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Book Buying

Over a billion books are distributed in Japan every year

[UPDATED: 9-23-2017]

Over a billion copies of books are distributed in Japan every year, according to the Shuppan Nenkan (Publishing Yearbook). However, only 60% (around 640 million copies) of them are actually bought.

The overall Japanese book market, the world’s fourth-largest, peaked over 20 years ago in 1996, and has been steadily declining since. Despite this long term overall market shrinkage, sales of e-books, which are dominated by comic books (mostly manga), are steadily increasing. In 2016, for example, the e-book market increased by just under 15 percent.

In some countries e-book sales have now peaked or are in decline after a long period of increase while the market for print books has stabilized or is showing the first signs of recovery in these countries. Publishers have had to adopt new strategies, and also books printed on paper have become fashionable and desirable again.

This is not the case in Japan, which is still experiencing double-digit e-book growth and declining print sales. The pace of growth still significant. However, it is slowing (it was 30% in 2014, for example), and is forecast to remain positive.

Over a billion books are distributed in Japan every year Posted September 23rd, 2017 by Richard Nathan

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Factbook

Over a billion books are distributed in Japan every year

Writing about ‘The Lost’ or ‘Old and New’ or Japan ‘Off-The-Beaten-Track’ in English is an enduring publishing trend that goes back to at least 1878[UPDATED: 6-17-2024]

‘The Life of an Amorous Man’ written by a 17th-century Japanese poet spawned the genre now known as ‘Floating World’ publishing[UPDATED: 1-16-2024]

A poem about a frog written in 1686 by Japan’s most famous poet is Japan’s best known poem[UPDATED: 10-2-2023]

In the 1960s a member of the Japanese Imperial Family started moonlighting as a science fiction author[UPDATED: 8-22-2023]

Writing about the plight of women in Japan is not a new trend. In the 1870s visitors to Japan were already pontificating on the topic in print[UPDATED: 8-4-2023]

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