Ukrainian Book Institute reports rising book prices, small print runs for Ukrainian authors, growing popularity of comic books

At a Sept. 5 industry forum at KyivBookFest 2024, the Ukrainian Book Institute presented several trends in the Ukrainian publishing market, including these key observations:

• The industry is growing but remains relatively invisible on a national scale.
• Book production (print runs and number of titles) is increasing. It has yet to reach pre-COVID-19 levels, despite a Russian and Belarusian import ban, restrictions imposed on Russian authors, and increased in-country translations into Russian.
• Revenues are rising because of increased book prices.
• Large players have more easily weathered the 2022 crisis than smaller publishers and are developing faster, which creates conditions for them to dominate the market.
• There remains a lack of literary works written by Ukrainian authors.
• Problems with industry statistics remain unresolved.

In total, 305 publishers are represented in chain bookstores within Ukraine, but according to the Book Chamber, there are currently 775 publishing houses in the country. In 2023, 775 publishers sent mandatory copies to the Book Chamber (393 of them published four or fewer books that year). In 2019, the number that sent books was 1,237 publishers.

• 393 publishers: published 1–4 books per year.
• 125 publishers: published 5–10 books.
• 130 publishers: published 11–24 books.
• 54 publishers: published 25–49 books.
• 39 publishers: published 50–99 books.
• 20 publishers: published 100–199 books.
• 8 publishers: published 200–299 books.
• 6 publishers: published more than 300 books.

The total revenue reported by 370 Ukrainian publishers amounted to 6.5 billion UAH (158.5 million USD).

According to UBI’s report “The Book Market of Ukraine: Dynamics of 2023-2024,” Ukrainian literature is published in smaller print runs than books by foreign authors. Ukrainian publishers release translated books in smaller quantities than works by domestic authors but with larger print runs. 

In 2023, 63% of books in translation were in adult fiction, with 70% of the publications translated from English. The share of literature translated from Russian continues to decline, reaching 4% in 2023. Overall, the share of publications in Russian is steadily decreasing. In 2023, 4.6% of titles and 1.2% of print runs were published in Russian, while among adult fiction, Russian-language books accounted for 9.6% of titles and 4% of print runs.

A persistent issue in the market is micro print runs—almost half of all books are published in runs of up to 500 copies. Overall, 24.7 million copies of books were published in 2023, an increase compared to 2022, but still not reaching 2019 levels. Book prices have also risen as a result of inflation, with the median book price by a contemporary Ukrainian author now standing at 280 UAH (7 USD).

It is also worth noting the growing popularity of comic books has become a significant driver of the market, with a total print run of 858,800  copies in 2023. Most publications in Ukraine belong to educational and instructional literature (52%), while fiction for adults and children occupy 23.4% and 22.8%, respectively.

Copy editing: Ben Angel, Joy Tataryn