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36 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections selling). Mladinska ventured in that direction starting in the second half of 2011, with Apple’s iBookstore being the most popular platform for title uploads. The goal behind this partnership is not only to nally create a rich international digital catalog for Slovenian readers but to also open the gate for exporting Slovenian production internationally, including to the signi cant number of Slovenians living abroad—another trait shared by many small populations. Poland With an estimated 8,000 trade titles available as ebooks and scanning initiatives for public domain books accounting for about 27,00 titles (mostly in PDF), the Polish ebook market is in its early stages. However, the topic is widely debated, such as in panels at the 2011 Warsaw Book Fair, and—more important—major domes- tic actors are committed to developing their strategic position. By the end of 2011, and for the holidays, ereaders were promoted heavily, and most publishers started to add rights for ebook editions to new author contracts. However, printed editions and ebooks were considered di erent products, and were normally not promoted together. This resulted in only modest growth in sales. eBook bestselling titles included Umberto Eco’s new novel, The Prague Cemetery, and the biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Regarding devices, industry sources estimate an installed base of about 20,000 Kindles, 7,000 ONYX BooX readers, 20,000 to 40,000 iPads, and 250,000 to 350,000 iPhones (source: EMPIK). eBooks in Poland cannot be limited to a focus on an exclusively domestic market. Not only are foreign-lan- guage imports—notably in English and, to a certain degree, in German—already a staple for printed books, but in addition, imports and adaptations of devices are met with signi cant attention, such as when a Kindle edition of the weekly news magazine Polityka is pro- moted (without a localized Kindle shop by Amazon in sight) or when a Polish programmer comes up with an upgrade that allows the popular American Kindle device to read ebooks aloud in Polish. Empik, the largest chain store and online shop for books and cultural goods in general (CDs, lms, multime- dia games, art&pap, press, tickets for cultural events), which is owned by NFI Empik Media & Fashion, is moving into the emerging market, currently with 175 stores in Poland and 19 in Ukraine (as of October 4, 2011). In 2007, Empik set up empik.com to extend their international business, by o ering foreign language (primarily English and German) products and by catering to communities Poland Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €697 m Renek Mendrun: Polish book market study, 2010. Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 21,740 New titles per 1 m inhabitants 571 Ebook titles (available from publishers) 18,000 At EMPIK, by year end 2011: 9,937 ebooks, 1,017 audiobooks, 7,288 free ebooks for logged on customers. Source: EM&F Group/EMPIK/ Virutalo. Key market parameters

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36 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections selling). Mladinska ventured in that direction starting in the second half of 2011, with Apple’s iBookstore being the most popular platform for title uploads. The goal behind this partnership is not only to nally create a rich international digital catalog for Slovenian readers but to also open the gate for exporting Slovenian production internationally, including to the signi cant number of Slovenians living abroad—another trait shared by many small populations. Poland With an estimated 8,000 trade titles available as ebooks and scanning initiatives for public domain books accounting for about 27,00 titles (mostly in PDF), the Polish ebook market is in its early stages. However, the topic is widely debated, such as in panels at the 2011 Warsaw Book Fair, and—more important—major domes- tic actors are committed to developing their strategic position. By the end of 2011, and for the holidays, ereaders were promoted heavily, and most publishers started to add rights for ebook editions to new author contracts. However, printed editions and ebooks were considered di erent products, and were normally not promoted together. This resulted in only modest growth in sales. eBook bestselling titles included Umberto Eco’s new novel, The Prague Cemetery, and the biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Regarding devices, industry sources estimate an installed base of about 20,000 Kindles, 7,000 ONYX BooX readers, 20,000 to 40,000 iPads, and 250,000 to 350,000 iPhones (source: EMPIK). eBooks in Poland cannot be limited to a focus on an exclusively domestic market. Not only are foreign-lan- guage imports—notably in English and, to a certain degree, in German—already a staple for printed books, but in addition, imports and adaptations of devices are met with signi cant attention, such as when a Kindle edition of the weekly news magazine Polityka is pro- moted (without a localized Kindle shop by Amazon in sight) or when a Polish programmer comes up with an upgrade that allows the popular American Kindle device to read ebooks aloud in Polish. Empik, the largest chain store and online shop for books and cultural goods in general (CDs, lms, multime- dia games, art&pap, press, tickets for cultural events), which is owned by NFI Empik Media & Fashion, is moving into the emerging market, currently with 175 stores in Poland and 19 in Ukraine (as of October 4, 2011). In 2007, Empik set up empik.com to extend their international business, by o ering foreign language (primarily English and German) products and by catering to communities Poland Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €697 m Renek Mendrun: Polish book market study, 2010. Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 21,740 New titles per 1 m inhabitants 571 Ebook titles (available from publishers) 18,000 At EMPIK, by year end 2011: 9,937 ebooks, 1,017 audiobooks, 7,288 free ebooks for logged on customers. Source: EM&F Group/EMPIK/ Virutalo. Key market parameters

