The stone age of the publishing business. Business idea: open an online book publishing house

The book business has been actively developing in Russia for 15 years now, there are more than a thousand publishing houses in the country, and the market size reaches $3 billion. However, despite its impressive scale and long traditions, the industry does not look successful. Publishing houses do not attract large investments, do not enter the financial market and do not become subdivisions of large financial groups.

This fall, the famous "sausage maker" Vadim Dymov decided to create his own publishing house. Some experts were quick to announce that the publishing business is a new direction of investment for capital in Russia. However, Dymov himself said that this is a business "for the soul." The entrepreneur's caution is quite understandable: the investment attractiveness of book publishing raises serious doubts, which is especially strange if one remembers the rich traditions of the Russian book business.

old story

Book business is one of the oldest sectors of the market economy, where Soviet citizens began to show their entrepreneurial talents. In the early 1990s, everyone who had a penchant for business rushed first of all into the trade in clothes and products, and secondly into the publishing house and bookselling. The demand for books then was huge, besides, the publishing business did not require large investments. To this must be added the unselfish love for books that many of the pioneers of the book business had. As a result, in a short time in the first half of the 1990s, thousands of new publishing houses appeared in Russia. Many still exist, in particular, market leaders - Eksmo and AST - appeared in this era. At the same time, both the above industry leaders and many other players were originally bookselling organizations. Then the merchants began to publish the most scarce books - from time to time. Gradually, trading firms grew into full-fledged publishing houses.

It would seem that having such long history, the book business was to become a model for the development of the industry along market lines. However, having heroically emerged in the midst of the 1990s, the Russian publishing system froze almost unchanged. “The market has not yet been fully formed, low-money, not structured, with a low level of management and without reporting according to international standards,” says Alexander Limansky, marketing director of the Alpina Business Books publishing house.

True, in 1996 the industry experienced the first crisis of overproduction - the people ate "angelique". Publishing houses had to improve printing, their specialization increased, licensed products appeared on the market - for example, translated children's books with illustrations. After the default of 1998, rich people appeared in Russia, “disillusioned”, in the words of Elena Solovieva, an associate professor at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, in other business sectors. Capital began to flow into the publishing business from sectors that were new to it - according to Elena Solovieva, most of the money came from banks, especially in St. Petersburg. It was in 1998 that such publishing houses as Amphora and Alpina Business Books appeared. However, even then there were no qualitative changes in the market. Until today, the vast majority of publishing houses are relatively small, independent, closed and extremely non-transparent organizations. Virtually none of them are integral part financial and industrial group. Naturally, almost nothing is heard about any public investment in the publishing business. True, last year, financier Alexander Mamut, having bought the Hummingbird, Makhaon and Foreigner publishing houses, created the Atticus group (according to rumors, Mamut's investments did not exceed $4 million). In July 2007, the Dutch international publishing and consulting group Volters Kluver acquired the Russian company MTsFER and, according to estimates, the amount of the transaction could be about 40 million euros, but it must be borne in mind that MTsFER is not only publishing, but also educational, and consulting company. Finally, recently Vadim Dymov created the Third Shift publishing house, but the total investment in the project will not exceed $2 million.

These three cases practically exhaust the history of public relations between the book business and external investors. New publishing houses are now generally founded extremely rarely, and if they are founded, then, as a rule, top managers of existing ones do it (for example, the former Chief Editor"Ripol Classic" Nina Komarova in 2004 initiated the creation of "Eterna"). No company has ever gone public with an IPO. In the entire industry, almost the only case of a bond issue is registered, and even that is not related to the publishing house, but to trading company"Top Book". The founders of most companies are either unknown or they are their own top managers. “The people who run publishing houses today started out just selling books,” says CEO"Atticus" Arkady Vitruk. - These are those who were simply fond of books and changed them in second-hand bookshops. In the early 90s, someone caught the wave and tried to print editions in a simple home-made way, selling photocopied copies. Now large and medium-sized businesses are usually run by hired managers, but in publishing it is typical that the people who founded these publishing houses are still their managers. In many other sectors, this is already a milestone.”

Gradual consolidation of the industry is underway, but, according to the unanimous opinion of experts, much more slowly than it could - this is evidenced by the fact that approximately 1300 - 1500 publishing houses are actively operating in Russia (according to the Book Business, their number has decreased by about 2004 since 2004). by 19%). There is practically no foreign capital in the publishing market. The oldest Russian business in many respects continues to live in the last century.

Enemy on the doorstep

And yet change is coming: publishing houses are faced with questions that have to be answered. Chief among them is the gradual decline in reader demand. The cumulative circulation of the last five years has declined sharply - from 702 million copies in 2003 to 633 million in 2006. " social status books fell, - says Elena Solovieva. - Now it’s not a shame to admit that you don’t read anything - you just don’t have time! You are a serious person, and there is not enough time for stupidity.

To this must be added the rise in the cost of books, which outstrips the rise in their prices. “In recent years, there has been an increase in all components: materials, printing, employee salaries, rent of offices and warehouses, transport, royalties, the cost of rights to foreign books,” says Alexander Limansky from Alpina Business Books. An important role is played by the growth of the euro, because it is in Europe that most of the printing machines and a significant share of printing raw materials are bought. Meanwhile, the share of imported (that is, high-quality) materials, in particular high-grade paper, is constantly growing: the reader is becoming more and more demanding. Decrease in profitability publishing business can be considered a fait accompli.

The natural response would be an acceleration of market consolidation. Large players save money due to economies of scale. It is no coincidence that Alexander Mamut united three publishing houses at once under the roof of the Atticus holding. "We started buying more paper, cardboard, films and all other materials. In connection with the growth of the volume of our orders, printing houses also meet halfway, we are becoming a big and interesting client. In addition, the larger the size of the publishing house, the more efficiently you can manage warehouses, accounting - everything that is called the back office. Due to this, we are trying to maintain profitability at a sufficient level,” explains the head of Atticus, Arkady Vitruk.

