Peter Kraus: "Amazon is not the book's best ally, but it is necessary"

09/06/21 Peter Kraus vom Cleff, President of the Federation of European Publishers.

Barcelona, ​​September 6, 2021 [ALBERT GARCIA] Albert Garcia / EL PAÍS

Everything was against the book to face confinement due to the pandemic: social networks,

platforms

... But he was saved. And loosely; at least, in Europe: the losses of the sector, on average, oscillated only between 2% and 5% in 2020 in the old continent. Against all odds. And it does not seem that it is going to twist, on the contrary. “The pandemic has trained people to read; It has been a reading investment ”, summarizes the German Peter Kraus vom Cleff (Wuppertal, 1967), president of the Federation of European Publishers, with something more than moderate optimism. Like the one that was breathed today in the opening day of the VI edition of the Edita Forum in Barcelona, ​​which, organized by the Guild of Editors of Catalonia and the Master of Publishing of the Pompeu Fabra University, opened the

of the body that brings together 29 national book associations of the European Union. The epigraph of the conference, logical:

"The people of the European book world were innovative, with online offers, a great work of libraries ... and some governments helped with great public policies, such as Italy or Germany, although others did not, such as Portugal, and they noticed it" , frames Kraus, 22 years in the German megagroup Holtzbrinck and who in January 2022 will be the new general director of the Börsenverein, a powerful entity that brings together German publishers and booksellers and that promotes the Frankfurt Book Fair, of which Spain will be guest country next year. Not only apparently during the pandemic, Kraus has been convinced for decades that “the book should not be afraid of anything, not even technological ones: you have to learn from the best and incorporate artificial intelligence to do market research or better adjust the runs ”, he recites.And in this open line, it is not opposed to the temptation of some European publishing houses that during the crisis tried to skip the book chain and sell their copies directly, without going through the bookstores: “For publishers of technical and scientific books it may end being your only solution; for the others, I would keep both options; But I'm an economist and everything is cost: I don't know if an editor is very interested in doing it ”.I don't know if an editor is very interested in doing it ”.I don't know if an editor is very interested in doing it ”.

Nor is it scared by the movements of large mergers that are taking place in the sector after the pandemic.

“It is a clear and inevitable trend, as it happens in other industrial areas;

but we will see that more in the US than in Europe: there, Amazon takes almost 60% of the market and to compete with them you have to be very big, too;

In Europe, Amazon is not so, it has 60% of the book trade on the Internet in Germany, yes, but there is a diversity of countries, markets and languages ​​that make macro-operations of this type difficult ”.

Censorship in Eastern Europe

In any case, the spokesperson for what is the leading cultural industry in Europe (an estimated market of 38,000 million euros; almost half a million jobs) admits that “Amazon is not the best ally in the book world, but it is it is necessary today; it's like going to the dentist: it hurts, but it can't be helped; It has a great infrastructure that helps the sector a lot and a huge knowledge about customers ”; but he adds: "The booksellers should not fear because serendipity, the magic of finding a book unexpectedly, or a good recommendation from someone, is only given in a physical bookstore with a bookseller".

Kraus admits that digital platforms “are not yet sufficiently contained in Europe; politicians must be more vigilant ”. And along these lines, the federation of publishers are negotiating with the European Union regulations to "hinder" the claims of technology companies (Google, Amazon, Facebook Apple ...). There, he argues, it is necessary to promote a single digital market on issues such as “interoperability: it is absurd that if I move from home I can take the books, but if I change from one technology company to another, I cannot take the digital books. … In addition, the data is mine and I want a part of those profits that the operators take… But all that must be sold well if we do not want to be accused of censorship, as has happened ”, he admits.

The other big problem that Kraus faces in his final term in office are the problems of freedom of expression that are growing especially in Eastern Europe: “We are not talking about China or Russia, but about Hungary, Poland… There the threat is not from jail, but by economic means ”.

And he equates it with the fight for copyright, which is so violated in the digital world: "Without

there is no freedom of expression."

But he sums up, taking advantage of the words of the philosopher Philipp Hübl: "Those who survived the Ice Age will survive digitization."

The book industry, indeed, exudes a certain optimism.

The highest growth in Spain since 2011

"If the trend continues like this, the sector will close 2021 with the most important growth in the last decade in the domestic market," says Patrici Tixis, president of the Guild of Editors of Catalonia and co-director of the Edita Forum, together with Javier Aparicio, head of the UPF Master's Degree in Publishing, and the journalist Sergio Vila-Sanjuán. "The sector has entered a phase of acceleration of three Cs: Competitiveness, Creativity and Change", believes Tixis. An opinion that analyst Rüdiger Wischenbart, who opens session on Tuesday, could corroborate. A satisfaction both for the panelists and for the 600 registered for a conference that must be followed by 'streaming'. In person, Peter Kraus, the president of the European publishers, is also optimistic: "Events and fairs will be physical again: perhaps there will not be so many,but they will continue to exist. There are certain deals that can only be made by looking at the other person in the eye and keeping him close: we do not stop being social animals ".