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35 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections device was not shipped into Slovenia before spring 2011, so consumers had to travel to Austria or Italy to purchase the popular devices. Similarly, a signi cant number of readers bought a Kindle from Amazon online, as the gadget of choice to access Amazon’s vast catalog of English-language books. So far, only 300 titles are avail- able as ebooks. Also, no domestic distribution platforms have been created. The gap between a VAT of 8.5 percent on printed books versus 20 percent for ebooks further adds to the hurdle. Since 2011, the economic crisis has strongly impacted the Slovenian book market, and book sales dropped by an estimated 10 percent in the rst half of 2012 (information from Miha Kovac, of Mladinska pub- lisher and booksellers for this report). The emergence of domestic production of ebooks has stalled. For publishers, it is not a ordable to invest in building an infrastructure for a domestic ebook distribu- tion system, given the small size of the Slovenian market. With consumers often reading international bestsellers in English, and importing reading devices directly, the only realistic perspective for hooking up Slovenian publishers with digital developments may be opening Slovenian-branded stores—or channels—on interna- tional platforms such as Kobo or Amazon. By far the largest domestic player in the eld of books and reading is the publishing and retail group Mladinska (with holdings, in addition to Slovenia, in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, and yearly group revenues of 120 million Euros from combined publishing and book- the professional association, digital platforms are not currently relevant in education. As in other European countries, books are subject to a reduced VAT of 10 percent, and ebooks carry the full 20 percent VAT and are discounted against printed editions by 10 percent on average. Slovenia Slovenia, a small country of 2 million that achieved independence only two decades ago upon the collapse of Yugoslavia, is an exemplary case for many markets at the periphery of the EU. In a tiny publishing market worth an estimated €80 to €100 million at consumer prices, more than 6,000 titles are released every year, which is almost threefold the output per 1 million inhabitants as compared to large markets like Germany or France. Slovenians are remarkably strong readers and are used to reading books not only in their native language, but also in English and, to a lesser degree, German. In larger bookstores, English titles—which represent an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the Slovenian market—are not in a separate “foreign language” section but are seamlessly intermingled with domestic titles. Public libraries add to the ample reading diet of Slovenians. Yet in the digital environment—which is controlled to a large degree by global players and designed for economies of scale, not niche markets—a country like Slovenia sees itself unexpectedly discriminated against, simply because of its small size. For instance, Apple’s iPad Slovenia Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €90 m Estimates by Mladinska publishers Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 5,621 (from 6,139 in 2010, of which around3,500 are trade titles) Estimates by Mladinska publishers Ebook titles (available from publishers) 300 Estimates by Mladinska publishers

