European Book Publishing Statistics 2008

The total annual sales revenue of book publishers of the EU and the EEA in 2008 was approximately € 23.75 billion, according to the survey conducted by FEP; this represents a decrease from the last estimate of € 24.5 billion for 2007, but in very large part such decrease was only nominal, due to changes in exchange rates. The largest markets in terms of publishers’ turnover in 2008 were Germany, followed by the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

A total of about 510,000 new titles were issued by publishers in 2008. The figure was taken from different sources, some of which included new editions or non commercial titles, and was rounded quite conservatively accordingly. There was an increase of an estimated 4% in the title output from the previous survey. European publishers held a total of over 6 million different titles in stock, the countries reporting the largest availability being the UK (over 2 million), Germany (around 1.2 million), Italy (over 600,000), France (over half a million) and Spain (almost 400,000).

The countries reporting the largest new titles output1 were the UK (120,947), Germany (83,381), Spain (42,592), France (38,354) and Italy (36,409).

FEP 2008 Statistics - Press release

For further information: Enrico Turrin, +32 2 770 11 10 - eturrin@fep-fee.eu