It can be assumed that the main direction of market development will be the gradual consolidation of business around a few dozen leaders. “Small companies have many ideas and projects, but lack the resources to implement them and bring them to the consumer, provide the necessary support and promotion. At the same time, the economy of many small publishing houses is in a deplorable state,” says Eksmo CEO Oleg Novikov.

The Art of Acquisitions

Even today, the structure of the publishing market is similar to a pyramidal structure. At the top are two leaders - the AST and Eksmo groups, which together produce approximately 30% of book production. They are followed by Enlightenment, Olma-Press, Drofa with some margin. The top five publish half of all Russian books. Their size is already such that they can be of interest to third-party investors, and the funds raised can be used both to increase their market share and to buy up competitors. True, according to Oleg Novikov from Eksmo, in order to enter the IPO, the value of the company must be at least $500 million, and there are no such publishing houses in the country yet. But the market leaders have experience of acquisitions, although these transactions sometimes took place according to rather specific schemes typical only for the publishing business.

The fact is that the value of a publishing house is largely determined by the quality of its team. The big ones prefer not to buy firms, but to absorb teams of experienced editors. Cooperation with a small publishing house can start with a joint project. The small one comes up with the idea of the book, finds the author, prepares the text, the big one invests in replication and provides its own implementation channels. The profit from the project is divided between the partners, and the imprint usually contains the names of both publishers. After some period of cooperation, a large firm may offer the partner's team to go entirely under its own auspices. At the same time, the junior partner sometimes formally retains independence - although in fact this means that he simply takes the work of editing and preparing the text from a large group for outsourcing. “Now only large publishing houses with their own strong distribution system can provide their books with large-scale and effective work with retail operators,” explains Oleg Novikov. – Today, there are only a few of them, while the rest work through wholesalers, whose assortment of many thousands of items allows you to promote, at best, the top 100 of each publisher. And all the other books remain lying somewhere in the warehouse. If a small enterprise falls into the structure of a large one, then all the resources of the large one become available to it. According to Elena Solovieva, it is AST, the largest Russian publishing house, that has a particular propensity for such cooperation with small and medium-sized ones, with their subsequent absorption. Thanks to this policy, the AST group consists of 50 separate editorial teams, and, according to Solovieva, the actual implementation units of the group manage this creative economy. The second giant, Eksmo, prefers to take over small players without preserving their brand, although it also resorts to joint projects, for example, with Oko or Zebra E publishing houses. However, there are also official purchases: at the beginning of this year, the AST group acquired Avanta +, a leader in the production of encyclopedias. Experts estimated the cost of the transaction in the range of $4 million to $10 million. In early October, Eksmo completed the acquisition of a 25% stake in the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, which specializes in business literature (the estimated value of the transaction is $1 million).

The second consolidation mechanism is the repurchase of authors. According to experts, any author whose books have achieved commercial success in the market immediately receives an offer from competitors. And since larger firms also have greater financial capacity, they can usually make best deal. As a result, there is a phenomenon in the market that could be called a vertical migration of writers: from small publishers to medium ones and from medium ones to the largest ones. The competition of proposals has another important consequence - the gradual increase in fees. If at the end of the 20th century a person who wrote a detective novel received $ 3,000 - 5,000 for his work, now best-selling authors can claim tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Only market leaders can pay such fees.

The fate of the vertical

Large publishing houses, even in the face of declining demand, can maintain an acceptable level of profitability also because they are able to create vertically integrated structures, including printing houses and bookselling organizations in the holdings. Today, all major players own either printing houses or shares in the capital of printing plants. However, integration runs into a number of objective difficulties. Firstly, the Russian printing house often does not know how to "do everything", and the owners are forced to print part of the books in foreign printing houses. Secondly, the publishing house usually cannot fully load the printing plant, so it must look for clients on the side. Thirdly, the Russian printing industry is in dire need of modernization, and publishing houses do not have the investment resources for this.

More promising direction development is the integration of large publishing houses with wholesale bookselling. In Russia today, there is a clear shortage of wholesalers of a federal scale. There are small ones in every region - but they are known only to the publishers who work with them.

In this link, there is almost sole dominance of one big company- "Top Books". Other firms - "Club 36.6", "Labyrinth", "Mega L", "Master-Kniga" - lag behind the leader by a wide margin. But even "Top-Book" is unable to organize the delivery of goods to all subjects of the Federation. “In Germany, there are only two players on the wholesale book market – KNV and Libri,” says Lyubov Kasyanova, Head of Department wholesale sales"Top Books". “For Russia, given its size, it is quite possible that there are 3-4 major players.”

A stalemate arises: regional wholesalers cannot establish ties with Moscow publishing houses, and federal wholesalers are still not large enough to cover all regions with their distribution network, in particular, due to competition with small ones. “We have few large wholesalers, because there are many small ones. At the same time, the book industry lacks the existing number of these companies,” says Vladimir Drabkin, editor-in-chief of the Book Business magazine. - The organization of such a link requires too much investment. Large wholesalers cannot absorb small wholesalers due to lack of funds. Little will change in the coming years."

According to Lyubov Kasyanova, the average wholesaler's markup in Russia is 20-25%, almost the same as in Germany, where the merchant adds 30%. However, products reach regional stores by passing through several intermediaries. And the total margin can exceed 100%. Artificially raising the price lowers the publisher's profits and at the same time dampens the demand for books. In addition, publishers and traders lack a common understanding of the role of the wholesale link in the book market. “Logisticians should not be engaged in the promotion of individual titles, this is the prerogative of the publisher. And the publishers are waiting for us to stimulate the sale of their products,” complains Lyubov Kasyanova. – Sometimes they act as our competitors, providing equal commercial terms to wholesalers and retailers. In this case, we have to reduce prices, and, accordingly, profitability.”

As a result, the largest publishing houses do not expect favors from wholesalers, but begin to create networks of their own regional distribution centers. The rest have to wait until the federal players grow to the right size.

