The DMA and interoperability: what about e-books?

EIBF has been advocating for the interoperability of e-book formats for many years now. 

Today, with the ongoing negotiations on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the topic of interoperability is high on the agenda for the key negotiators, especially at the European Parliament. But what is interoperability and how does it affect booksellers?

With this FAQ we hope to give answers to some of these questions.

  • What is interoperability?

In general terms, interoperability refers to the ability of two different systems, devices, products, files or models to readily connect and be compatible with one another in terms of use and access, without restriction.

  • What does it mean for e-books in practice?

It means that a legally acquired e-book should be accessible and readable on any e-reading device no matter its format.

  • Why is interoperability of e-book formats important for booksellers?

At the moment, some e-book formats and e-reading devices are not interoperable and that’s due to the systems they’re sold on. This lack of interoperability usually causes confusion among customers who do not understand why an e-book they bought on a given platform is not accessible on the e-reading device they bought from another provider.

For booksellers who sell e-books on their website, this often results in: 
     •    Customer complaints, following disappointment at not being able to read their e-book on the device of their choice.
     •    Time consuming after-sale management, as customers have to be explained why the file they bought on their bookshop website is not accessible on some devices.
     •    The loss of an unsatisfied customer.
     •    The impossibility to invest responsibly in the digital market – in a way that meets the demands of today’s customers.

Consequently, the lack of interoperability is a real problem for book sector professionals and for consumers, who want to buy e-books from different providers, but then find out it is often not possible.

The only way to contribute to the healthy development of the e-book and audiobook market is for access to such books to be opened up across devices. 

  • What causes this lack of interoperability of e-books?

The existence of a few dominant non-interoperable models, developed by some tech giants, doesn’t allow consumers to read the same e-book they’ve purchased via the tech giant on different e-reading devices.

To be specific, these tech giants have their own e-book file format and compatible e-reading devices with this particular format. However, these do not interoperate with files and hardware sold by third party businesses, including booksellers. 

We believe this practice is harmful for innovation and for fair competition. And most importantly, it is harmful for consumers.

  • What exactly does it mean for consumers?

This lack of interoperability results in consumers being locked into closed ecosystems and being deprived from their freedom of choice. 

This is why we continue fighting for further interoperability in all relevant EU legislation, including the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

  • What is the Digital Markets Act (DMA)? 

The DMA is an upcoming EU legislation that seeks to ensure a higher degree of fair competition in the EU’s digital space, by preventing large companies from abusing their market power, protecting consumers from their harmful practices and allowing new players to enter the market.

In doing so, it will set new rules and obligations for these dominant large online platforms that act as “gatekeepers” between consumers and businesses online. 

  • Why is interoperability relevant in the DMA?

The topic of interoperability is high on the agenda for many of the DMA’s key negotiators, especially in the European Parliament.

Stronger interoperability requirements, they argue, are essential in ensuring fairer competition and an equal chance for innovators: both priorities in the DMA. 

However, the current discussion mostly focuses on ensuring gatekeepers’ messaging services and social media platforms can interoperate with one another, meaning that the interoperability for e-books is, so far, not covered.

The inclusion of e-book interoperability is crucial in the context of the DMA, as it would lead to a level playing field in the e-book market, increase innovation and access to the market for innovators and, ultimately, ensure sufficient consumer choice and protection.

  • What are we calling for?

We believe consumers should be able to access and read any legally acquired e-book format on the e-reading device of their choice. 

We, therefore, call for the inclusion of interoperability requirements in the DMA to extend to the book sector, for fairer competition in the e-book market, to boost innovation and access to the market and, ultimately, to ensure sufficient consumer choice and protection.

  • What if I want to know more about interoperability?

In 2013, we commissioned a study on interoperability in order to assess the different existing file formats available on the market, as well as the possibility of establishing interoperability across all devices. 

The study, demonstrated that with “EPUB” as a standard format, interoperability across devices is completely possible.

This is even truer now that the EPUB file format has evolved and has become a standard within the book industry, which is available for reading on a variety of devices, including computers, smartphones, tablets, and most e-readers.

National recovery and resilience plans – how do they help booksellers?

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, national economies across the world have been severely hit by ongoing lockdowns and restrictions. Many sectors, including the cultural sector, have been jeopardized by the crisis and are only now starting to recover.

Bookshops of all sizes around the world have also suffered from the pandemic, having dealt with closures, restrictions, stock shortages and sales losses. 

