Understand why book prices rose above inflation – 07/21/2023 – Walter Porto

At a time when the discussion about the value of the book is back in full swing, the latest market survey released by Nielsen draws attention to the fact that the average price of books has grown above inflation for the year, compared to the same period in 2022. The increase was 4.95%.

According to Dante Cid, president of the National Union of Book Publishers, the movement is a punctual photograph of the recomposition of prices after years in which the industry suffered from “brutal increases in paper and other logistics inputs”, for example gasoline.

He does not project an upward curve in prices, not least because raw materials have stopped becoming more expensive. “I am sure that prices will not continue to increase abusively, because it is never the publisher’s objective to charge the maximum, but that the book sells the most”, says the editor.

The readjustment in prices also explains how the industry managed to have a good growth in the accumulated revenue of the year while the quantity and variety of books sold was smaller. Cid points to Rita Lee’s new autobiography, by the way, as one of the saviors of the crop.

Retailers have recently offered fewer discounts, which the editor also attributes to a readjustment of the market after years distorted by the pandemic.

TEACH ME, O FATHER Gilberto Gil will be the main star of the National Booksellers Convention to be held on August 30th and 31st at the headquarters of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, in Rio de Janeiro. He will close the first day of the event in a conversation with his wife, Flora. Since he sat in the ABL chair, the composer has been more engaged in literary events — this one, aimed at market professionals, will also feature the immortals Ignácio de Loyola Brandão and Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira.

FATHER AND MOTHERÍmã Editorial, which has invested in rescuing authors such as the American Nella Larsen, is preparing a publication with a good dose of originality. It’s an anthology by Alice Bradley Sheldon, who revolutionized science fiction in the 1970s—under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. The writer, who was a major in the Air Force and fascinated Ursula K. Le Guin, never came out here under her real name. Starting next month, “Women that Men Don’t See” begins to circulate, a collection with three of her main stories.

ELECTRONIC BRAINSpeaking of science fiction, the best-known house of the genre in Brazil, Aleph, launches in September the trilogy by the American Ann Leckie that begins with “Ancillary Justice”, winner of the Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke awards in 2014.

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