Non-ubiquitous retail

Publishing houses also face serious difficulties in relations with retailers. Moreover, these difficulties increase as the Russian reader becomes more and more demanding. In the "golden" years for the book business of the 90s, more than 70% of book production in Russia was sold on stalls, kiosks, and fairs. Gradually, such a system ceased to suit both publishers and readers. Books are a specific commodity. The success of the implementation largely depends on the diversity of the range, retail space, comfort and easy navigation. Today, stalls and kiosks account for no more than 10% of turnover. Meanwhile, sales growth is held back by an underdeveloped trading system. The book simply does not reach the consumer. Moscow and St. Petersburg account for 40-60% of turnover. In an area with a population of 100,000 people, there may not be a single store that can provide a decent selection. “Serious competition exists only in Moscow, and even then from the old Moskva, Biblio-Globus, and Young Guard stores,” says Dmitry Kushaev, co-owner of the Bookbury chain. Their success is largely due to the advantageous "historic" location. “In Germany, there is one specialized store for every 15,000 inhabitants, in Russia one point serves 60,000 people,” complains Alla Shteinman, CEO of Phantom Press publishing house. - A more or less normal situation is only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, not bad - in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. In the province, retail does not satisfy demand.”

Market participants have already started talking about the approaching crisis of overproduction. “Russian retail space can “master” a little more than 30% of printed matter produced in the country. But there are still remnants of past years, - says Olga Sherman, acting. director of marketing department "Top-Books". - There is practically no normal system for returning unsold goods to publishers. For example, in the USA the share of returns is more than 20% of delivered books, in Western Europe - about 15%, in Russia - no more than 5%. And this does not mean that our publishers perfectly predict demand, they just do not accept the remnants of their "masterpieces". Other distribution channels (“Book by mail”, Internet) control no more than 12-13% of the turnover.

Entangled in nets

Network players could solve the problem of lack of civilized retail. According to experts from the marketing agency Step by Step, the number of online bookstores will grow by 35-40% per year. True, experts made similar forecasts a few years ago, but the growth rate turned out to be much lower. According to Top-Kniga, only 15% of the turnover of book products falls to the share of network retail. There are approximately 15 networks in Russia, but they mostly operate in the capitals. Online retailing is also a product of vertical integration, much of it under the control of publishers or wholesalers. The shareholder of New Bookstore and Bookvoed is the Eksmo publishing house, Azbuka owns the Prestige Book Salon network and controls the St. Petersburg Snark. The AST publishing house owns the Bukva chain. The company "Top-Kniga" has created five networks of different formats. The owners of Atticus, Alexander Mamut, also controls the Bookbury network.

At the same time, when creating their own retail chains, publishers are constantly forced to overcome the temptation to turn them into channels for selling only their own products. For example, most of the assortment of "Letters" falls on the books of the publishing house "AST". “I don't understand this pattern. This is not a bookstore, but a point of sale for the goods of a particular publishing house,” Dmitry Kushaev complains. In own trading network you can attract a buyer with more favorable prices, because there is no intermediary markup. But there is no choice, which usually provides an influx of buyers. It is no coincidence that some projects have not received proper development. The Terra holding, for example, thanks to serious investments from the European book network Bertelsman, bought the Yaroslavl Printing Plant and organized the Terra Book Club network. “They had connections with the authorities in the regions, good places for shops,” says Elena Solovieva. - But they promoted the products of "Terra". But one publishing house cannot provide a normal flow of new products! If a client comes in and sees that the books in the store have not changed, he becomes uninterested.”

There are very few large independent players equally interested in promoting the products of all publishers in the retail sector. In Moscow, only the municipal network Moscow House of Books is classified as such, since the owners of the Bookbury and Respublika networks also became publishers. Retail books are not considered too attractive business. From one square meter of area, a book supermarket brings in half as much income as a grocery store, with equal equipment costs. The main item of expenditure for any retail outlet- rent. However, in the book business, some stores pay commercial rates, others pay reduced rates, and still others do not pay at all (if the store is state-owned). As a result, market participants are placed in deliberately unfavorable conditions: someone is forced to include their rental costs in the price of the book, and someone can afford dumping. According to Olga Sherman, depending on the format, the level of profitability ranges from 7% to 15%. “From the point of view of operational profitability, today the store format of 200-300 meters is still the most advantageous,” says Denis Kotov, CEO of the Bukvoed chain.

While the people of the province suffer from a shortage of products, retailers are trying to fight for the buyer at the most competitive markets- Moscow and St. Petersburg. For example, Bookvoed was the first to implement the concept of a bookstore-club with additional services. “We provide services for searching and booking books via the Internet and through a single telephone number,” says Denis Kotov. “Our book clubs are open 24 hours a day, we offer free Wi-Fi access, leave the child in the children's room and undress in the cloakroom. The Moscow House of Books holds events for readers: a festival of children's books, a week of Russian fiction. Since the end of 2005, “Chocolate Girls” coffee houses began to open in Bookbury stores, following the principle of the American book chain Barnes & Noble, where Starbucks coffee houses operate in every store. “We cooperate with several operators, including Shokoladnitsa. They pay us rent, and we receive from them additional clients, - says Dmitry Kushaev. – The audiences of coffee shops and bookstores overlap. There is a certain synergy of coffee, tea and books. In large stores, this model works.

We do not stand behind the price

Market participants, from publishers to retailers, explain all the problems of the Russian book industry low prices. They say that in Russia books are much cheaper than in the West. “The peculiarity of our market is that the book is a cheap product. People are not used to spending money on it. In Poland, for example, it costs $8-9, while in our country it rarely exceeds $3. Prices for all goods are growing, but not for books,” says Alla Shteinman. Similar speeches have been heard for ten years. According to publishers and merchants, the low final cost of the book makes it impossible to develop, since each participant in the chain is limited to a certain level of margin. True, many point out to “weeping” publishers that in Moscow a hardcover book costs the same $8-10. In the regions, of course, prices are lower, but it is the metropolitan market that brings publishers and merchants the main income.