To help European economies rebuild from the effects of the pandemic, the European Commission set up the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

  • What is the RRF?

The RRF is a financial instrument launched by the European Commission with the intention of funding a set of reforms and investments in all EU’s 27 Member states. It came into force on 19 February 2021 and will provide EU countries with a total of €723.8 billion in loans and grants until 31 December 2026. 

To benefit from these funds, Member States had to draft and submit their national recovery plans to the European Commission, consisting of reforms and investments they would like to finance with the European funds, in line with guidelines set out by the European Commission.

Once submitted, the drafts of the national plans had to be endorsed by the European Commission and approved by the Council of the EU, before EU member states receive their allocated funding.  

As of today, all of EU countries’ national recovery and resilience plans (except for the Dutch one), have been submitted to the European Commission. While some are still being reviewed by the Commission, others have already began being disbursed, such as Spain. 

  • Why is the RRF important?

Member states’ recovery and resilience plans are crucial for them to benefit from a substantial amount of funding to rebuild their economies. For instance, Germany will receive €27.9 billion, of which €25.6 billion are grants, and will prioritise climate policy and energy transition as well as the digitalisation of their economy and infrastructure, among other areas.

Over the past years, EIBF has joined forces with many cultural-sector organisations calling on member states not to forget to allocate adequate funding to the cultural sector within their national recovery plans. 

Having monitored the process of plan submission, adoption and funding disbursement, EIBF looked into each plan to determine how each member state’s plan can best benefit the bookselling industry.

In order to do so, we focused on two main areas of funding: 
     •    The funding earmarked for the recovery of the cultural sector
     •    The funding earmarked for the recovery of the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

  • What’s in it for booksellers?

Based on EIBF’s research, we determined that many of the plans include reforms to ensure businesses across all industries become greener and more digitalised, which is one of the Commission’s key priorities.

Furthermore, 14 out of 26 member states have included the cultural sector as a priority in their plans, meaning they will allocate funding to diverse plans and investments to boost the development of the sector in their respective countries.

A summary for each country’s recovery plan in our membership can be found in the document below. 
Examples of specific measures for the book sector include:

     •    € 40.7 million investment in Bulgaria to build an inclusive, internationally competitive and sustainable cultural ecosystem 
     •    € 4 million investment in Romania for the digitalisation of the book sector
     •    €53 million plan in France to increase the competitiveness of 10,500 bookshops vis-à-vis platforms and strengthen their regional role)

Find out more below.

  • Next steps

It has become increasingly obvious that the 2020 European Parliament’s Resolution on the Cultural Recovery in Europe, setting the goal to earmark at least 2% of the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) budget to culture, has not been taken into account by many member states. 

On 25 April 2022, the Parliament’s Culture Committee (CULT) adopted its opinion on the Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility. In their opinion, CULT Committee deplores the fact that only 16 Member States have included culture in their national recovery plans, arguing that "the heterogeneity of public investments will lead to the cultural and creative sectors recovering at different speeds, causing increased disparities within the EU’s cultural ecosystem and threatening Europe’s cultural diversity".

Therefore, CULT Committee calls on Member States to appropriately consider the cultural sector's recovery in any amendments to their National recovery plans.

They also urge the continuous involvement of stakeholders to the implementation and monitoring of the RRF plans, a call which EIBF supports.

EIBF will continue to monitor and advocate, along with EU organisations from the cultural sector, for adequate funding for the cultural and creative industries.

--

Disclaimer: this information was gathered through EIBF research and complemented with the publicly available monitoring and analysis by Culture Action Europe and Bruegel.


This publication has been updated with information available until 2 May 2022. We will continue updating the page when necessary.


EIBF launches the 2022 report on Global Book Markets

EIBF is pleased to announce the publication of the Global Book Markets report for 2022, which explores current trends in the sector, analyses the impact of inflation on bookshops and highlights the different development paths they could take in the future. 

2022 has been a year of transformation and transition for the bookselling industry, following two unprecedented years of disruption. When looking at the overall book sales numbers from all the analysed markets, we can observe two distinct trends across the globe. Half of the analysed markets experienced a clear decrease in book sales last year, while the other half reported stability and, in some cases, a positive development in turnover. 

