European Book Publishing Statistics 2009

The total annual sales revenue of book publishers of the EU and the EEA in 2009 was approximately € 23 billion, according to the survey conducted by FEP. This represents a decrease from the last estimate of € 23.75 billion for 2008, but for the second year in a row such a decrease was to a great extent only nominal, due to changes in exchange rates. The largest markets in terms of publishers’ turnover in 2009 were Germany, followed by the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

A total of about 515,000 new titles were issued by publishers in 2009. The figure was taken from different sources, some of which included new editions or non-commercial titles, and was accordingly rounded quite conservatively. There was therefore an increase of an estimated 1% in the title output from the previous survey. European publishers held a total of close to 6.5 million different titles in stock, the countries reporting the largest availability being the UK (2.4 million), Germany (around 1.2 million), Italy (almost 700,000), France (over 600,000) and Spain (over 400,000).

The countries reporting the largest new titles output1 were the UK (133,224), Germany (81,793), Spain (41,917), France (38,445) and Italy (37,845).

According to the report, a total of approximately 135,000 people were employed full time in book publishing in 2009, an amount basically equal to one year earlier.

FEP statistics 2009 - Press release

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