The Publishers Association

A

• Albania Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  There are currently about 40 active private publishing houses in Albania which produce about 700 titles a year between them. The majority of the private-sector publishers concentrate on general and trade titles. However, since government policy has until the 2003/4 school year sought to subsidise textbooks' and other core education materials' prices, private sector publishers have had little incentive to enter the schools market with materials of any kind. This may now change as the government seeks to privatise its two education publishers on the basis of open price competition.

• Argentina Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  here are no accurate figures for the size of the Argentina book market, but industry observers and the author estimate that it is worth about US$450m per annum (£255m) at trade prices. These figures represent about 75 per cent of the levels attained in 2001, when the last report was written, but only 60 per cent of what the book market was worth in 1997/8. The devaluation of the peso to present levels (3 to US$1; 5.3 to £1) has severely restricted imports of goods (including books) priced in these currencies. UK publishers, with two exceptions, are generally not yet taking advantage of Argentina's strength in developing material for the internet.

• Australia Publishing Market Profile 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Australia is a sophisticated, urbanised, and highly developed society with a strong economy and a very high standard of living. Although its population is only one-third of the UK's, the reading public punches above its weight in book purchases, and sales of some bestsellers can rival those in the UK. The market offers opportunities for literally every category of UK publication. While local Australian publishing has occupied an increasing share of the market over the last 20 years or so, especially in education, UK publishers have succeeded in retaining a strong presence.

B

• Caribbean Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The English-speaking nations of the Caribbean inherited the basic educational system from the UK, and this has proved extremely useful to UK publishers in maintaining a dominant presence in the market. In recent years, however,the academic market has been ceded to the USA, and local Caribbean publishers have become more competitive, particularly at primary-school level. Increasingly, UK publishers need to think local. Companies need to price to market in each of the major countries, no longer treating the Caribbean as a uniform market.

• Brazil Publishing Market Profile 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The sheer size of Brazil would appear to make it a valuable market for books, including exports from the UK, but the cyclical nature of Brazil's economy since the last decades of the twentieth century has meant that the potential has never quite been fulfilled. Publishers interested in Brazil therefore need to take the long view; a short-term approach can easily lead to disappointment when a new economic crisis occurs, and expected returns fail to appear, or even worse, turn into losses.  However, there are many factors that make it an attractive market.

• Brazil Academic Journal Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  
  It is becoming extremely hard to sell any new print subscriptions into the Brazilian market, however new opportunities are presenting themselves with archival or back-file journals collections and the growing interest in e-books. Brazil contributes 1.9 per cent of the total ISI Indexed research papers, and is ranked fifteenth in the world; the country also accounts for 49 per cent of the total Latin American contribution. Most of its journal publishing is in the hands of scholarly societies and research institutions although university presses do publish some journals.

• Bulgaria Publishing Market Profile 2009 HTML | PDF
  

  
  The total market value for books in Bulgaria including imports) is estimated to have  a value of €70m. Although a relatively weak book market in terms of the region when compared to Hungary, Poland or the Czech Republic, however resumed economic expansion and the growth of higher education, and incease of the urban, managerial class suggests that there is the potential for expansion in due course.

   

C

• Canada Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The 1990s were the halcyon days of the book publishing industry in Canada, with the decade enjoying years of steady growth. The start of the millennium saw a downturn, with tough economic conditions, combining with an outbreak of SARS, which conspired to undermine the industry. Canadian publishing went through its darkest times in 2001 with the collapse of General Publishing, Canada's largest book distributor, and dramatic change at the retail level. However, though small by British standards, the Canadian publishing industry is resilient and signs of market recovery and growth have been evident since 2002.

• China Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Chinese book market is the largest in the world by volume, and the second largest in terms of purchasing power parity after that of the United States of America There has been a steady increase in book imports from the west but the level of sales is still relatively low in relation to the size of the market due to price. Therefore the major opportunities for UK publishers lie in the licensing of rights for local English-language reprints or translations, and for joint-investment projects.

   

• China Academic Journals Profile 2003 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Now that the Chinese government has made clear that the illegal copying of foreign journals will not be tolerated, the market for foreign scholarly journals has come alive. Publishers previously accustomed to limited subscription revenue from China are approaching the market with renewed vigour. At a time when many regional markets for scholarly journals are generally stagnating or declining, publishers are greatly cheered by the normalisation of the Chinese market in terms of copyright observance, and also by the increasing levels of government funding being channelled into developing China's higher education establishments.

