The market for school and university books - Germany

1.1. scope of the study

The market for books and bookstores includes the sale of books in both physical and digital formats and is characterized by a variety of players, such as publishers, authors, retailers, and online platforms. Despite increasing digitalization, physical books are still massively purchased and play an important role in retail. Although sales figures are declining due to the increasing popularity of e-books and online bookstores, book retailing remains a significant industry with a wide offer for readers and book lovers.

The market for books and bookstores is a dynamic and diverse market that includes both traditional physical bookstores and online booksellers. The global book market has great growth potential. Books (including e-books) can be divided into three segments:

• Consumer books,
• Trade books,
• Textbooks.

The following study deals with the textbook market.

The largest publishers of textbooks in Germany are C. Bertelsmann, Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Westermann Group, and Cornelsen Verlag, which specializes in textbooks. These publishers are facing new trends and challenges, such as digitization, increasing demand for textbooks in foreign languages, and textbook pricing. At the same time, these market changes also offer new opportunities for publishers.

There has been a decline in revenue and sales in the textbook market, which has been significantly exacerbated due to the expansion of royalty-free uses of book content thanks to the Copyright Knowledge Society Act (UrhWissG). The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is -13.8%.

This presents a significant challenge to publishers, who must now adapt to remain competitive. There is a need to focus on creating high-quality digital educative materials and expanding foreign language textbooks to meet growing demand. At the same time, publishers must also rethink their pricing strategies to remain attractive to customers and increase sales.