White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 88.5 The individual sectorsAt this point we shall offer a(necessarily brief) description of themain features and requirements of thethree sectors.Publishing: market weaknesses. Asfar as the customer base is concerned,we should remember that the Italianbook market is not only notoriouslypenalised by the above-mentioned limitsto the Italian-speaking world. Italy isalso a country with few readers, andwith a distribution system that is lessefficient and dynamic than in othercountries.In fact, the figures on Italian readershave recently been carefully studied byan expert on the media economy, MarcoGambaro , in an essay (Tirature 08, ilSaggiatore, Milan 2008) that enables usto debunk a number of clichés. Forexample, Italian publishing’s sales perinhabitant is 73 euros, less than the 79euros in Germany but not so very muchless as one might have expected. Thepercentage of those who read books forpleasure (42% of those who read a bookat least once a year) is not very differentfrom that of France and Germany(40%). So how can we explain the factthat the number of books bought perinhabitant in Italy is much lower than inthese other countries? Here come twofurther significant figures. Firstly, Italyhas a greater number of people who donot read even one book a year (aconsequence of lower levels ofeducation): basically there is a largerpercentage not only and not so much of“weak” readers as non-readers.Secondly, compared to other countries,Italy has a much lower percentage ofpeople who buy handbooks and workson practical subjects rather than worksfor entertainment or school. This is asector in which Italian publishing isgreatly handicapped.These remarks, which naturally are opento discussion, show on one hand howeasy it is to fall into clichés and, on theother, the potential for achieving a morebalanced situation, in a sector howeverweak, by for example boosting thehandbook sector. On the other hand,one should not forget that manuals andhandbooks require bigger investmentsthan ordinary books, since the readersof these kinds of books generallydemand well-edited and complete series,and they typically are long-sellers, whichyield fruit over several years.The distribution of books has alsochanged in recent years through abroadening of the customer base. In the1990s the traditional bookshop, whichwas a great resource for habitual readersbut often intimidated those not sofamiliar with books, has been flanked bychains of multimedia stores, both Italian(Feltrinelli-Ricordi, Coop) and foreign(Fnac). Moreover, an important newdistribution channel for books has beentheir sale as news<strong>paper</strong> supplements, amass phenomenon now in decline.There has also been a constant growthof sales in supermarkets and other salespoints (a rise of over 30% in the lasttwo years) and on the Internet. Thesedistribution channels encourage the saleof consolidated products rather thannew works. As a manager in theperiodical sector commented: “Thebooks which we sell with news<strong>paper</strong>sare ‘re-run’ products, already wellproven and basically guaranteeing saferesults.” The supermarkets, on the otherWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 199