• Attitudes of Chinese Academics to Foreign Scholarly Journals 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The rapidly developing Chinese market is believed by many publishers to offer a very attractive opportunity to build market share and revenue.  In the autumn of 2004 Key Perspectives Limited conducted a survey to investigate the attitudes of Chinese academics in relation to foreign scholarly journals. A web-based questionnare was used to survey Chinese academics at three levels (professor, associate professor and post-graduate student) across 14 subject areas in STM and social sciences. The basic survey, which elicited 504 respones, was follwed up with 30 in-depth telephone interviews.The results of the survey are presented in this report

• China Publishing Market Profile 2009 HTML | PDF
  

  

  

  The Chinese publishing industry is the world's largest by volume and second largest by PPP according to Professor Paul Richardson, author of The Publishers Association's forthcoming China Publishing Market Profile 2009. In 2009 China is crowning its push to take its intellectual property to the global marketplace as the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. More problematic may be the WTO ruling that its import controls on publications are unacceptable. Meanwhile almost all publishing houses have to transform to business enterprises by 2010 and are being encouraged to engage with private investment.
   

• Czech Republic and Slovakia Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Czech Republic and Slovakia have very well educated and literate populations with long traditions of book-reading and book-buying and today English is the foreign language of choice for most people Taken together they imported nearly £13 m of books  from the UK in 2007, putting them ahead of China, Russia and New Zealand.

D

• Scandinavia Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

   

  
  English is the language of business and in the tertiary sector in Scandinavia, and is almost universally spoken by the population at large. Its reach benefits UK publishers in terms of the importance and value of Scandinavia as an export market.

   

   

E

• Egypt Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The value of the book market in Egypt is estimated to be approximately £50m in 2006. It is a market based on educational requirements, where even the trade market tends to focus on self-help and educational success titles. There are around 450 publishers and about the same number of bookshops, though some are no bigger than kiosks.  Book imports represent approximately 14 percent by value at local price levels of the total book market, although much smaller in volume terms. Educational products again dominate, probably making up over 80 percent of all imports.

   

F

• France Publishing Market Profile 2009 HTML | PDF
  

  
  The retai book market in France in 2007 registered a decline of 0.9 per cent in value and a 2.7 per cent reduction in volume. In recent years the sectors have experienced positive growth have been fiction, children's books and comic strip books. All other book sectors have lost momentuum due to substitution by other media and the growth in the availability of online content on websites.

G

• Germany Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

   
  It is estimated that the majority of UK book exports to Germany now go through the five importing German wholesalers, who in turn use UK and US wholesalers for a significant percentage of their ordering. Much of their German trade is thus 'invisible' to UK publishers. However, in some cases German booksellers would actually welcome more publisher information on UK books, rather than always having to rely on the choices made by the German wholesalers.

• Ghana Publishing Market Profile 2002 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Ghana has many small local publishers producing cheap primary-level school books, or largely religious tracts and books. Local publishers are generally small-scale and privately owned. The only State owned publishing house is the Ghana Publishing Corporation, which for decades has been the official, monopoly supplier to the State education sector. However, as the Government begins to decentralise and Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) textbook supply is eventually implemented, the market will open up more and more to the commercial sector.

• Greece Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Greece continues to be an important market for book sales as well as rights and co-edition sales for UK publishers, according to Mike Esplen author of the PA's Greece Publishing Market Profile 2008. It is difficult to estimate the value of the market accurate but it is believed to be worth around £450m at retail value and £250-200m at net publisher receipts. Translations account for over 40 per cent of Greek book production and 53 per cent originate from English. The UK is also the largest source of Greek book imports (27 per cent) and Greece was the fifteenth largest export market in 2006.

• Caribbean Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The English-speaking nations of the Caribbean inherited the basic educational system from the UK, and this has proved extremely useful to UK publishers in maintaining a dominant presence in the market. In recent years, however,the academic market has been ceded to the USA, and local Caribbean publishers have become more competitive, particularly at primary-school level. Increasingly, UK publishers need to think local. Companies need to price to market in each of the major countries, no longer treating the Caribbean as a uniform market.

