The perfect storm that threatened to paralyze the recovery of the publishing sector has not finished taking place.
However, there are still clouds (inflation and lack of paper, to name the two most pressing) that condition a business that celebrates figures and sales increases unknown since the Great Recession.
Thus, the race to publish and recover from the pandemic collides with new problems: an increase in the cost of book production that implies the readjustment of margins and some price increase, slower reprints, delays in deliveries, more returns.
Except perhaps the large groups, the rest of the sector rethinks and modifies its strategies these months: the immediate future of the book is being written now.
Publishers, booksellers, authors, paper manufacturers and distributors discuss difficulties and possible solutions.
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The lack of paper complicates the Christmas campaign of publishers
The feeling is that the crisis does not affect everyone equally.
Neither Planeta nor Penguin Random House, which account for half of the publishing business in Spanish, are going to raise prices in the short term, as they have assured this newspaper, although the cost of production has increased.
The large groups take advantage of their structure to better withstand the situation and not apply conjunctural increases to the reader, but not everyone can do it.
“Everything has been mixed: transport strike, fuel increase, inflation.
Now it is less noticeable, we have a practically normal distribution, but the impact has been high.
In addition, we also sell online, but transport is more expensive there”, analyzes Javier Arrevola, general director of the Casa del Libro bookstore chain (owned by Grupo Planeta), who points to an added problem for booksellers:
Perhaps the only universal consequence concerns reprints: all the publishers interviewed confirm that they have been forced to reduce them, or postpone them.
“I used to want to do a reprint from one month to the next and there used to be no problem.
Now it is impossible”, summarizes Laureano Domínguez, from the Astiberri label.
He says that, for the new edition of a recent title, a printer only gave him availability for October: they finally found another one that allowed them to advance the operation a few weeks.
In a few cases, in addition, it is likely that the sale price will rise "a couple of euros".
“Reprint and reissue times have doubled.
We have to spin much finer when making initial orders and as soon as you see that something works, react quickly to order more because print runs are smaller and take longer to arrive.
The margins with which we play do not allow much.
You have to use your intuition and be on the lookout”, adds Rafael Arias, owner of the Letras Corsarias bookstore in Salamanca.
In 2020, an average circulation of 3,576 copies per title was registered, according to the Federation of Publishers' Guilds, although the usual figure for most books is much lower, according to the sources consulted.
The interior of Panta Rhei, in Madrid, this week.
The bookstore has a large collection of illustrated books and graphic novels, the type of books most affected by this crisis. Santi Burgos
Therefore, the current book market shuns improvisation.
Astiberri, for example, has closed all orders until the end of the year.
“We have to anticipate the deadlines much more.
And we are adjusting print runs to the maximum”, insists Enrique Redel, head of the Impedimenta label.
Before the triggered uncertainty, planning.
Because in addition, for some time now, Amazon and other distribution giants have been taking a good part of the available cardboard.
And the commitment of supermarkets and other stores to reduce plastic packaging also adds competition for the publishing sector.
“Large manufacturers and paper handlers prefer to make certain types of materials, such as cardboard, more aimed at these industries than at publishers, who pay less,” explains Redel.
Some estimate that as little as 3% of all paper pulp manufactured is used for books.
But its price has risen 30% or more, according to those interviewed.
“We were recently talking to a print shop that had received an order with a straight 80% raise.
Sometimes they ask for a piece of paper, they have agreed on a price, and when it arrives it is 250 euros plus a ton.
Even from one week to the next you risk that the price has changed, even if it is 10 or 20 cents”, adds Domínguez.
The Spanish carriers' strike in March delayed deliveries of paper as well as many other raw materials.
And, in a globalized market, the stoppages in Finland - the Paperiliitto union maintained its struggle from January to the end of April and the paper and cellulose manufacturer UPM-Kymmene was one of the companies that slowed down its production the most - have consequences in Spain.
Most paper pulp, after all, comes from Canada and Northern Europe.
A key difference is that groups like Planeta or Penguin Random House purchase the material directly from the manufacturers.
Medium or small labels, such as Astiberri or Impedimenta, on the other hand, transfer their orders to trusted printers, which manage the purchase.
“We are waiting for what remains of these large groups.
It has the advantage that you don't pull as much.
But the disadvantage is that in the end it is more difficult to access certain types of paper”, adds Redel.
Impedimenta herself has increased the prices of a collection that she co-edits by 5%.
And he is conducting a market study to decide if he should increase the price of some of his works and, if so, by how much.
Material changes are also taking place in the market, for example, books whose cover had to be published in paperback instead of the originally planned hardcover.
And, in the face of scarcity, some seals have given up their environmental awareness: when there was no certified paper (the one with the least impact, and which today accounts for 62% of the market, according to calculations by the Spanish Association of Pulp Manufacturers, paper and cardboard, ASPapel), they resorted to another in order to get a book off the ground.
Because no one, at least among those interviewed, is stopping their rate of launching news.
And less in one of the fundamental periods of the publishing year, the one that goes from Sant Jordi to the Madrid Book Fair.
"We are selling in 2022 as we sold in 2014. Much more than in the years of crisis," says an editor who prefers not to give his name.
After the harsh wounds of the pandemic, the sector is in a hurry and wants to recover.
But the risk is that a slowdown in consumption, for example, affects the entire process.
“It is noticeable, yes.
There is a lot of backlog.
Last year many more news than usual were made because with the pandemic many publishers reserved news that they already had prepared and 2021 was a party.
At the end of last year and this 2022 it has begun to be noticed:
Amazon warehouse in Brieselang, Germany, one of Europe's largest distribution centers. Carsten Koall (Getty Images)
“No publisher is stopping its level of production despite the fact that the paper crisis is imminent.
The level is such that paper is being bought without physically having it, all with increases of 30% and more.
The industry will face its biggest crisis and no one talks about it,” denounced cartoonist and writer Carla Berrocal on the social network Twitter on April 20.
On the phone, the creator adds other points to the debate: “Publishers overproduce books [50,698 new titles in 2020, latest data available from the Federation of Publishers Guilds].
And bookstores can't store everything.
So after some time, the work is no longer considered a novelty, it's kind of out of the loop, and they want to get rid of it: they offer it to the author at a very low price or it ends up being destroyed [to create new paper pulp ]”.
This is what is known as returns.
And it opens another front in this crisis: that of the authors.
That is, the main victims of the renewed uncertainty, according to Berrocal and Marta C. Dehesa, lawyer and cultural manager specializing in intellectual property.
“A publishing house has among its obligations that of doing a job not only of printing but also of dissemination, maintaining the book so that it reaches the maximum possible sale.
They are more interested in marketing
[departments]
offer 50 novelties in a year and advertise that take out 20 and cover them well.
They have more profitability selling little of many.
Once half of the first print run has been sold, it is usually profitable for the publisher”, laments Dehesa.
And Redel, who precisely publishes about 25 books a year in Impedimenta, clarifies: “The entire sector is based on that game: when a return comes to you for a work that you have placed in bookstores three months ago, you have to cover that lost profit with other books.
What remains unreturned is what you have sold.
It's a vicious and evil cycle, but at the end of the whole business it works.
And independent and small publishers are more responsible in terms of circulation: we are not to blame for overproduction, we do not make books to fill spaces”.
It turns out that the future does not depend only on physical paper:
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