Book sales grow last year

The market of books, excluding the didactic works purchased by the Government, closed last year with revenues of $ 3.8 billion, representing a high of 5.9% compared to 2012. Since the volume of books sold grew up in smaller proportion, 4.1%.
The data refer to sales of publishers for retail and are part of the survey conducted annually by the Fipe at the request of the Câmara Brasileira do Livro (CBL) and the Sindicato dos for book publishers (SNEL).
Considering purchases of textbooks carried out by the Government, the industry's revenues jump to $ 5.3 billion, which represents an advance of 7.52%, and the volume of copies marketed increased 10.36% to 479.9 million last year.
In relation to e-books and applications for mobile, sales increased 225% to $ 12.7 million last year. Most of that value comes from online content of General works. Despite the strong expansion, the content for e-books and applications still have little representativity, about 0.25% of revenues in the industry.
One of the points that deserve prominence is the increase of 14.6% in the average price of religious books. The prices of General works (literature and self-help, for example) had a fall from 2.94% in the same period. As regards the amount of copies sold, the movement was also opposite, i.e. the amount of religious books rose just 2.18% and General works advanced 11.68 percent. In 2012, the research had found an 18% drop in the volume of religious books, segment in which several publishers have betted due to strong demand.
"One possibility to explain this performance is that many non-religious publishers are investing in this segment. But I believe that all of these books publishers entering the category general research work. At the same time, a book not a religious Christian Publisher will be considered religious, "said Carlo Carrenho, consultant of Publish News, site specializes in publishing.
By this reasoning, the books of father Marcelo Rossi, the editora Globo, can be considered General works. The same goes for the Sami, which has the largest part of its collection composed of didactic works, but also has titles of literature through imprints such as Benvirá.
The average price of the books (school, General, religious and scientific works) marketed by publishers to retailers had an increase of 1.7% last year, according to a survey of Fipe. Already the price of books in bookstores and other retailers to final consumers closed 2013 with an increase of 5.14%, according to the official inflation (IPCA), measured by the IBGE.
The IPCA data show that this year, mostly between April and June, prices of books are on a descending curve (see graph above).