H

• Hong Kong Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The future of Hong Kong as a strong export market for UK-published books will be determined by its development as a political entity, and, in particular, its future language policy. Historically, it has been a good export market because of the wide use of English in the territory, and the large expatriate community, most of them English-speaking. The return of the territory to China in 1997 has resulted in some major changes in education, and in the territory's culture, and these changes are likely to continue, affecting the use of textbooks in English, and the general amount of reading in English and purchase of books in English.

   

• Hungary Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  With a population of just over 10 m people, Hungary may not seem to be a priority market for UK publishers, in terms of either export sales or co-edition and rights activity. However, it is a country with a very strong book-buying tradition, and an orientation towards English-language authors. There is also a vibrant local publishing industry in which Dutch, American, German and now Finnish investors have acquired a significant stake. Although there is a generally pro-British cultural and commercial environment, UK publishers have had a low profile in the market except for the four leading ELT publishing houses, yet there are still opportunities for UK publishers to invest or to develop joint-ventures.

I

• India Academic Journal Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The country has over 340 universities and institutions of higher education recognised by the University Grants Commission, and some 10.4m students were enrolled in them in 2004-5. There are more than 240 medical colleges admitting over 26,000 students per year, and almost 17,000 colleges engaged in some form of higher education. Libraries have traditionally used subscription agents for their foreign journals purchases, but these agents are all Indian companies, and international agents such as EBSCO and Swets play no active role in the journals subscriptions supply. The privately funded colleges and institutions market promises significant potential for UK publishers.

• India Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  In just the last few years, India has become the fastest-growing English-language book market in the world, and offers great opportunities for those publishers willing to invest in this complex and competitive market. Although the Indian book market is estimated to be only one third of the size of the UK's, its importance will be transformed if the accepted growth rate of 10 per cent per annum since 2003 continues.

• Iran Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  
  The existence of the Tehran International Book Fair, with its subsidised prices, attracts about 65% of the value of a full year's book exports from UK to Iran. It is almost entirely focused on the Academic/Professional/ Reference/STM sector. However Iran has never signed any of the international copyright conventions (although keen to join the WTO), and as such there is no copyright protection for foreign books in Iran.

• Iraq Education and Training System (3rd draft) HTML | PDF
  

  

   
  Prior to the first Gulf war in 1991 the educational system in Iraq was widely regarded as one of the best in the region with approximately 100% gross enrolment for primary schooling and high levels of literacy for both men and women. Higher educational establishments were of an international standard and staffed high quality personnel. Investments in the system for the period mid-70s to 1990 were relatively high with education accounting for over 5% of the state budget in 1989 which compares favourably with an average for developing countries of 3.8%. This British Council draft describes the education and training system in Iraq in 2003.

• Italy Publishing Market Profile 2003 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  It is quite surprising that a country with a language that is little used internationally, and a very small export market, can support such a highly developed and energetic publishing industry. Italy parades as many world-class publishers as some of its larger neighbours, and competes vigorously in the trade market for the rights to global bestsellers. Levels of publishing output are high by any standard. So are the production quality standards, and prices are competitive. Distribution and retail have also undergone a transformation in recent times, with the rapid development of stylish bookshop chains ensuring much greater nationwide access.

J

• Caribbean Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The English-speaking nations of the Caribbean inherited the basic educational system from the UK, and this has proved extremely useful to UK publishers in maintaining a dominant presence in the market. In recent years, however,the academic market has been ceded to the USA, and local Caribbean publishers have become more competitive, particularly at primary-school level. Increasingly, UK publishers need to think local. Companies need to price to market in each of the major countries, no longer treating the Caribbean as a uniform market.

• Japan Publishing Market Profile 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  
  Japan remains a huge book market, despite a number of years of apparent stagnation. At its height in 1989, 941 m books were sold in that year but by 1997 sales had fallen to a mere 875 m and since then has experienced a decline in nearly ever year.  However, despite this decline in books purchased, it is interesting to note that borrowing from libraries has shot up dramatically, and that the number of bargain bookshops has expanded. Add to this the growth of coffee shops where customers can read manga (Japanese comic books), and it becomes clear that the appetite for the printed word is still enormous.

   

• Jordan Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Although a small and relatively poor country, not well endowed with natural resources like its Middle East neighbours, Jordan has a good reputation for education according to Rob Francis, author of the PA's Jordan Publishing Market Profile 2008.  The internal educational book market is restricted in a variety of ways but the trade market is beginning to be developed.

