The FINANCIAL — Colourful, illustrative publications, interesting quizzes and cognitive table games – a short description of the children’s department in one of the bookshops in Tbilisi, where a 13-14 year old girl is buying a present for her friend. The bookseller advises one of the illustrative publications. She hesitates between games and books. What would they like more?
Nato Tsaava is Director of Bookshop Exlibris, which is one of the branches of Santa Esperanza. She says that this year the New Year season started later than usual, from about December 25 and ended significantly earlier. In her opinion the first reason for decrease in book sales is the internet’s iBooks. “As well as that we have a lack of publishing,” said Kharatishvili. “Within two years only 20 novels were published in Georgia. It’s very few for good readers. If we don’t have any import, it means we can’t work productively.”
Young Georgian writer Lasha Bugadze says that the lack of publishing is directly connected to the number of readers. The greater the number of readers the greater the enthusiasm of writers. Good circulation today means about 2,000 books per year. He doesn’t dream anymore of circulation of 70,000-800,000, which was the situation in soviet times. But he doesn’t think that the number of readers has decreased. “I think now that the number of readers doesn’t decrease, but the number of buyers. People had money then. They had the opportunity to be collectors. To attract more readers and to make people love reading, some sort of provocative push is necessary. It could be social novels where the reader can associate with the characters.”
22 year old Giorgi Kakubava reads about 2-3 books per year from his parents’ library. Because of exams and lack of time he can’t read as much as he’d like. As Giorgi remembers, he has only ever bought three books: “I haven’t seen any modern writer’s book which has attracted me enough to buy and read it. In addition prices are quite high,” he said.
According to Mr. Bugadze, another stimuli for writers could be more publication houses and more literacy preemies. It’s impossible to live on a writer’s income in Georgia. He, as well as other modern writers Aka Morchiladze, David Turashvili, and Rati Amaglobeli, write social commentary articles for several newspapers. Although Mr Bugadze was already seeing some positive developments in the sphere in 2010.
The five bestsellers at Santa Esperanza for 2010-2011 are: New Verse by Niko Gomelauri, Jeans Generation by Dato Turashvili, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone by Joanne Rowling, and Painting for Children, published by Bakur Sulakauri PH. Followed by: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
If we compare 2010 to 2009 there is no great difference. Only two books, Mamluki by Aka Morchiladze and The best 20 stories of all times.
Eka Kharatishvili, the Director of publishing house Diogene, says that 2008-2009 was a time of hardship for Georgia. It affected every sphere. According to the statistics of the Georgian National Bibliography, the total number of Georgian published books and Brochures in 2007 was about 2,800,000. By 2008 the number reduced by 1 million. But in 2010 they tried to have a policy of having discounts often. They participate actively with other publishing houses at all festivals, where books are sold at half price or less.
Since 2002 Diogene has held the competition Pen – Marathon – where writers have to write a story in an eccentric situation for 30 hours. Ms Kharatishvili thinks that these efforts help improve the existing situation. “I know people who seldom or never read books. But they have money and buy them for their children,” said Eka Kharatishvili. “The number of this kind of people is growing slowly.”
“The parents who seldom or never read books, are the very reason for lower interest in books. How can children become interested in books if they’ve never seen their parents reading them. That’s why I can’t say that adults read more than teenagers and young people,” said writer Lasha Bugadze.
The Director of Santa-Esperanza says that the main customers are mostly young people aged from 17 up to 30. “They are very active readers, always asking after and waiting for new publications. They mainly buy books costing between 7-10 GEL.”
She also compares the situation in Georgia to that of its neighbour countries Armenia and Azerbaijan and says that we have a far better situation. There is much more demand for books in our country than there is there.
Santa Esperanza was founded five years ago. The director of the shop remembers the beginning and says that book selling was easier at that time. “There was not such big competition before. Now there are plenty of bookshops,” said Director of Exlibris. You have to be more creative to attract customers. Nowadays our income comes mostly from school books, children’s literature, children’s table games and wholesale. Schools, libraries, and some NGOs often make wholesale orders for several charities and educational events.” In spite of all the difficulties she also considers 2010 to be better than 2008-2009. By 2011 they intend to renew import which stopped in 2008.
To the question “Is book selling a profitable business?” Nato Tsaava says definitely not. In her opinion book publishing is much more profitable than book selling, especially in Georgia. “We can’t even have discounts without the agreement of the publishing house. Newspapers and magazines also add to the difficulty encountered by book shops,” said Mrs. Tsaava.
The same question was hard to answer for the Realization Manager of Diogene. She thinks that the reason of decrease in demand for books could still be the financial distress experienced throughout the whole country.
Maka Guruli, 26, a young lawyer, complains about the prices of books. She says that she seldom buys books for herself. She only buys them for children as presents. “I love reading and books very much, but I can’t afford them,” said Ms. Guruli.” The old classics which cost 2-3 GEL everybody has at home anyway. To buy these law-grade books is useless. The books of normal quality cost up to 10 GEL. That is already too expensive for me.”
Like Mrs Guruli, Shorena Kopaleshvili buys only very famous and necessary books. Or she buys them at festivals and book days, when prices are significantly low. “For a student it is possible to buy 2-3 books during the year. For collecting a good library it’s nothing,” she said.
Yet in 1924 Mikheil Javakhishvili, the great Georgian writer, reported on the expensiveness of books. As he said, high prices hindered the development of literacy.
“First of all we need cheap books and large circulation, many buyers, and the spread of books,” he wrote in a letter. “A lot is written about the fact that books don’t reach potential readers in the provinces. One of the reasons could be the high prices. Last time the Government paid big attention to making essential products cheaper. Among them are books. It’s time to act and provide people with low costing books. The cost of books has become higher. Buyers have decreased, but at the same time the number of readers has increased.”
The 12th Georgian book festival like the German one seemed hopeful in 2010. Books of 80 publications were exhibited, 15 publications more than in the previous year. In Germany critics thought that the digital revolution caused a decrease in the Gutenberg era. In 2010 the Frankfurt book fair was visited 15 percent more than before, which is a record number.
The last time people started talking more about books, initiatives appeared such as “the 50 books one must read during their lifetime”. According to sociological surveys experts analyze the list of books. This list expresses the literacy and taste of the given period. An international project started in Georgia in 2009 by the initiative of “Media Palitra” showed that part of society still remembers books. And anyway children grow up; so those children and youth in Georgia who are now interested in books, could mark a change in book-reading trends by the time they reach adulthood.
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