Cipolletta (AIE): "Italy latches onto a global trend that brings new readers to bookstores. Non-fiction, children's and YA books and illustrated books continue to play a central role."
Fiction and comics are the genres that have most driven Italian publishing in recent years. The former is the protagonist of a growth that, from 2019 to the present, is constant and benefits in turn from the explosion of genre fiction, an umbrella under which romance, crime and detective stories, young adult, erotica, historical, fantasy, adventure, mythologies and legends are included. Comics, on the other hand, the protagonist of a sales boom in 2021-2022, retreats somewhat in the last two years, but remains by far the sector with the largest percentage growth from 2019 to date.
Trade market data were presented by the Italian Publishers Association's (Associazione Italiana Editori - AIE) Research Office (source NielsenIQ - GfK, the period taken into consideration is January-August, value at price of sales) and discussed during several in-depth panels of the Italian professional programme underway at Buchmesse, curated by AIE with the support of Italy Guest of Honour 2024 at the Frankfurter Buchmesse and ITA – Italian Trade Agency. The meetings are being held at the Italian Collective Exhibition, Hall 5.0 (All the programme here).
"Italian publishing is in line with a global trend that sees new youth audiences becoming passionate about reading thanks to an offer built on very specific genres and languages," commented AIE President Innocenzo Cipolletta. “From romance to comics, via crime and detective stories, there are many Italian proposals in these fields presented here in Frankfurt, in the literary programme curated by us and thanks to the initiative of individual publishers."
"At the same time," Cipolletta continues, "the data we presented tell us of a pluralism of the market where an important role is played by non-fiction, children's and YA books, which are enjoying great success abroad, illustrated books and more. The most fascinating challenge of this Buchmesse is precisely to tell about a publishing industry that is not monolithic, but is made up of a thousand different facets, trends, niches."
In the first eight months of 2024, the Italian trade market had a sales value of 915.2 million, down 0.1% from the previous year and up 24.6% from 2019.
In the same period, fiction by Italian authors had a sales value of 138.1 million, up 5.8% from 2023 and 30.8% from 2019. From 2019 to date, literary fiction alone grew by 24.7%, genre fiction by 42%.
Comics, both Italian and foreign, had sales in the eight months of 56.7 million, down 5.3% from the previous year and up 212.9% from 2019. The peak of sales in the first eight months had been reached in 2022, with 65.8 million euros in sales. It must be taken into account, however, that these numbers do not include bookstores specializing in comics and sales at fairs and festivals.
Children's and YA publishing (Italian and foreign authors) reports sales of 143.5 million in the eight months, down 0.8% year-on-year and up 16.9% year-on-year in 2019.
Italian and foreign nonfiction, with 126.9 million in sales in the eight months, is down 3.9% from the previous year and up 14.1% from 2019. The trend from 2019 to the present has been very erratic and related to the performance of publishing cases and the release or not of bestselling authors.
Finally, illustrated books, art and design, one of the Italian excellences in the world for the quality of the workmanship of the editions, are a sector that in the first eight months totaled sales of 18.3 million, down 5.2% from the previous year and up 7.5% from 2019. This does not include sales in museum bookshops.
