Estimates of the Publishing Entities Survey indicate that in 2022, the number of new titles published increased by 5.2 per cent compared to the previous year (Table 1). On their part, in 2022 the number of new ISBNs issued to publishing entities increased by 7.2 per cent reaching 566. 81.7 per cent of the new ISBNs in 2022 were issued to large publishing entities, which for the purposes of this news release are classified as publishing entities with 11 or more new ISBNs (Chart 1).
Chart 1. Total new ISBNs and by size of the publishing entity
English and Maltese were the languages in which most books were published, with 52.7 per cent of publishers publishing titles in each of these languages (Table 3).
Survey results indicated that, in 2022, 78.2 per cent of publishers collaborated with three or less editors, with 32.7 per cent of publishers operating without engaging any editors (Table 5).
Regarding the number of team members engaged, survey findings showed that 63.6 per cent of publishers worked with production team members. From these, 10.9 per cent exclusively collaborated with freelance team members, 23.6 per cent had in-house team members and 29.1 per cent utilized a combination of both types of team members (Table 7).
Consistent with the preceding two years in this time series, most publishers have continued to partner with three or fewer authors, with 60.0 percent of them having engaged three or fewer authors (Table 8).
Chart 2. Publishing entities by category of publisher
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Chart 3. New ISBNs issued to publishing entities
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Compared to the previous year, an increase of 31.2 per cent was registered in the number of printed books sold, reaching a total of 548 titles, of which 415 for trade publishing and 133 for educational publishing. (Charts 4a and 4b).
Chart 4a. Publishing titles sold in digital format
Chart 4b. Publishing titles sold in printed format
In regard to the sales channels used, the “online” channel was the most used, with a total of 437 titles sold through this channel in 2022 for both trade and educational publishing titles (Chart 5).
Chart 5. Number of trade and educational publishing titles sold by various channels
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Tables
Methodological Notes
1. The book publishing industry covers activities at any stage of producing and distributing print or digital publications in all their manifestations. It includes but is not limited to editorial and design processes, sales, marketing, printing, and distribution.
2. This survey was done in collaboration with the National Book Council.
3. Information in this news release was obtained through a survey carried out among all active publishers in Malta and Gozo and covering reference year 2022. Self-publishers, newspapers and magazines were excluded from this survey.
4. For the purposes of this news release, publishing entities are classified as follows: ‘Small’ being publishing entities with less than four new ISBNs, ‘Medium’ being publishing entities with four to ten new ISBNs, and ‘Large’ being publishing entities with 11 or more new ISBNs.
5. The survey was launched in June 2023, and the fieldwork was completed by October 2023. The number of active publishing entities for the period under review was of 55, and the overall final response rate was of 61.8 per cent.
6. To ensure high quality of data, all questionnaires were vetted, and any queries were verified with the respondents. In the case of any missing variables, these were imputed with the appropriate statistical methods.
7. In order to mitigate the impact on non-response, weights were calculated and applied accordingly. The weighting of the survey was based on the number of ISBNs issued for each publisher.
8. Data on ISBNs covered in this survey cannot be compared to other national and official registered records. The latter may include a unique ISBN for each format of the editions of a book title published; a unique ISBN for the same book title when published in different languages; and a unique ISBN for the book title’s hardback and paperback editions, if any.
9. Publishers and booksellers were impacted by COVID-19-related measures and restrictions. The Malta Book Festival was held online in 2020, and took place with significant restrictions in place in 2021.
10. In this survey:
● A book/monograph/title is defined as a non-serial publication completed in one volume or a finite number of volumes. A book can consist of text composition, drawings, photographs, comics and music sheets. A book can be in printed format, digital format such as e-books or in other formats such as audio books.
● A book has a national or international identifier such as International Standard Book Number (ISBN), Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN).
● Trade publishing refers to books intended for the consumer market and distributed through various channels. It includes a wide variety of genres in fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young adult books.
● Educational publishing refers to books intended for teaching in schools and educational institutions. These include the following two sub-sectors: (a) school textbooks which includes books for primary and secondary schools (Kinder to Year 11) and (b) higher education publishing, which includes books for colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions. Educational publishing include books sold to educational institutions, governments, or through specialist academic vendors and outlets.
● Online/e-commerce sales channels include sales via the internet, including print, print-on-demand, e-books publications, subscriptions, and streaming. Brick and mortar sales channels includes bookshops and supermarkets, etc. Other sales channels, includes sales via direct orders to libraries and literary festivals.
● Total revenue refers to net revenue generated by sales and licenses excluding value-added and/or local sales tax. The net revenue calculation should exclude discounts offered to retailers and distributors.
● Market value at retail prices, is the revenue based on market prices, including deductions for discounts, value-added tax, etc.
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12. References to this news release are to be cited appropriately. For guidance on access and re-use of data please visit our dedicated webpage.
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- Almost 82 per cent of the new ISBNs issued in 2022 were allocated to large publishing entities.
- New book titles in 2022 amounted to 545, an increase of 5.2 percentage points when compared with the previous year.
- The number of printed books sold increased by 31.2 per cent when compared to the previous year, reaching a total of 548 titles.
- Slightly more than 58 per cent of the Maltese publishing entities held that in 2022 the increase in the cost of the production of a book was less than 20 per cent when compared to the previous year.
