Trends and developments on the Book Market. Particularities of the Romanian market

• Author: Fruntes C.
• Pages: 69-74

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 8 (57) No. 2 - 2015

Trends and developments on the Book Market.

Particularities of the Romanian market

Cristina FRUNTEŞ1

Abstract: The book market suffers major and rap id changes under the incidence of digital

technology and of the internet. The main actors of the book market, the publishing houses

and the brick and mortar retailers find themselves in a new context, faced with completely

new players on this market. They must establish priorities and identify opportunities as soon

as possible, in order to adapt to the new conditions. Two interconnected main trends are

registered in the book industry: the online sales and the e-book sales register an important

increase. The Romanian book market, a very small one given the global context, adheres to

the general changes, but to a different extent, under the influence of local factors.

Key-words: book market, book sales, bookstore market, online book market, e-books

1. Introduction

Under the influence of new technologies, the internet, new media, social networks

and open sources the world is rapidly changing to a significant, sometimes even

dramatic extent. We are part of and assisting to major changes in all spheres of our

lives. The way in which we search to satisfy our needs acquires new shapes and

means of expression and this obviously leads to major changes inside markets in the

economic field, changes at the level of products and services that we consume, of

the way we obtain and buy them.

Among the most vulnerable markets, more sensible to extremely rapid and

consistent changes of the technological environment, is the book market. The

digitalization of information enables us to bring into discussion today contents

separated from the physical, material, paper shape of the book, which we have

known for hundreds of years.

If we consider history, the shape of a book varied from papyrus, to bound

books, hand copies written by monks, to books typed in the printing press. Hundreds

of years later, the books were to be printed in many copies and afterwards books

could be found online, read online for free or downloaded as an e-book in English or

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, cristina.fruntes@unitbv.ro