2017 Book Market in Turkey Report

2017 Turkey Book Market Report

Number of new book titles produced in Turkey increased 10.82%. Number of books produced with bandrole increased 9% but decrease in the production of free of charge books without bandrole created a 6% decrease in the total number of books. Number of books per person decreased from 8.4 to 7.76. Turkey kept its 11th position in the world ranking with number of new books. Due to the harm caused in educational publishing by changes in exams, Turkish publishing sector size reduced from 2.1 billion USD to 1.6 billion USD and therefore, in terms of turnover, Turkey went down from the 11th rank to the 16th in the global publishing industry.

 ISBN data: 10.82% increase in the number of new book titles

 According to ISBN data, while the total number of titles was 54,446 in 2016, this became 60,335 in 2017 with a 10,82% increase. In addition to the increase in total, increase took place also in each segment. Our country kept its 11th rank in the world with number of new books. Number of titles and increase rates according to categories are as follows:

Number of titles in adult non-fiction was 11,150 in 2016, became 11,509 in 2017, with an increase of 3.22%. Number of titles in adult fiction was 9,166 in 2016, became 9,828 in 2017 with an increase of 7.22%. Number of titles in children and young adult books increased from 8,618 to 10,043, an increase of 16.54%. Number of titles in educational books went up from 14,711 to 17,153, an increase of 16.6%. Number of titles in academic books went up from 7,481 to 8,144, an increase of 8.86%. Number of titles in belief books went up from 3,320 to 3,658, an increase of 10.18%.

Book production data: number of books with bandrole went up 9%, total number went down 6%.

According to 2016 and 2017 bandrole data, comparison of numbers of books produced is as follows:

Number of books with bandrole went up from 404,129,293 to 407,739,008, with an increase of 9‰. However, the number of books without bandrole which the Ministry of National Education distributes free of charge went down 6%, from 262,736,286 to 213,425,918. Together with 5,704,425 books without bandrole, produced for open education of the Anadolu University, total number of books went from 666,865,579 in 2016 down to 626,869,351 in 2017, with a 6% decrease. Number of books per capita went down from 8.4 to 7.76.

In the breakdown of production data according to segments, increase is seen in adult fiction, adult non-fiction and children and young adult books. However, decrease is seen in belief books and in education books which is due to piracy and illegal photocopying in academic publishing and changes such as cancellation of exams.

Number of adult non-fiction books went from 65,234,178 in 2016 up to 77,621,806 in 2017, with a 18.99% increase. Number of adult fiction books went from 20,226,792 in 2016 up to 25,072,382 in 2017, with a 23.96% increase. Number of children and young adult books went from 32,459,781 in 2016 up to 41,867,509 in 2017, with an increase of 28.98%. Number of imported books went from 5,787,664 up to 6,688,443 with an increase of 15.56%. There’s a decrease of 6.87% in educational publishing, 4.85% in academic books, and 16.3% in belief books. Number of educational books went from 224,968,715 down to 209,504,110, number of academic books went from 4,997,328 down to 4,755,186, number of belief books went from 50,454,835 down to 42,229,572.

Place of Turkey’s Publishing Sector in the world: Damage in educational publishing and academic publishing brought the sector’s world ranking from 11 down to 16

Retail market size of the Turkish publishing industry diminished from 6,335 million Turkish Liras to 5,794 million Turkish Liras. Turnover of the Turkish publishing industry decreased by 8.5% from 2016 to 2017. Therefore, Turkey couldn’t maintain its place as the 11^th in world publishing and regressed to the 16^th place. Main reason of this downfall is the damage caused in educational publishing by changes in the exams.