Some countries have adopted fixed retail prices for books. Initially, the price is already indicated on the cover, the publisher sells the product at a discount, which is then screwed up in turn by wholesalers and retailers, and the end consumer buys the book at the same fixed price. But in Russia, the introduction of fixed prices seems unlikely. Publishing houses usually fight for their existence, but in our country they are actively developing retail, so no matter how much they complain about the hard life, free prices are beneficial to them.

“The book market has one feature that is often overlooked: low elasticity of demand. This means a weak dependence of the number of purchased books on their price. Price will be the main growth factor for the Russian book market, while the number of books sold in physical terms will decrease or remain at the same level, predicts Olga Sherman. - Until 2009, book prices will grow by about 20% per year, respectively, and the book market will increase by at least 15%.

Thus, the main directions for the development of the publishing business in Russia are consolidation, vertical integration and price growth. But development in these three areas will not happen quickly. Prices will not be allowed to rise by poor readers. The stubbornness of the owners of small and medium-sized publishing houses, who are not ready to lose their business, will stand in the way of consolidation. According to Alexander Limansky, the consolidation of the industry will occur at the most at the rate of two or three major transactions per year.

Books are missing shelves

Interview with Arkady Vitruk, CEO of Atticus Group

The project of Alexander Mamut, the publishing group "Atticus", was not established at the very the best time: the book market is overstocked, unsold, according to some sources, there is a third of all printed books. However, Arkady Vitruk, General Director of the Atticus Group, is sure that there are ways to develop business that allow publishing houses to prosper even in conditions of stagnation.

Any publishing house dreams of releasing a bestseller - a book that is sold out in hundreds of thousands of copies. Any publishing house dreams of opening a writer capable of producing several bestsellers a year. But there are more than a thousand publishing houses in Russia, and there are clearly not enough for all the bestsellers.

– What, in your opinion, are the most attractive projects that have recently appeared in the publishing industry?

- The most successful are those that are invisible. Successful projects- These are stable sales, and stable sales go through specialized channels. These are textbooks, special literature for accountants, special literature for lawyers. We are all subscribed to legal database updates, and those who publish the printed "equivalents" of such databases are not very visible, but their business is very attractive. They pay for it, no matter how much it costs. If we talk about bright book projects, then just look at the ratings - and they say that we have detective stories in the first place, and here the Eksmo publishing house comes out on top with its female detective stories, which they make in huge circulations. When books are published with a circulation of 200,000 - 300,000 copies, then I think that everything is in order with a profit.

- If a writer like Minaev or Robski gets sudden success, is it the publisher's luck or the result of a targeted marketing policy?

“It is impossible to achieve success without marketing work. Almost all new projects require support. The success of a book with advertising support can be many times higher than without it. Advertising is becoming a bigger and bigger engine of our trade. The business has grown stronger and can afford to selectively sponsor support for individual projects. Here each publisher has its own know-how. Typically, a standard set includes at least some flyers, posters, mailing lists for retail partners, and today the cost of all this is already measured in thousands of dollars. When a publishing house starts to arrange some kind of promotions, everything becomes even more expensive, because even when you do it together with some federal networks, it turns out that it is almost impossible to organize an action for the whole country. Immediately, the federal network is divided into many local networks and shops, because although the chains are federal, they consist of segments, and in each of them it is necessary to organize an action separately. Such promotions should ideally combine the efforts of film distributors, publishers, and toy manufacturers, and then success is guaranteed.

– It is often said that the marketing efforts of publishers are hampered by a simple lack of bookstores.

- And there is. We all strive to discover new names that will become famous tomorrow. But since in another store there are not enough shelves, then any book on the stand of novelties is not long enough for readers to understand: special attention is paid to it. Usually in the store the book lies on such a layout for two weeks. And if a person who is interested in books tries to go to the store a couple of times a month, then he sees her once. At best, two. It is unlikely that this is enough for the book to become familiar and its title settled in the subcortex.

– What, in your opinion, is the main direction in the development of publishing houses today?

– Publishers will now focus on building a vertical chain. They will try to establish relationships with key networks in such a way as to receive additional services, information, so that books from a particular publisher can be purchased more efficiently. Plus, they will be engaged in raising the level of service - increasing the speed and expanding the geography of delivery, labeling books for retail. It's no secret that in our regions there are many small wholesalers who never make it to Moscow and survive by buying books from a large federal wholesaler. Regional players would be happy to switch to direct work with a publisher if it could provide such services.

What about your publishing house?

We have plans to build our own printing house. We expect that although it will become part of the corporate structure, it will operate within the market, and our publishing house will become only one of its customers.

– Will you start organizing your stores?

– We are considering this option very carefully, but this is a very expensive thing. In any case, we will not approach this as a publisher's shops. Both the printing house and the stores will not be appendages of the publishing house, but independent businesses. But own retail is big project, it requires both appropriate investments and, most importantly, human resources. In Russia, finding human resources is more difficult than investing.

- And when will we hear about the first IPO of a publishing company?

- The scale of the largest players already allows you to enter the IPO, based on the understanding that this will arouse sufficient investor interest. But you need to prepare for an IPO within three years. If someone is doing this now, then in the best case, in two years the first placement will take place.

Artem Kazakov, Konstantin Frumkin

We are often approached by our regular readers with questions about how to implement this or that idea presented on the 1000 Ideas portal. Therefore, we decided to launch a new series of articles, which describe how many projects that are successfully working abroad can be implemented in Russian conditions.

The situation in the book publishing business is far from being the most favorable. With the spread of the Internet and various mobile devices that allow you to read books in in electronic format From phones to dedicated e-readers and tablets, these are dark times for companies that publish and sell printed books.

Just a few decades ago, Russia was one of the most reading countries in the world. And until now, domestic publishing houses produce a large number of literature. However, until the summer of 2012, only the two largest companies operating in this market could be named - AST and Eksmo. According to the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, in 2011 alone, the two giants published over 130 million books. These same companies own the country's largest retail book chains.