   

K

• Kenya Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

   
  The main market for books in Kenya is for school textbooks, which are almost entirely produced by local publishers, in the cheapest possible format. The second biggest market is for religious tracts, which are generally subsidised by parent churches abroad, Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical. There is not really a tradition of reading for pleasure in Kenya. Outside a few bookshops in Nairobi, books for general reading are not available because publishers and booksellers do not feel that there is a sufficient market for them.

• South Korea Academic Journal Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  South Korea boasts over 700 academic societies in science and technology disciplines. In 2004 there were responsible for the publication of some 870 scholarly journals , with most of these publishing articles in Korean only. In higher education, which consists of approximately 380 universities and colleages, and research, libraries have traditionally used subscription agents for foreign acquisitions, but most domestic journals are purchased directly from the societies and institutions that publish them.

• South Korea Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  South Korea is the 8th largest publishing market in the world with a minimum retail market size of US$3.7bn (£2bn) and a maximum retail market size of US$8.0bn (£4.4bn). The reason for this massive discrepancy is that many of Korea's largest publishers bundle materials together with education services to add value to their content and exploit the fact that Korea enjoys the highest per household spending on after-school education than any other country in the world.

M

• Malawi Publishing Market Brief 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

   
  A key element of government policy has been the introduction of free primary education, and a consequent increase in the share of GDP and public expenditure devoted to education. Most of this increase has been devoted to primary education, but there has also been improved access to secondary and tertiary education. There are no primary textbook opportunities for publishers, and the secondary market although open to international publishers is neglible, as the official textbook list has not been revised for several years, however there is some growth in market through donor textbook provision.

• Malaysia Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  There are some 145 publishers in Malaysia, with an annual output of around 5,000 titles. About 90 per cent of these publishers concentrate on educational (mostly school-level) publishing, as this is the most lucrative market and the Ministry of Education is the industry's largest single customer. Books are published for the most part in Bahasa Melayu (Malay), with publishing in English mostly limited to English-language textbooks and supplementary books for schools. There is limited publishing of academic and trade books.

  
  
• Mexico Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  There are two markets in Mexico - the public sector and the private sector - with publishing by government departments accounting for 60% of total units sold, and approximately 500 commercial publishers representing just 35%. Despite the importance of Spanish-language imports, it is local publications that make up the bulk of the sales. The largest numbers of book imports are in the categories of language teaching, Spanish adult and children's literature, and schools books for basic education. However translations from languages other than Spanish are growing, with translations from the English language representing 70-80 percent.

N

• Netherlands Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Reading has a high status within the cultural life of the Netherlands, and is supported by an excellent education system with little functional illiteracy. The Dutch have a history of consensus and this is reflected in the book industry, with close cooperation between publishers and booksellers in setting prices. Since the middle of the 1990s, there has been a high level of consolidation of ownership across the industry. A handful of large, highly-devoted publishing houses now control a major share of the book market.

• New Zealand Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  New Zealand is a small but stable country, with an excellent mature book market. The population is only 4m, but is relatively wealthy and well educated. Being English-speaking, it forms a reliable and profitable market for UK-published titles. A survey (Cultural Experiences Survey) carried out in 2002 shows that buying books was the most popular cultural activity in New Zealand - possibly a unique distinction anywhere in the world.
  
   

• Nigeria Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The book market in Nigeria is overwhelmingly educational; there is very little demand for imported trade books, and local trade publishers focus on literature in Nigerian languages and religious titles. The general reading market is very small, and outside a few bookshops in the big cities, books for this market are not available.Despite this there is a strong literary tradition in Nigeria. Africa's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian, and others such as Chinua Achebe have also achieved worldwide fame.

• Scandinavia Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

   

  
  English is the language of business and in the tertiary sector in Scandinavia, and is almost universally spoken by the population at large. Its reach benefits UK publishers in terms of the importance and value of Scandinavia as an export market.

   

   

P

• Pakistan Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Education remains the driving force in the Pakistani book market, but the trade and children's sectors have also seen significant advances.Pakistan is now in a strong phase of economic growth (+8.4 per cent in 2004-05), and government funding into education has increased substantially, The growing middle class in the country, mirroring similar growth in India, has expanded the trade market; demand and use of internet bookselling, and, in particular, private education, further consolidating the dominance of the education sector in the overall English-language market.