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35 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections device was not shipped into Slovenia before spring 2011, so consumers had to travel to Austria or Italy to purchase the popular devices. Similarly, a signi cant number of readers bought a Kindle from Amazon online, as the gadget of choice to access Amazon’s vast catalog of English-language books. So far, only 300 titles are avail- able as ebooks. Also, no domestic distribution platforms have been created. The gap between a VAT of 8.5 percent on printed books versus 20 percent for ebooks further adds to the hurdle. Since 2011, the economic crisis has strongly impacted the Slovenian book market, and book sales dropped by an estimated 10 percent in the rst half of 2012 (information from Miha Kovac, of Mladinska pub- lisher and booksellers for this report). The emergence of domestic production of ebooks has stalled. For publishers, it is not a ordable to invest in building an infrastructure for a domestic ebook distribu- tion system, given the small size of the Slovenian market. With consumers often reading international bestsellers in English, and importing reading devices directly, the only realistic perspective for hooking up Slovenian publishers with digital developments may be opening Slovenian-branded stores—or channels—on interna- tional platforms such as Kobo or Amazon. By far the largest domestic player in the eld of books and reading is the publishing and retail group Mladinska (with holdings, in addition to Slovenia, in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, and yearly group revenues of 120 million Euros from combined publishing and book- the professional association, digital platforms are not currently relevant in education. As in other European countries, books are subject to a reduced VAT of 10 percent, and ebooks carry the full 20 percent VAT and are discounted against printed editions by 10 percent on average. Slovenia Slovenia, a small country of 2 million that achieved independence only two decades ago upon the collapse of Yugoslavia, is an exemplary case for many markets at the periphery of the EU. In a tiny publishing market worth an estimated €80 to €100 million at consumer prices, more than 6,000 titles are released every year, which is almost threefold the output per 1 million inhabitants as compared to large markets like Germany or France. Slovenians are remarkably strong readers and are used to reading books not only in their native language, but also in English and, to a lesser degree, German. In larger bookstores, English titles—which represent an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the Slovenian market—are not in a separate “foreign language” section but are seamlessly intermingled with domestic titles. Public libraries add to the ample reading diet of Slovenians. Yet in the digital environment—which is controlled to a large degree by global players and designed for economies of scale, not niche markets—a country like Slovenia sees itself unexpectedly discriminated against, simply because of its small size. For instance, Apple’s iPad Slovenia Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €90 m Estimates by Mladinska publishers Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 5,621 (from 6,139 in 2010, of which around3,500 are trade titles) Estimates by Mladinska publishers Ebook titles (available from publishers) 300 Estimates by Mladinska publishers

37 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections Libranova is a promotional platform for ebooks and digital reading. “Wolne Lektury” is a project launched by the Modern Poland Foundation in 2007, promoting and displaying school reading as identi ed by the Polish Ministry of National Education, with a library of predominantly Polish classical literary books in the public domain. Russia With a book market currently worth US$2 billion, accord- ing to the o cial Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media two publishing groups with revenues of more than US$200 million, AST and EKSMO another publishing group reaching out internationally by pur- chasing British book chain Waterstones and several relevant domestic retail chains (e.g., Top Kniga, with more than 500 stores) and online book stores (e.g., Ozon. ru, o ering 370,000 titles), yet so far no presence of any of the new global players of the book industry such as Amazon or Kobo, Russia is taking a position among the largest emerging book markets, alongside Brazil, China, and India. However, market development in Russia is complex and unsteady. After signi cant growth in the early 2000s, when the value of the Russian book market almost doubled from US$1.6 billion in 2003 to US$3.0 billion in 2008, this trend was reversed after the economic crisis hit, bringing the market down to about US$2.3 billion in 2011 (US$2.5 billion in 2010). Due to its immense territory—which covers nine time zones between its Western and Eastern boarders, making distribution of physical books extremely complex and costly—with only few consumers carrying credit cards and the severe e ect of piracy, Russia is a particularly challenging environment for publishers and retailers, yet there is also a thriving reading culture in which writers and intellectuals occupy a prominent role in the public sphere and in which books stand at the center of the country’s cultural ambitions. of Polish customers internationally. In its online stores, Empik is o ering 250,000 Polish and 425,780 products in foreign catalog. Since November 2010, Empik has pro- moted its own dedicated ereading device, the Oyo, and in 2011 it added the Boox as well as other devices. By summer 2011, the empik ebook catalog included 4,521 titles in EPUB format and 4,068 in PDF format, with most (7,010) selling under 50 Zloty (or €12), similar to the retail price for printed books. eBooks have their own section at empik.com, plus a “Top 50 ebooki” bestseller chart, and promotional campaigns such as heavily discounting a popular series (which included the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy) in March 2011. Virtualo Sp. z o.o., in which EMPIK Group holds a controlling stake of 51 percent, claims to be the largest electronic bookstore in Poland, specializing in a mix of ebooks, digital magazines, and devices, with a catalog of 12,600 ebook titles. Weltbild is the Polish subsidiary of successful German parent Weltbild, as a chain store, online shop, and ebook platform Weltbild relaunched its Polish platform earlier in 2011, aiming to strengthen its position in the Polish market as a vendor for cultural as well as beauty and household supplies, catering to some 800,000 customers each month. BezKartek (literally “book without pages”) is a plat- form launched in 2009 and dedicated to the distribution of ebooks, audiobooks, ereaders, and Apple iPhones. Its catalog includes 145,000 books, of which 1,400 are in Polish. The initiative’s vocation is to “popularize ebooks,” serving various formats (PRC, PDF, EPUB, and mp3) and to expand their o er by partnering with selected foreign publishers, notably German educational and language teaching Klett Group and the Polish branch of Canadian romance publisher Harlequin. The venture is the o - spring of Apetonic, a local consultancy specializing in IT and telecommunication and nanced through the Dracula Investment Fund, plus private investors from Poland and France.

