Besides inflation and economic hardships, the threefold rise in the prices of books compared with five years ago has reduced the share of books in households’ consumption basket.
Although publishers struggle to keep up the number of first-edition book, the size of print runs [the number of copies printed at one time] is declining by the year, Otaghiranonline.ir reported.
According to statistics by Iranian Book and Literature Home, a total of 103,805 books were published in the last Iranian year (ended March 20), of which 75,070 were written and 28,735 were translated, indicating an 8% growth compared with the year before. The number of first editions stood at 64,993 and reprints at 28,790; the total number of copies printed last year was 112,517,383.
A total of 1,081 books were published in the month ending Feb. 19, showing a 20% decline compared with the same month of the year before. The average price of books stood at 605,450 rials (about $2) over the past 10 months, indicating a 27% increase year-on-year.
According to Dewey decimal classification, literature books topped the list with 19,197 titles, followed by children and adolescents books with 16,846 titles.
“Prices of books offered at the second online Tehran International Book Fair increased by 33% while sales dropped by 2.4% YOY,” Ali Ramezani, managing director of Iranian Book and Literature Home said.
Statistics show a total of 1,331,530 books worth 852.04 million rials (about $3,000) were sold during the second online edition of Tehran International Book Fair compared with 1,364,565 books worth 640.51 million rials ($2,280) of the previous book fair.
