.7% of the total Russian circulation, respectively,” comments Yuri Maisuradze. This means that books need to be taken to the regions. But the problem is that the country does not have a normal wholesale network. That is why the book market is truly saturated only in Moscow and some large cities, while in the regions there is still a shortage.
There are, of course, wholesale trading companies, but they prefer to deal with mass literature such as detective stories. Large publishing houses have their own distribution networks. But small ones are forced to sell their books directly where they publish them, and in order to send them somewhere in the provinces, they have to contact large publishing houses and sell through them. Some publishers are ready to send the book by mail to different regions, but this is not an option.
According to Sergei Kondratov, in the USA, for example, five large wholesale chains sell books; publishers there only publish books. Specialized trading companies have branches throughout the country. All Russian publishing houses are aware of the need for a normal wholesale network, but do not really understand where to start creating it. “Everyone thinks about themselves, no one wants to take the initiative into their own hands,” says the head of one of the large publishing houses. “And all this is difficult. It’s not a fact that if an initiator appears, the publishing houses will agree to work with him. Who better than the publisher himself can "Advertise your book to potential buyers - stores or small wholesale companies? There is another danger. Let's say a large publishing house organizes a wholesale company and begins to promote its books first, and will think about the products of others in the last place." Obviously, some third party must act as the creator of the national wholesale book network. Who it will be and when it will appear is unknown.
The retail book trade system in Russia also leaves much to be desired. There are very few large stores with Western trading technology - a reference service, a unified computer network that allows you to monitor the progress of each book: in the morning, let’s say, it arrived, and by the end of the day there is already information that it has been sold, this helps to quickly carry out additional delivery. “In general, the Russian retail trade is not ready to work with modern technologies, this slows down implementation,” notes Yuri Maisuradze. “In the West, there is a constant connection between the store and the publisher. The publisher constantly informs the store about its new products. All publishers and stores there are connected by a single information network. Let's say a reader doesn't find the book he needs in a store, employees press a computer button and immediately find a place where this book is sold."
“We are also looking, but we have to do it literally manually, just call publishing houses and find out,” say Biblio-Globus employees. “And if publishing houses and stores had an exchange of information, it would be easier to work, publishers, for example, they would instantly find out which book’s circulation needed to be urgently reprinted, and there would be no interruptions in trade.”
According to Olma-Press executives, the book market can only be expanded by expanding the retail network. But after the crisis, on the contrary, it began to decline. If before the crisis new bookstores began to open, now some of them have reoriented themselves to selling more popular goods. And if VAT benefits are taken away from the book business, then the book trade could go completely underground, the heads of many publishing houses fear.
(Photo: Alexander Sorin )
IMBER: Notes in the margins
There are no reliable statistics regarding the volume of book publishing in Russia. In reality, the volume of published literature can be calculated from legal copies sent to the Russian Book Chamber by publishing houses. You just need to make simple arithmetic calculations - count the total number of titles and add up the total circulation. According to the Law “On Legal Deposit of Documents”, all publishing houses are required to send copies of all books they have published to the Book Chamber. However, now not everyone does this. And if some send them, they don’t send everything they publish. In addition, as the head of one of the large Russian publishing houses admitted, the circulation numbers indicated on the title pages of books do not always reflect reality. Sometimes the circulation is overestimated (if the book needs promotion), and sometimes it is underestimated (if the publication is pirated).
More than 17 thousand organizations have a license to engage in publishing activities. However, according to the Russian Book Chamber, in 1999 only 5,238 publishing houses were actually engaged in publishing books - that is how many enterprises sent legal deposits to the Book Chamber. Since not all publishing houses comply with the Law “On Legal Deposit of Documents,” there may be more publishing organizations. At the same time, ten publishing houses are making a difference in the Russian book market - Eksmo, AST, Prosveshchenie, Nauka, Drofa, Terra, Olma-press, Tsentrpoligraf, Phoenix, Ripol Classic". At the same time, five publishing houses - Eksmo, AST, Prosveshcheniye, Drofa, and Olma-press - accounted for about a third of the total circulation last year. Private publishing houses today account for 85% of the circulation of published literature.