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37 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections Libranova is a promotional platform for ebooks and digital reading. “Wolne Lektury” is a project launched by the Modern Poland Foundation in 2007, promoting and displaying school reading as identi ed by the Polish Ministry of National Education, with a library of predominantly Polish classical literary books in the public domain. Russia With a book market currently worth US$2 billion, accord- ing to the o cial Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media two publishing groups with revenues of more than US$200 million, AST and EKSMO another publishing group reaching out internationally by pur- chasing British book chain Waterstones and several relevant domestic retail chains (e.g., Top Kniga, with more than 500 stores) and online book stores (e.g., Ozon. ru, o ering 370,000 titles), yet so far no presence of any of the new global players of the book industry such as Amazon or Kobo, Russia is taking a position among the largest emerging book markets, alongside Brazil, China, and India. However, market development in Russia is complex and unsteady. After signi cant growth in the early 2000s, when the value of the Russian book market almost doubled from US$1.6 billion in 2003 to US$3.0 billion in 2008, this trend was reversed after the economic crisis hit, bringing the market down to about US$2.3 billion in 2011 (US$2.5 billion in 2010). Due to its immense territory—which covers nine time zones between its Western and Eastern boarders, making distribution of physical books extremely complex and costly—with only few consumers carrying credit cards and the severe e ect of piracy, Russia is a particularly challenging environment for publishers and retailers, yet there is also a thriving reading culture in which writers and intellectuals occupy a prominent role in the public sphere and in which books stand at the center of the country’s cultural ambitions. of Polish customers internationally. In its online stores, Empik is o ering 250,000 Polish and 425,780 products in foreign catalog. Since November 2010, Empik has pro- moted its own dedicated ereading device, the Oyo, and in 2011 it added the Boox as well as other devices. By summer 2011, the empik ebook catalog included 4,521 titles in EPUB format and 4,068 in PDF format, with most (7,010) selling under 50 Zloty (or €12), similar to the retail price for printed books. eBooks have their own section at empik.com, plus a “Top 50 ebooki” bestseller chart, and promotional campaigns such as heavily discounting a popular series (which included the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy) in March 2011. Virtualo Sp. z o.o., in which EMPIK Group holds a controlling stake of 51 percent, claims to be the largest electronic bookstore in Poland, specializing in a mix of ebooks, digital magazines, and devices, with a catalog of 12,600 ebook titles. Weltbild is the Polish subsidiary of successful German parent Weltbild, as a chain store, online shop, and ebook platform Weltbild relaunched its Polish platform earlier in 2011, aiming to strengthen its position in the Polish market as a vendor for cultural as well as beauty and household supplies, catering to some 800,000 customers each month. BezKartek (literally “book without pages”) is a plat- form launched in 2009 and dedicated to the distribution of ebooks, audiobooks, ereaders, and Apple iPhones. Its catalog includes 145,000 books, of which 1,400 are in Polish. The initiative’s vocation is to “popularize ebooks,” serving various formats (PRC, PDF, EPUB, and mp3) and to expand their o er by partnering with selected foreign publishers, notably German educational and language teaching Klett Group and the Polish branch of Canadian romance publisher Harlequin. The venture is the o - spring of Apetonic, a local consultancy specializing in IT and telecommunication and nanced through the Dracula Investment Fund, plus private investors from Poland and France.

Page 6English-Language and Other eBook Markets click to expand contents

Page 14Market Close-ups click to expand contents

Page 53Key Drivers and Debates click to expand contents

Page 66eBook Piracy in Europe: The Example and Debate in Germany, and Related Findings click to expand contents

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