Broadly speaking, this decline can be explained by two main factors. On the one hand, the exceptional circumstances in 2021: after months of closure, bookshops reopened, boosting sales to a 10-year high, especially at Christmas. Thus, if 2022 sales data still display some positive and encouraging results, they appear very modest when compared to the preceding year. On the other hand, the inflation rising throughout 2022 and the energy crisis, partly caused by the outbreak of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has limited readers' purchasing power, as well as pushed up production costs within the sector.  

 

Global overview of the bookselling markets in 2022
Global overview of the bookselling markets in 2022
 

That said, when taking a closer look at each of the analysed markets we can see that their performance throughout 2022 has been very diverse. In some cases, the complete return to physical spaces has boosted brick-and-mortar sales. As for digital sales, several of the analysed countries report more modest numbers than in 2021. 

The report is based on a survey carried out by EIBF over the past semester. National booksellers associations and EIBF associate members from sixteen countries have responded to a questionnaire, providing an insight into the state of play of their respective markets and the potential directions that the sector could be heading in: Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. 

 

You can download the full report here.

Central European Bookselling Markets: what we can learn from 2021 figures

Analysing the preliminary sales figures from the past 12 months, we take a closer look at nine bookselling markets in the central Europe 

The international bookselling markets underwent significant changes in 2021, impacted by the ongoing pandemic, subsequent sanitary restrictions and pandemic-induced challenges. As the first 2021 sales numbers roll in, we take a closer look at the Central European bookselling markets to see how the region fared over the past 12 months. 

For the purpose of this article, the Central European region includes the following countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland (see Graphic 1 below). The bookselling markets in these countries have different characteristics, with some countries having a fixed book price markets (e.g. Austria, Germany, and Hungary), while others don’t (e.g. Czech Republic and Switzerland). During the course of the pandemic, Slovenian Government suspended the fixed book price regime until at least 30 April 2022, while at the same time the Polish Chamber of Books was hosting a series of industry debates aiming to introduce the law into their market.  

ce-markets
Graphic 1: Central European Bookselling Markets: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland

All of the markets analysed experienced some sort of lockdown measures during the course of 2021. In almost all cases, these movement restrictions resulted in an increase in online shopping. Nevertheless, while some national bookselling markets experienced growth (e.g. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland), other saw brick and mortar, and mainly independent, bookshops closing and their market shrinking (e.g. Czech Republic and Poland). 

What we can learn from 2021 figures? 

  • Online strategy was crucial for driving the growth of book markets

Across the German-language bookselling markets, including Austria, Germany and the German-speaking Switzerland, the annual sales turnover for books grew (see Chart 1 below). As reported by the Börsenverein, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the turnover in 2021 increased by 3%, compared to 2020 numbers, across central sales channels. The bookselling market even grew in comparison with 2019, pre-pandemic year, by almost 1%. 

In Austria, the total sales in the book market increased by 4% in 2021, compared with 2020, and by 0.4%, compared by 2019. The Austrian Association of the Book Trade (Hauptverband des Österreichischen Buchhandels) noted the relative growth of the market in the past year is largely due to the trade’s uptake of online strategy. 

The German-speaking Swiss bookselling market shows a similar trend: for the third time in a row, annual sales in the Swiss German book trade have increased. In 2021, growth was at 6.5%. According to Tanja Messerli, Managing Director at the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV), national lockdown contributed to increased online sales: “Almost every second book was sold online in 2021. Not only did the large booksellers benefit from this trend; due to the COVID-19 pandemic, small bookshops also expanded their online shops and many customers remained virtually loyal to their stores.”

at-ch-de-2021-figures
Chart 1: Total bookselling market turnover in 2021 vs. sales in physical bookstores (in %, reflecting the comparison with 2020)
  • Physical retail sales drastically impacted 

In Germany, physical bookstore business was unable to make up the shortfall from the months of store closures in spring and finished with a 3% drop in revenues compared to 2020 and a staggering 11% drop compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, as was reported in Börsenverein’s press release. 

In Austria, sales in stationary bookstores lost almost 2% compared to 2020. However, looking back to 2019, the drop in sales is much bigger, coming to -13%. According to Karl Puš, bookseller and former owner of Bestseller Bookshop, “shops have been closed by lockdown measures for 48 days in 2021. Especially the last lockdown in 2021 was very hard, as it lasted for three weeks and ended on 13 December. This means that shops were closed during the most important time of the year for the book trade – the holiday period. With online sales, posting services, home delivery and click and collect at the shop door, many of the smaller independent bookshops turned out to be more successful than the large chain stores, which were mostly located in shopping malls”.