Since the end of June of this year, the two leading players have turned into one: it became known that Eksmo will control the business of the AST group, which essentially turned the already small book publishing market into a monopoly. According to various sources, Eksmo owns from 50 to 80% of the fiction market. At the end of 2011, Eksmo acquired the Alpina Business Books publishing house from the Finnish company Sanoma Independent Media. The same company owns a 30% stake in the well-known business literature publishing house Mann, Ivanov and Ferber (now the company intends to increase the stake to a controlling stake). After the merger, the company is expected to control over 60% of the Russian business and professional literature market.

In general, the industry itself has long been in crisis. According to Rospechat, over the past year, the production of books in our country has decreased by 6.3%, and in total over the past three years, circulation has fallen by almost 30%. According to the estimates of the publishers themselves, in 2011 the volume of the domestic market for book products amounted to 62 billion rubles, having decreased by 16.9% over four years.

The situation is not so rosy not only in Russia, but also abroad. For example, last year, America's second-largest bookstore, Borders Group Inc., filed for bankruptcy and closed nearly 400 stores across the country. According to Nielsen Book Scan, U.S. print book sales fell 8.9% year-over-year to 651.2 million. In the UK, volumes decreased by 6.2%, in Germany and Denmark by 5%, in Italy by 3.7%. The drop in volumes affected France least of all, where the market "dipped" by only 1.5%.

Russian experts believe that the decline in book sales is directly related to the crisis of 2008, due to which buyers were forced to abandon the additional item of expenditure family budget associated with the purchase of printed matter. Moreover, according to the report of Rospechat on the problems of Russian book publishing, the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis for this industry have not yet been fully overcome. However, problems arose long before 2008. Over the past twenty years, this market segment has developed chaotically. Store shelves were overflowing with low-quality and unclaimed literature. As expected, the demand for books fell sharply. Publishers were forced to raise prices in order to survive, which only made the situation worse.

Does this mean that everything is bad in the book publishing industry, and business in this area is doomed to failure? In fact, the segment of fiction books for an adult audience suffered the most, but the interest of readers in scientific and educational literature is only increasing every year.

in great demand use publications for children, including fiction. Of course, many books (especially traditional folk and author's well-known fairy tales) can be found on the Internet in electronic form. But parents still prefer to buy familiar books, even despite their high cost due to high-quality printing, beautiful illustrations and small print runs. The popularity of electronic books is growing, but mainly among adult residents of large Russian cities (about 30% of the population read books in electronic format there).

For children, parents prefer to read traditional printed books with bright colorful pictures. Some even collect entire libraries of children's literature. The child also learns to read with the help of printed primers and alphabets, and the first books that he reads on his own, not on the screen of a mobile device, but on plain paper.

Another segment of literature, which has not been so strongly affected by recent changes, is represented by expensive thematic gift editions. As a rule, they are issued in small print runs, are devoted to a certain narrow topic, are of a reference and informational nature and are often distinguished by luxurious design. Their main value is not in the text, but in the illustrations, so there is no point in reading such books in electronic form.

There are publishing houses that publish books of different price categories, but on the same subject. As an example of such highly specialized book publishing house you can bring the company Dogwise, located in Seattle. It was founded in 1986 by entrepreneur Charlene Woodward. Initially, it was the most ordinary retail store that provided a special service for finding rare books for schools, libraries or individuals.

While completing another order to deliver books for dogs to her customers, Charlene found that people who want to purchase quality books about their pets face certain difficulties in finding such literature. Armed with the support of her clients, the entrepreneur began to sell specialized literature at dog shows. When people began to ask her questions about where to buy books about dogs during the time when the exhibitions were not held, Charlene decided to print and distribute a simple catalog with the possibility of ordering the publications she liked.

Her business grew at a rapid pace. Soon, Woodward opened her own publishing house, which publishes books exclusively about dogs. It employs only eight people, since the main business of delivering books by mail is conducted through the company's website. Dogwise publishing house releases eight to ten new products a year, which are eagerly bought not only by US residents, but also by dog owners from other countries, including Japan and Russia. At the same time, the company does not spend money on translating its publications into other languages. It simply resells the rights to literature to foreign publishers. The cost of rights to one book ranges from $1,000 to $10,000, depending on the terms of the contract.

Such a narrowly focused book publishing house can become profitable business and in our country, despite the rather difficult situation in the book market in Russia. The price of entry into this market, oddly enough, is relatively low. The publication of two or three books will require a small amount. For example, according to book publishers, the cost of publishing one book with a circulation of less than ten thousand copies is less than $2.5 per unit. This means that investments in the first edition will amount to about $20,000. Truth, we are talking about an ordinary non-gift book of standard volume and size in hardcover, with or without black-and-white illustrations.

Since book publishing is considered a high-risk business, banks usually do not lend to start-up entrepreneurs who want to work in this segment. After all, it is one thing to publish a book and quite another to successfully sell it. There is always a chance that authors will let the publisher down, not finish writing their books, or even go to competitors. Therefore, new companies are financed either by private investors or by inviting large publishing houses to cooperate. If you do not have your own funds to start your own business, then the first option looks more attractive for a specialized project.

Do not ignore the production of e-books. If this is possible for your niche, then indicate this direction of your work at the stage of drawing up a business plan that you need for yourself or to find an investor. For example, the aforementioned publishing house Dogwise, in addition to producing specialized literature, also publishes books in electronic form. Moreover, this direction is one of the most profitable and rapidly developing for him. “We have been publishing e-books for the past three years, and our profits have increased tenfold over this period. E-books do not require additional costs for printing and delivery, they do not need a warehouse for their storage,” says the head of the company. Also, in addition to printed and electronic books about dogs, Dogwise publishing house releases CDs, booklets with various teaching materials and toys for dogs.