• Poland Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Poland is the largest country in Central Europe, with the largest open market for books. The country is benefiting from the European Union (EU), which it joined in 2004. After an economic slowdown in 2000-2002, the Polish economy grew more strongly than expected in 2003, and this growth continued in 2005 and 2006. Poland is an important and growing market for UK book exports. In 2005 it ranked the nineteenth largest global market in values for British books, and the largest market in Central and Eastern Europe for British books.

R

• Romania Book Market Statistics 2002 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Romanian Publishers' Association has undertaken a statistical research of the Romanian book industry with assistance from the IBD/GTZ Programme for the Promotion of Economy and Employment in Romania and the British Council in Romania. The Romanian Publishers Association has kindly given permission to the PA via the British Council to include the English translation of this research on 2001 data published in 2002 in the GPI web site.

• Romania Publishing Market Profile 2009 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Romania should be regarded as a market with worthwhile long-term protential for British publishers, despite its current challenges. In 2008 the value of the market to publishers was around £45m and estimates for the value of the market at point of purchase vary between £70m and £90m.  It is most significant as an ELT market, but also imports substantial quantities of STM product and some popular fiction, reference and general, and children's books in English.  It is also a modest but worthwhile market for rights sales of fiction, general, children's and some academic titles.

• Russia Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Russian book market has been transformed from supply-driven to market-driven since the ending of the Soviet Union in 1991. There are now approximately 20,000 publishers registered in Russia (compared to 280 state-owned publishers in 1991), but of these only some 5,000 are active, In 2004, these publishers produced around 90,000 new and revised titles, putting Russia behind only China, the UK, US and Germany in world rankings.

S

• Saudi Arabia Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The market for imported books in Saudi Arabia is predominantly an educational one, with the main sectors being libraries, academic and professional, school and ELT. UK and US publishers dominate the market for English language product, with the UK dominating ELT, while the US publishers have the largest slice of the school and academic textbook market. Saudi Arabia is the second largest export market in the Arab States for UK publishers, after the United Arab Emirates, with sales of £10.1m in 2005 (down to £9.3m in 2006).

• Singapore Publishing Market Profile 2002 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Over the last three years, total book imports on average constituted 40 per cent of the total market size. However, during the same period, retained imports constituted only about 29 per cent of the total market size, since a large number of US- and UK-owned publishing houses use Singapore as their regional stocking and distribution centre. Most of the main UK publishers of ELT materials are represented in Singapore. The largest market is for self-study publications (printed and multimedia) aimed at the major national school examinations. There is also a regular demand for academic and library books from the UK and the USA. American brands such as Prentice Hall, McGraw Hill and Addison-Wesley dominate the academic student market.

• Czech Republic and Slovakia Publishing Market Profile 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Czech Republic and Slovakia have very well educated and literate populations with long traditions of book-reading and book-buying and today English is the foreign language of choice for most people Taken together they imported nearly £13 m of books  from the UK in 2007, putting them ahead of China, Russia and New Zealand.

• South Africa Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Approximately 73 per cent of the books consumed in South Africa are published in South Africa; the rest are imported mainly from the UK and the USA. While the schools market is predominantly local and the higher education market has an increasing proportion of local books, the trade market is still dominated by imported books.

• South Korea Academic Journal Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  South Korea boasts over 700 academic societies in science and technology disciplines. In 2004 there were responsible for the publication of some 870 scholarly journals , with most of these publishing articles in Korean only. In higher education, which consists of approximately 380 universities and colleages, and research, libraries have traditionally used subscription agents for foreign acquisitions, but most domestic journals are purchased directly from the societies and institutions that publish them.

• South Korea Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  South Korea is the 8th largest publishing market in the world with a minimum retail market size of US$3.7bn (£2bn) and a maximum retail market size of US$8.0bn (£4.4bn). The reason for this massive discrepancy is that many of Korea's largest publishers bundle materials together with education services to add value to their content and exploit the fact that Korea enjoys the highest per household spending on after-school education than any other country in the world.

• Spain Publishing Market Profile 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The Spanish publishing market is polarised in terms of the companies that compete in it. On the one hand, there is the growth of big publishing groups with many subsidiary companies and strong multinational economic support. On the other hand, the base of smaller publishers has atomised, with an ever-increasing number of small, family-owned publishers operating in market niches, including the relatively common practice of authors publishing their own works. In the middle ground, the medium-sized independent publishing houses are finding themselves squeezed: they are not exactly chasing windmills, but almost.

