Young readers are increasing. Social networks are changing the way people choose and buy books. Publishers: the challenge of reaching them through their channels. The manga phenomenon
The data seem apparently contradictory and lend themselves to different interpretations, but one thing is certain: the publishing market must increasingly deal with young people. A varied target that someone has identified in a wide age range, even 0-20. one of the most interesting aspects that came out yesterday from conference organized by Aie with the Nielsen BookScan data presentation and two panels of publishers representing the various souls of the sector. The president of the Italian Publishers Association Ricardo Franco Levi thus summarizes the scenario that saw Italian publishing overcome the years of the pandemic to now find itself in a difficult economic context, characterized by the increase in paper prices, inflation, and the fall in the consumer confidence index: challenge to win new young readers who must be reached through the communication channels they use most and with an editorial and cultural offer in which they can increasingly identify themselves. Which in a sense is happening. They prove it the charts of best-selling books dominated by manga, comics, books related to gamingnovels who have found their sounding board in social networks, such as Manufacturer of tears (Magazzini Salani) of the mysterious Erin Doom, in the lead, in these first four months, of a top ten in which half of the titles were pushed by social media. In this, it also counts, says Stefano Mauri, CEO and president of Gems, the App 18: The beauty of the book is its ability to adapt to change much more than other media. Compared to manga, the editors have an ambivalent relationship, but they have brought young people back to the bookstore and when I see young people in the bookstore I think: we have a future.
In 2022, the only genres that are growing are foreign fiction and comics whose sales, from 2019 to today, have tripled, a trend that is continuing into 2022. One in ten of the books purchased is a manga, a comic, a graphic novel or a comic strip. And according to a survey by the Aie Observatory by Pepe Research, the buyers who in their choices declare that they have been influenced a lot or enough by what they read, seen or listened to on social networks are 59% in 2021, while they were 50% in 2019. We can discuss whether the positive or negative data, if the quality of what we read is at the expense of it, of course a revolution that, in some ways, publishers do not govern. He says it clearly Renata Gorgani, publisher of the Castoro: The phenomenon tells us that during the pandemic, closed at home, the children recognized their own language, built their own world, helping the entire supply chain. Faced with their becoming autonomous on this front, we should ask ourselves a question: what did we do wrong? Why have we not been able to create enthusiasm in the children and have closed them in the house, letting them create it?
Laura Donnini from the HarperCollins International Observatory confirmation: Manga is an extraordinary phenomenon, young people read continuously and are radically changing the way they choose and buy books. Which, of course, makes the publisher’s job even more complicated. The social not manageable TikTok. a phenomenon that we cannot manage, but to which we must pay attention. He adds Sandro Ferri, founder of and / or: The success of this segment tells us something absolutely new which, without making value judgments, makes us think. Also because on the other side there is a difficulty of what I call more complex books and publishers, which are suffering.
In short, the guys who seemed to be the weak part, he says Giuseppe Laterza, they are proving that they are not: Sure, they choose genres that are interesting to them, but they are protagonists. The first key point to keep in mind is that in general the readers have not increased, especially in the South. It must also be said that there is a big problem with school, and the first place where one approaches reading is the school library. There is no office in the Ministry of Education that deals with this. Two years ago, € 2 million was set aside for teacher training and was lost because no one followed them.
From a general point of view, the data presented by Gianni Peresson of the Aie highlighted some points: the first 4 months of 2022 show a drop compared to the same period last year of 3.7% on the value of the expenditure and 2.5% of the copies sold. On the other hand, 2021 was an exceptional year and this means that the data of these first 4 months are in any case positive compared to the pre-pandemic 2019: the value at the cover price increases by 16%, copies by 17. All this makes us say Enrico Selva Codd that from the point of view of the effects, an extraordinary year. Something about the growth of books during the pandemic remained stuck, even though we are now facing an economic situation that weighs heavily. In this context, some physical channels react, but there is no single trend.
In the general panorama of publishing too libraries show sobering changes: The growth of online that has continued uninterrupted since 2019 is interrupted, while physical retailers continue to recover ground after the collapse in 2020 due to the closures due to the pandemic. At the level of shares, bookshops exceed half of sales with 52.4%, online downsizes to 43%, large-scale distribution still drops to 4.6%. The physical book has an irreplaceable need for exposure, he comments Selva Codd e Antonio Sellerio agrees with Sandro Ferri on the fact that a useful measure also to support independent bookstores and maintain a certain bibliodiversity, could be to restrict App 18 to bookstores, which would lead to barely legal children attending them.
Amazon always remains the guest of stone, towards which publishers have different relationships. Lorenzo Armando (Lexis Compagnia Editoriale in Turin), does not hide that it is one of those small publishers who depend on Amazon for more than 50% of their sales, while its opposite, which has always been concerned about the excessive power of Amazon to the point of not giving the giant Seattle his books, there Ferri, according to which it is unhealthy that so many publishers depend on one channel.
May 20, 2022 (change May 20, 2022 | 22:27)
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