We have all survived, readers, authors and booksellers, to a new Day of the booka day of euphoria in which writers prefer to die skinned rather than admit that they have suffered a dirty signature, and after which eight or ten of them claim to have been the best seller. A day that is announced between topics and concludes with dizzying figuresand which hides another series of less glorious data, but which completes a more accurate, unphotogenic vision of literary reality.
In 2023 47% of Spaniards did not buy a single book: the percentage has improved continuously in recent years, but it does not free us from finding ourselves behind Europe. Spanish households spend less than 0.5% of their total annual investment on books, newspapers and other publications.
A percentage of parents, and even teachers, consider that children should not read obligatorily during their years of education; However, the complaint about the decline in attention and lack of reading comprehension among young people has become recurring.
The number of books registered in the ISBN last year was 87,100: about 250 a day, 10 every hour. 97.5% only achieved a first edition. Of them, only 14% sell more than 50 copies. That does not stop the rest of the 74,820 from continuing to publish, or from self-publishing, even though the author fever does not correspond to the reading frenzy.
Artificial intelligence threatens to further reduce the possibility of translators, illustrators and writers receiving fair payment for their work and having their copyright recognized. So you judge if we have something to celebrate, high-sounding figures that we use to hide painful realities. AND If they love books, if we really care about culture, let’s act accordingly.
