Italy

Italy's publishers see online retail receding as physical stores reassert their prominence in the market's book sales.

More from Publishing Perspectives on Italy and its book publishing industry is here. According to an AIE Observatory survey conducted by Pepe Research, in2021, 59 percent of those who have claimed to have been “very” or “somewhat” influenced by what they read or saw on social media, while in 2019 this figure was at 50 percent. The boom in comics understood to have the market’s performance: without these, its decline as compared to 2021 would have been 5.3 percent rather than 3.7 percent. The challenge is to win over new readers.” In the first four months of 2022, the new analysis saw 32 million books sold via trade channels—physical and online bookstores and large scale distribution—for a total €469 million at cover price (US$692.8 million), a decline of 2.5 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, as compared to the first four months of last year. “Italian publishing has recovered from the years of the pandemic,” Levi said to the program’s audience in Torino, “but is now dealing with an economic context characterized by an increase in the cost of paper, inflation, and a decline in the confidence index of consumers.