Books can be published in two ways. The first - traditional - is the production of book circulation in a printing house. This implies a fairly large amount of work, which will take some time (it takes, on average, 3-4 months to print one edition in offset way). First of all, the pages of the future edition are being typeset. Then, after checking with a proofreader, they are printed on an offset machine. Offset printing of books is the most common way of book production, which is especially beneficial for medium and large print runs. The larger the circulation, the lower the cost of printing one copy of the book. Separate sheets of the publication, which should be in hardcover, are collected in the so-called notebooks. Thin brochures are stapled into a single book block. For this, thread firmware is used (it is considered the most optimal), wire firmware and gluing. "Notebooks" are selected into the block manually, after which they are loaded into a sewing machine. The book block is trimmed with a special machine to give it a semi-circular profile. After that, the circulation is pressed in the book press.

In the manufacture of hardcover books, the next step in the production process is to prepare the cover of the edition. It consists of two lateral cardboard sides and a spine part, which is called the "lag". Then bumvinyl, balacron or other material is glued onto the cardboard base, which is used for binding. In some cases, at the stage of gluing the cover to the inner block, a ribbon is attached to the spine of the block head in such a way that the end of the ribbon remaining outside can be inserted between the pages of the book and protrude beyond the lower end of the block. This is how a lace is made - a narrow ribbon that serves as a bookmark in publications of the medium and high price category. The lace can be woven or fabric in one, two or more colors.

After the cover and book block are joined together, the entire book is placed under the press again. The last stage of book production is the hatching operation. As a result of this procedure, narrow sagging strips are created along the entire spine of the publication at the edge of its cover. Thanks to this, the book opens more easily and can be opened without additional help. Before packing books in boxes, if provided, they are wrapped in paper dust jackets or covered with a film.

With this traditional method of production, the correct circulation of your novelty book is of great importance. If a book published with a circulation of 3-5 thousand copies was not sold within one year, it turns out to be unprofitable for the publisher. For a small company, whose turnover should be higher, these terms are even shorter.

They sell finished book products through specialized retail stores. The problem is that in the retail trade, as well as in the book publishing business, there are only two major federal players - the Bukva bookselling network, which is owned by AST (has about 450 stores), and the combined New Book - Bukvoed network of the Eksmo publishing house (over 100 stores). Of course, first of all, the owners of these networks promote own products. According to some information, about 70% of the assortment of the Novy Knizhny chain is Eksmo publications, and only 30% are products of other companies. Collaboration with such networks is also difficult for young publishers because of the high discount they demand for the opportunity to display other books in their stores. If for individual small bookstores the discount is about 10-15% of the wholesale price, then large federal chains sometimes demand to throw off up to 60%, which makes it unprofitable for small publishers to work with them. The number of independent outlets decreases every month, which is not surprising. Indeed, with other unfavorable factors, the level of profitability of bookstores varies depending on the format from seven to fifteen percent.

Online stores have become an alternative to conventional book retail stores. According to the players in this market, the annual increase in sales via the Internet is about 100% for book companies. But still, most of the publications are sold through specialized sites, which, due to the absence of usual retail costs, can offer their customers more favorable prices and a huge range. In addition, they can deliver books throughout the country, while most of the major book publishers are located in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Their only drawback is that the buyer cannot "live" evaluate the book he is purchasing, but he has the opportunity to read the reviews of other readers.

The second method of book production, which is most common in the West, is that the book is first sold and only then printed. The so-called digital printing on demand is only gaining popularity in our country, but experts are more than optimistic. Its undoubted advantages are the absence of high costs for printing the publication (now the price does not depend on the circulation, you can print even one copy of the book, even if it costs a little more than offset printing) and the simplicity of book production.

Now the publication of the book takes several days, not months, as before. Printing is carried out using simple equipment, which includes a computer, printers, cutters and a hot melt machine. You can also buy special automated lines that carry out the entire cycle of work - from printing to binding. Cars occupy about 5-6 square meters. meters and can only be operated by one operator. Printing a book, not including editing, layout, proofreading, takes less than half an hour. This version of the publication is more of an auxiliary, rather than the main one. With its help, it is possible to produce small print runs (including piece copies) of rare literature on order or to study demand.

The staff of a small specialized book publishing house includes editors and sales managers. In principle, all other functions can be delegated to contractors, as many do small companies. Among their full-time employees, often there are not even layout designers and proofreaders. Many printing houses offer services not only for printing a book, but also for preparing it for printing.

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- portal of business plans and guidelines

Today publishing as a business is gaining new momentum. The profitability of such a project is quite difficult to calculate, and the feedback from the owners speaks of upcoming difficulties. But if you make a business plan and develop gradually, you can achieve tremendous success.

In this case, much depends on luck, moods and preferences of readers. The book publishing business comes with a lot of risks and unforeseen circumstances, but in general it is a promising investment. After all, now more and more people are returning to the book as a source of inspiration or for important information.

Features of publishing

The creation and publication of books and other printed literature performs educational, social and intellectual functions. To successfully implement an idea in this area, you need to have many knowledge and skills:

be well-read and understand good books;
have experience in the publishing market;
constantly seek and establish contacts with promising young authors;
understand what projects are worth taking on;
clearly represent target audience, her tastes, wishes;
be able to convey the product to the consumer;
understand the law (publishing, copyright, advertising), etc.

And although experienced entrepreneurs talk about the difficulties of this business, the numerous disadvantages of the project, the level of entry is still not too high. And if at least one of the books you give out becomes a bestseller, then the success of the whole business is guaranteed.

It is worth noting the fact that many publishing houses in our country did not start with an attempt to profitably invest, but with the opportunity to put on the market the literature that is not enough. For example, the owners of the company "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" started their business due to the desire to compensate for the shortage on the shelves of high-quality specialized printing products in the field of business.

Where to begin?

If you want to open your publishing house from scratch, you must first draw up an action plan:

Decide on the direction of the published literature, a narrow segment. At the same time, you will find out what target audience you can count on. Clarify the preferences, wishes and needs of readers.
Create a brand, a company logo, think about how to name a publishing house so that the name becomes recognizable over time.
Find a source of funding for the project.
Go through the process of official registration of the company in the tax service. Obtaining all required permits, conclusion of contracts.
Hire staff for the effective operation of the publishing house.
In modern realities, it would be appropriate to create your own website, which contains all the information that can interest both authors and distributors.
Search for promising writers, conclusion of contracts with them, obtaining the right to translate, etc.