• Sri Lanka Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Over 95 per cent of books imported into Sri Lanka are in the English language. India is the largest supplier, followed by the UK. A proportion of the imports from India is of copyrights generated in the UK, or of books published there. These have either been licensed in India in low-priced editions, or supplied to Sri Lanka in original editions by subsidiary or associated companies of the original UK publisher.

• Scandinavia Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

   

  
  English is the language of business and in the tertiary sector in Scandinavia, and is almost universally spoken by the population at large. Its reach benefits UK publishers in terms of the importance and value of Scandinavia as an export market.

   

   

T

• Taiwan Publishing Market Profile 2003 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The total book market in Taiwan is estimated locally to be between £0.8bn and £1bn per annum at retail level. This is a sizeable market value for a country of 23 million people. Of this total, probably half is derived from trade books, and 25 per cent from school books. The English-language market is probably around only 5 per cent of the total.The local publishing industry is a surprisingly dynamic and creative one, with a number of effective players, both large and small. There is still a great deal of local fiction and non-fiction publishing still going on, though probably too much now for the recent economic conditions.

• Thailand Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Thailand provides a sizeable, open and strongly growing private-education sector, and a consumer book market where publishing materials are subject to neither government price control nor other mechanisms of official approval. In the education segment, distributors and publishers seek materials where evidence of competitive advantage can be easily communicated to adoption decision-makers who are subjected to a multitude of competing claims from every side. Association with a UK publisher (especially in ELT literacy; early child development, maths and science) provides one such locus of advantage (along with speed-to-market; low investment, and proven pedagogy drivers behind new product launches).

• Caribbean Publishing Market Profile 2006 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The English-speaking nations of the Caribbean inherited the basic educational system from the UK, and this has proved extremely useful to UK publishers in maintaining a dominant presence in the market. In recent years, however,the academic market has been ceded to the USA, and local Caribbean publishers have become more competitive, particularly at primary-school level. Increasingly, UK publishers need to think local. Companies need to price to market in each of the major countries, no longer treating the Caribbean as a uniform market.

• Turkey Publishing Market Profile 2004 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The local publishing and book retailing business in Turkey is a thriving and highly competitive one, but there are also strong links with European and US publishers. A quarter of the titles published each year are translated, mostly from English. Since 2001, the import market has suffered from the devaluation of the Turkish Lira (TL), but it has now stabilised, and future economic growth and a positive decision on accession to the EU would provide the opportunity for a return to the UK book export levels to Turkey pre-2001 of over £12 million per annum. If the piracy problem could be solved, this would provide further growth potential.

U

• United Arab Emirates Publishing Market Profile 2005 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The United Arab Emirates (UAE) comprises an oil-rich federation of seven emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Ajman and Umm Al-Qawain) with Abu Dhabi, being the largest emirate, including the federal capital. One of the key characteristics of the UAE book market is the importance of English, which is reflected in the attention devoted to the subject at all levels of the education system and in the stated requirements for employment by most companies. It is therefore not surprising that it is the largest export market in the Arab States for UK publishers with sales of £15.4m in 2003 (£18.8m in 2006).

• United Kingdom Publishing Market Profile 2007 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The UK domestic market for books and related forms of publishing is the fifth largest in the world by value at current exchange rates, behind those of the USA, Germany, Japan and China. These markets are, to varying degrees, all substantially larger than the UK demographically, and the UK domestic book publishing market has been performing better in recent years than developed markets of a comparable size such as France and Italy.

• Routes into the American Book Trade 2008 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  Although the US market is potentially five times the size of the UK market, in reality it is rare for a UK book, excluding international best-sellers, to achieve in the USA even one-fifth of the sales achieved in the UK. Some UK best-sellers barely make a ripple. British publishers need to evaluate carefully the US market for each title, and plan their route into the market for each title accordingly.

V

• Vietnam Publishing Market Profile 2003 HTML | PDF
  

  

  
  The book publishing market in Vietnam is worth some £60m a year, with educational publishing predominating, and imported titles (primarily educational or academic) worth some £3m.The demand for imported books is driven by the rising spending power of Vietnam's urban élite in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), and is focused entirely on educational titles - especially ELT textbooks. The Ministry of Education and Training has introduced a new curriculum in 2003, which is to be rolled through each year of the primary and secondary school systems over the next five years.