In Poland, many brick and mortar bookshops closed in 2021. According to the National Book Store Database, over 60 bookshops closed in the past year in Poland. This follows the closure of another 100 store during 2020. There are still over 1,700 bookstores across the country, which has a population of 38 million. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage launched a program to help independent bookstores. As part of the "Certificate for Small Bookstores" project, almost PLN 3 million (€ 660,000) went to 106 bookstores. Most shops received grants of up to PLN 30,000 (€ 6,630).

While there aren’t any recent sales numbers available for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia or Slovenia, the 2020 reports from these countries don’t look too encouraging for booksellers. Comparing sales numbers from 2019 to 2020, the total book sales numbers are down by 11% in Hungary. In Slovakia, available information points to a decrease in sales for physical bookstores by 8%, while internet sales increased by 10%.

The Czech Republic introduced a strict national lockdown from 27 December 2020 to 10 May 2021, when stores were allowed to re-open. Although customers returned to physical bookstores after the restrictions were lifted, the stores in most cases failed to replace the lost turnover. In 2020, bookstore turnover fell sharply, by 15-30%. This has drastically impacted small bookshops, and exacerbated the closing down of small, independent bookshops. There are about 600 brick and mortar bookstores in the Czech Republic, of which the largest are run by retail chains, which together own 263 stores. 

  • Impact of paper shortage 

The paper shortage and increased shipping delays are continuing to wreak havoc on the bookselling industry. Many publishers have been forced to postpone the release of planned titles, which in turn impacted the number of available titles in bookshops during the holiday period. Crucially, the paper shortage is also having an impact on book prices.  

What is on the horizon for 2022

During the 2020 Slovenian Book Fair, book trade experts dived into the post-pandemic future, exploring what the trade can learn from the pandemic. Many of the topics discussed remain crucial for the bookselling market going forward, including potential weaker customer purchasing power, increased market share of audiobooks, need to develop new distribution channels to reach new customers and supporting the increased digitization of the book market. 

New research paper on Culture vouchers to be published in July through EIBF project RISE Bookselling

New research paper on Culture vouchers

Through RISE Bookselling, a three-year EU co-funded project run by the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), EIBF will publish a research paper investigating culture voucher schemes in four different European countries: Italy, France, Spain and Germany. This paper, to be published on July 10 2023, is the second volume in a series of research papers called Industry Insights. Read more about the Industry Insights research paper on culture vouchers below. 

Over the course of almost a decade, several European countries have launched cultural voucher programmes, that is, state-funded measures with the aim of introducing teenagers and young adults to their country’s unique and rich cultural scene, while also supporting cultural and creative industries. These cultural vouchers are physical or digital cards as well as mobile phone apps that are granted to 15- to 18-year-olds with a fixed amount of money to be spent exclusively on cultural goods and activities for a limited amount of time. 

Through its network members, EIBF has been made aware of the predominantly positive impacts that these national schemes have had, not only on book sales and increasing footfall of young people in bookshops, but also on reinforcing young people’s reading habits, as well as diversifying their cultural practices. In response to these testimonies, and given the interest from more countries to introduce similar schemes, this Industry Insights paper takes a closer look at said cultural vouchers, their specificities and their impact across four countries where they are already in place: Italy, France, Spain and Germany. 

Keep an eye on the RISE Bookselling website where the Industry Insights on culture voucher schemes will be published on 10 July 2023. 

What are Industry Insights? 

RISE Industry Insights is a series of research papers that investigating priority topics for the bookselling sector. They give insights into key issues, policy reforms and other external initiatives that affect the bookselling sector. In addition, they provide network members with tools to engage with relevant political stakeholders, culture sector professionals and private sector representatives to ensure that their priorities are adequately upheld and supported. 

The Industry Insights are produced by Daniel Martín Brennan and Tora Åsling, Policy Advisor and Policy Officer respectively at the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF). 

​​​​​​​What is RISE Bookselling? 

‘Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability for the Enhancement of Bookselling’, or RISE Bookselling in short, aims to upscale, reinforce and maximise the capacity and resilience of the European bookselling sector. The project helps bookshops innovate and stay up to date with new trends and technologies to ensure their long-term sustainability. This three-year programme is organised by EIBF and co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. 


Subscribe to