The Czech book market was worth approximately CZK 8.4 billion last year, translating into a real-terms decline of more than 10% when accounting for inflation, according to the 2022/2023 report from the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers, released yesterday.
According to the Czech Statistical Office, the average annual inflation in the Czech economy in 2023 was 10.7%.
The production of printed books fell by around 9%, while digital formats such as e-books and audiobooks recorded a year-on-year growth of 27%. Overall, approximately 13,000 book titles were published in 2023, 1,500 fewer than the previous year.
“Due to the rising costs of book production and lower sales volumes, the book market is under pressure, which has fortunately been stabilised by the introduction of zero VAT on books in January 2024,” said association chairman Martin Vopenka.
As of 1 December, 6,299 entities in the Czech Republic were licensed for publishing, which is 72 less than in 2022. The largest private publisher in the Czech Republic is the Albatros media group, publishing 1,005 titles last year, followed by Euromedia Group (756) and Dobrovsky (485).
Books in Czech again dominated the book production of domestic publishers in 2023, accounting for more than 87% of the total (12,162 titles). Another 798 were published in Czech with a share of other languages. In addition, Czech publishers also published 72 multilingual publications last year. The foreign-language book production was again strongly dominated by English, which represented 2.9% of the total book production in the Czech Republic.
In 2023, 5,533 titles were translated from foreign languages. The share of translations to original Czech literature remains stable at around 40%. Traditionally, English and German have dominated among the languages from which books were translated.
The Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers brings together publishers, booksellers, distributors and other entities with publishing departments. As of 1 January 2023, it had 140 members. The Association is a member of the Federation of European Publishers, the Union of Employers’ Associations and the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic.
Among the Association’s upcoming projects is the Register of Czech Books, developed in cooperation with the Czech National Library.
Development of total domestic book market:
| Year | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| Total turnover (in billions) | 8.0 | 8.3 | 8.3 | 8.0 | 8.6 | 8.4 | 8.4 |
| Year-on-year change (in percent) | +2,5 | +3.5 | +0.5 | -4 | +8 | -3 | -1 |
Source: Czech Book Market Report 2022/2023
