Publishers Weekly - October 26, 2015

News

How are German publishers feeling about the state of the market, both for print and e-books?

German publishers and booksellers are feeling energetic and confident at this time. Even if sales have declined slightly in

2014 and in the first months of 2015, the market performance over the last years has generally been stable.

Can you tell us about the mix of print and digital books for German readers?

German readers still largely prefer print books, but the e-book has found its place in the market. The market share of consumer e-books in Germany is still relatively low compared to the U.S.— about 5.6% of sales as of July 2015—but e-book-purchases have been rising during the last years, both in volume and revenue, although the increase in turnover is not as large as it has been in previous years.

At the opening press conference in
Frankfurt, you noted that the Tolino e-
reader has managed to surpass the Kindle
in Germany. Tell us a
little about that.

Yes, the Tolino has outrun the Kindle in terms of sales in Germany. As the common e-reading ecosystem of the German book industry, it is a real success story. Tolino was launched in 2013 by the big bookselling companies in Germany: Thalia, Welt-bild, Hugendubel, and Club Bertels-mann, in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom. In 2014 the wholesaler Libri joined the Tolino alliance, and as a consequence, about 1,000 independent bookstores have been brought into the system. And the Tolino alliance is still growing. This year, for example, two big regional chains, Osiander and Mayer-sche, have joined the alliance. Customers can buy e-books for the Tolino in over 1,800 bookstores at the moment, roughly one out of every three bookstores in Germany. After only two and a half years, the Tolino has firmly established itself in the German book market.

How German
Publishers Deal
With Amazon

Retail At the opening press conference at his year’s Frankfurt Book Fair ( which ended October 18), Heinrich Riethmüller, the chairman of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, told reporters about the German book industry’s battle to prevent Amazon from “monopolizing” the book business. In a sign of how that ;ght is going, Riethmüller said that the Tolino, an e-reader backed by a consortium of German booksellers and publishers, was outselling the Kindle in Germany. According to ;gures compiled by GFK Entertainment, the Tolino e-reader now holds a 45% market share in Germany, while the Kindle has a 39% share. PW caught up with Riethmüller to ask about the German book market—and the German book industry’s dealings with Amazon.

SOURCE: NIELSEN BOOKSCAN AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. NIELSEN BOOKSCAN’S U.S. CONSUMER MARKE T PANEL COVERS APPROXIMATELY 80% OF THE PRINT BOOK MARKET AND CONTINUES TO GRO W.

Unit sales of print books rose 1% in the week ended Oct. 18, 2015, compared to the similar week last year, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The increase was driven entirely by sales through the retail and club channel, which offset a 17% drop in units to mass merchandisers. The juvenile nonfiction category had the best performance in the week, with units up 10%. The gain in the category was led by a new title, The Amazing Book is Not on Fire by YouTube celebrities Dan Howell and Phil Lester, which sold almost 57,000 copies in its first week, easily outdistancing Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford, which sold more than 13,000 copies and was in second place on the juvenile nonfiction list. Units in adult nonfiction increased 3% in the week over 2014. Killing Reagan by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard stayed at #1 on the adult nonfiction list, selling 61,000 copies, while Humans of New York: Stories by Brandon Stanton debuted in second place, selling more than 51,000 copies. Units slipped in adult fiction, down less than 1% in the week compared to 2014. The decline came despite a strong showing for See Me by Nicholas Sparks, which sold more than 85,000 print copies in its first week on sale.