The publishing process itself is not associated with any technical difficulties. The release of the book takes no longer than 3-4 months and goes through the standard steps of printing. The simplicity of this stage is one of the advantages of the publishing business.

Choice of specialization

To date, the highest demand is observed for action-packed literature, which includes detective stories and women's novels. The second place is occupied by educational books, manuals, manuals. Another popular trend was the children's theme. But beginners are not recommended to immediately take up fiction, as this segment of the market is associated with high risks and larger investments.

It is believed that it is better to start a publishing business with narrow specialized areas, for example, business literature, cooking, publishing calendars, books on psychology or esotericism.

Also profitable and promising are the following segments:

Periodical press - newspapers, magazines that profit not only from circulation, but also from advertising placed in them. This direction comes with its own challenges. Here you need to be able to find relevant information and submit it in a short time. Remember also that advertisers, due to whom this business flourishes, prefer beautiful glossy publications.
E-books are gaining more and more popularity these days. For a novice entrepreneur, they are beneficial in that they do not require large investments and cooperation with. The sale of products takes place via the Internet.
Creating mini-games is one of the modern trends. There is a specificity here. Many professionals work on each project - from authors to programmers. Products are distributed in online stores, through gadgets, social networks, applications, specialized gaming portals, etc.

Being a universal publishing house that can afford to deal with diverse projects at once is unlikely to succeed from the very beginning. Only large companies that have long established themselves in the market have such an advantage. But you can compete with such giants just by choosing a narrow specialized direction, which will create a recognizable name for you.

What documents are needed?

Depending on the expected volume of printed products, you should choose one of the available ways registration - LLC or IP. With a small initial investment, you can limit yourself to the second option, that is, become an individual entrepreneur. In this case, a minimum package of documents is submitted, and bookkeeping is much easier.

But a limited liability company has a better chance of expanding and further development. True, then you need to create a company charter, pledge the authorized capital in a certain amount, pay a higher state duty. In any case, the taxation system can be simplified (USNO), in which the state is paid 6% of all publishing house income or 15% of the difference between profit and expenses.

Be sure to include all OKVED codes:

1 - publishing activity.
13 - issue of magazines and newspapers.
40 - printing of promotional products.
15 - other types of printing.

Office and equipment

The publishing house may look different. A less expensive option is to have a simple room for several employees with a standard set of office equipment and furniture. Here they accept clients, authors, conclude contracts with distributors, etc. The very technical part of printing books is given to the printing house.

The second option involves the full cycle of publishing. To do this, you need to additionally purchase:

computers for layout and preparation of documents;
printing equipment;
special devices for post-printing processing - devices for cutting and selecting sheets, creating brochures, binding, etc.

Search for promising writers

The main difficulty lies in working with the authors. They are the ones who can make your business succeed or fail. For a novice entrepreneur, this item turns out to be even more difficult, since you don’t have to rely on promoted names, you simply won’t be able to provide them with the required working conditions and high fees.

The only chance is to find the same newcomer, but in the writing field. Successful tandems guarantee long-term cooperation and profit for both parties. But you need to understand that before you find a valuable "zest" you will have to review thousands of manuscripts that were rejected by other editors.

There is such statistics - for 2000 texts sent to publishing houses, only 1-2 have value. Much depends on the tastes and preferences of readers. If people like the book, then you are guaranteed success, if not, it's wasted money on circulation.

The publishing business is also distinguished by another specific detail. You cannot enter into a contract with the author for future books. Therefore, very often promising newcomers are outbid or simply poached by larger companies. Sometimes this is really profitable, since the amount offered for the author will be higher than the profit from the annual sale of his books. But you will have to start looking for a new writer again.

Staff

The publishing house also needs people involved in the preparation, editing, proofreading, printing and other stages of the printing business. And although large firms employ more than a hundred people, this is not necessary. Pay attention to the most key figures in this business:

Editor - it is he who will be able to distinguish a successful and promising manuscript from the rest, choose a good cover and present the book to readers in the most favorable light.
Sales manager - contacts distributors, bookstores, advertising and marketing channels to show the book as soon as possible more readers.
Sometimes other people are required - translators, designers, proofreaders.

If you are well versed in the publishing business and internally “burn” with this idea, then you can do most of the work yourself. Then you will know for sure that the products look exactly the way you want.

Risks

No wonder experienced publishers talk about the difficulties and problems in this case. Among them, the most tangible for a beginner:

The unpredictability of the popularity of a project. You can as much as you like well understand the literature, fashion trends in this area, the preferences of readers. But if the published book, for some incomprehensible reason, does not please the buyers, then it will remain on the shelves in the store.
Working with authors - the difficulty lies not only in finding them, but also in further cooperation. There is a fairly wide range of force majeure and human behavior. Thus, a promising and successful aspiring writer may receive an advance payment, but not release a book, delay writing it for several years, start experimenting in a dubious direction, switch to another publisher if they offer him more interesting conditions or a high fee.
There is also a strong dependence on the author, if the publishing house has become recognizable due to one person. Its success and failure directly affect profits.

Sales of products

Another difficulty in publishing is the distribution process, that is, distributing books to the masses. Most companies that buy and distribute print publications are only interested in popular copies, bestsellers. And only large wholesale lots want to buy. Cooperation with newcomers and small circulation is unattractive for them.

In this case, personal work in this direction becomes the best way out. That is, you, as a business owner or a hired manager, must make every effort to implement the published book. For this, there are such methods:

Build relationships with retailers.
Print promotional items to promote the book.
Collaborate directly with bookstores. But focus not only on Moscow or other metropolitan areas, but also on smaller cities.
Buy advertising space in front of the establishment where your print publication is for sale.
Keep track of exactly how your products are placed on the shelves.
Use other advertising platforms - glossy magazines, radio, television, the Internet, etc.

