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A comparison ofdevelopments across Europeand the US.Aclear overall pattern is governing most publishingmarkets in North America and Europe:While the market for print books is declining- slowly in some markets, sharply in others -,ebooks are on the rise, yet at a very differentpace by country, while online has become the most dynamicsales channel, yet again, with significant variationsbetween markets.A note of cautionA data based analysis of this evolution howevermeans to struggle with scarce data for most markets,and, even worse, inconsistent measures anddefinitions of parameters, so that any comparisonresembles at first a puzzle with not only manypieces missing, but also pieces cut out withoutbothering at all about how they might fit together.So these approaches must be taken as only a veryfirst attempt, like a working beta version, aimingboth at a first rough and uncomplete map, and andat encouraging critical feedback from users, for improvementsin updates ahead.modest, yet nevertheless steady decline. In others, likeSpain, or Italy (or Greece, where no reliable data are available),the crisis impacted on the book trade with full force,or, for the example of Sweden, a mix of highly specific localfactors brought about the sharpest decline in decades.In all these markets, digital change in trade (and notablyin adult fiction) has only begun its transformation of tradebook markets at this point, so that the loss in print has notbeen compensated by digital gains.In most of continental Europe, for the last several yearsbook markets went down. Some countries, with relativelyrobust overall economies, like Germany or France, saw aThe Global eBook Report 18