Italian Publishing
Italian publishing data
Compared to prepandemic levels in 2019, Italian publishing sales increased by more than 300 million. The 3.39 billion euro total market share includes the trade market (non-fiction and fiction sold in physical and online bookshops and supermarkets, e-books, audiobooks) worth 1.88 billion euro, educational publishing worth 776 million euro, databases and Internet services worth 340 million euro, 226 million euro in instalments, 81 million euro in library sales, 50 million euro in Italian book exports and 34 million euro in B2B sales.
Such a high volume of production is possible thanks to a market made up of 5,184 publishers. The first four publishing groups in the country – Gruppo Mondadori, Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol, Gruppo Giunti, Gruppo Feltrinelli – own 52.6% of the trade market in terms of value of sales. The rest of the market is shared between the other publishers.
The over 80,000 published every year range from literary fiction to genre fiction, non-fiction, educational books, university and professional publishing, comic books, manuals, illustrated books, cookbooks, travel guides and much more.
Bringing Italian publishing to the world
Italy promotes translations abroad with two grant programmes provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Centre for Books and Reading, an independent institute of the Ministry of Culture, respectively. Together, the two programmes contribute around one million euro to the sector.
The Ministry promotes the dissemination of Italian publishing and cinematographic works abroad through grants for translation and dubbing/subtitling of two types:
- grants for the translation of an Italian work not yet published abroad and for the production, dubbing and subtitling of short and long films and television series
- awards for Italian works already translated abroad
Applications must be submitted each year to the Italian Institutes of Culture and the Italian diplomatic and consular representations abroad, following the procedures set out in the annual call to tender.
The Book and Reading Centre grants
The calls for tenders by the Book and Reading Centre (CEPELL) are aimed at Italian publishers interested in promoting the international translation and dissemination of books and the reading of works by Italian authors, including through or in collaboration with Italian schools and the network of Italian Culture Institutes and their libraries.
All types of works already published in Italian at the time of the call to tender are permitted, with the exception of publishing for the educational sector.