The more sales and advertising channels involved, the higher the chances that people will be interested in your particular book. Although the result will still depend on whether they like it or not. And it is almost impossible to influence this factor.

Where to get money?

A novice entrepreneur faces another problem - finding the right amount to start. Publishing is different in that banks almost never lend to such projects. Therefore, you will have to seek funding in other ways:

Have personal savings.
Attracting interested investors - however, they, as a rule, invest in such a business only on the basis of their own interests, since publishing is too risky a business.
Search for co-owners of the company, then you can count on the fact that several people will be able to provide the required funding for the project on their own.

Also today there is a very profitable way for a beginner to cooperate. A start-up publisher pitches their idea for a larger company. She agrees to put it into practice, and the owners share the profit equally or according to other rates according to the drawn up agreement.

Here you can download for free as a sample.

Project profitability

The amount of invested funds will differ significantly depending on the volume of products, the chosen direction and format of work. So, if you trust the entire technical part of the printing house or other contractors, then the investment will be minimal.

When organizing a full cycle of printing products, you will have to purchase professional equipment, which will significantly increase the cost. But then the cost of each copy will be much lower. According to average estimates, to start in the publishing business, it is enough to have 650-700 thousand rubles. If you focus on the release of e-books, then much less investment will be required.

The income and profitability of the project also depend on the chosen direction. The publication of glossy magazines, calendars, crossword puzzles, games, etc. is considered more promising. About 80,000 rubles can be earned on a circulation of 5,000 periodicals. But it is quite difficult to calculate the pre-received income.

Video: publishing business.

No matter how strange it may sound, in our age of computer technology there are still a sufficient number of people for whom the book remains the most reliable friend. But the modern book market is influenced by several factors. Some of them have accompanied book publishing since its inception, while others arose quite recently under the influence of a market economy.

The modern book business, in addition to losing interest in reading, suffers from a lack of worthwhile books that will be a success among true connoisseurs. printed word. At the same time, a large number of commercial publications appeared, the age of which is short.

Another negative point that affects not only the book business, but also all other activities related to copyright (music, films, discs) is piracy. For a potential consumer, this is not of great importance, but for a publisher it entails significant financial losses, because, having studied the quality and quantity of the audience, he plans the circulation.

But the experience of book publishing in Russia over the past ten years shows that the business of selling books can pay off already in the first year of its existence, and even at the stage of a “falling” market, it can generate up to 25% profit per year, which cannot be said about many other types of activities.

Even if you are confident about the future and see yourself as a famous publisher, the publishing business from scratch for you should definitely start with. This will serve as a good practice, will provide an opportunity to study the nuances of the book market.

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Book trading: from zero to stable profit

A book-selling business can have many different options, depends on the city in which it is organized, how relevant it is here, what investment opportunities are available.

The best option is a bookstore designed for different age categories. In this case, it is better to reduce the number of products within one unit.

A bookstore, like any other business, must be registered. In the tax office, you can be listed as an individual entrepreneur (individual entrepreneur), if it is planned to run a business alone, or register your book business as an LLC (limited liability company), if you have to work in a team of founders. In any case, your activity in the OKVED classification goes under code 52.47 - “Retail trade in books, magazines, newspapers, stationery and stationery”. If your store does not exceed 150 sq. m, it is quite possible to get by with a single tax on imputed income. When registering, you will still need to show permission from the SES and the fire service.

Pay special attention to the place of trade. Few people go to the store just to buy a book, although this is not excluded. The ideal option is a store in a busy shopping center. If you are starting a business from scratch, it is better to rent a room, since acquiring it in a favorable location is not cheap.

The most popular are small bookstores with a wide range of products. When choosing this type of store, you should initially study the modern publishing business well through the Internet, but only in order to determine the quantity within each unit of production. There should be no problems with the supply of goods, because there is no shortage of publishing houses on the modern book market. Among the staff, sales assistants and cashiers are obligatory (in small stores this can be the same person), a manager (most often this is the owner himself) and an accountant (you can hire this unit out of state, but it is difficult for the manager himself to fulfill these duties when it comes to is about the bookstore).

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The financial side of the issue

Now it remains to draw up a cost estimate for opening a bookstore and estimate the payback time for the business. The organizational stage includes a fee for registering an enterprise with the tax service (5 thousand rubles), certificates and permits from the SES and the fire inspectorate (5 thousand rubles).

Then it all depends on whether you are going to buy or rent a premise for a store. Booksellers prefer renting as a cheaper option. Rent 1 sq. meters in Moscow ranges from 25 to 100 thousand rubles a year, depending on the location of the retail space, but above, discussions have already been given about a place convenient for selling books. The sales area must be at least 150 sq. m, since in the field of book trade it is preferable that the entire range is available to the eyes of the buyer. If you need a warehouse, get ready to pay 1 sq. m 10-15 rubles per day. Sophisticated equipment is not needed: racks for such a room will cost another 30 thousand rubles.

It's time for the books. Publishers most often work directly with stores, saving on intermediaries. Don't worry if you're starting from scratch, publishers like newbies with their own ideas. The range of an average store should include 15-20 thousand items. The retail price per unit will range from 35 to 100 rubles, not counting gift editions and albums, but they should also be in the arsenal. Information and technical support, signage and advertising will cost another 75 thousand rubles. Total: an average of 250 thousand rubles. You should also take into account the cost of salaries for two consultants and cashiers working in shifts. It is rather difficult to select staff for a bookstore, since they must have either a philological education or a good memory. A computer will help to simplify the work of sellers, but this is an additional expense. Put 300 thousand rubles into circulation.

Experience shows that the income of such a store will be 360 thousand rubles per month. We subtract 10,000 from this amount for taxes, 260,000 for staff salaries and utilities, and 50,000 for advertising and additional services. We will receive 40 thousand rubles of net profit. Thus, the payback will come in about a year, and if the place and assortment were chosen successfully, then you can expect an increase in income.