Presentation delivered at the research seminar on e-books at the University of Borås, Sweden, 24 November, 2017

1. E-BOOKS IN THE DIGITAL SOCIETY - RESEARCH SEMINAR
Overview of the Croatian e-book
market
Zoran Velagić, zvelagic@ffos.hr
Department of Information Sciences, University of Osijek
Franjo Pehar, fpehar@unizd.hr
Department of Information Sciences, University of Zadar

2. a) publishing ecosystem – stirred up by e-book blog
development
first e-initiatives
recent issues
b) e-publishing “model“
c) research
1. platform research (data harvesting)
2. publishers attitudes towards e-books – directly influenced by e-book
project
• in Sweden
• in Lithuania and Croatia
d) results & conclusions

3. PUBLISHING ECOSYSTEM – DEVELOPMENT
• political and social changes in 1990s
• dissolution of publishing built on the safe socialistic economy > 40 years
• compared to 80s, market has been shrunk down for 80%
• leading, market shaping companies disappeared (eg. Mladost)
• other successfully changed management structure and continued business
prioritizing highly profitable products (eg. Školska knjiga > school textbooks)
• new players formed by experienced professionals from old companies (eg.
Algoritam > focus on trade books and stores)
• small language market – out of global players’ interest
• insisting on cultural contribution = state interventionism (Ministries)
• discordance among publishers

4. PUBLISHING ECOSYSTEM – FIRST e-INITIATIVES
• non-commercial projects, 2001
• web based e-book distribution started as OA movement in 2001
• eLektire by CARNet and Bulaja naklada > obligatory school reading in digital form
• The Society for Promotion of Literature on New Media (DPKM), Impero Digital Books
• commercial project(s), 2010
• Lamaro digital > e-book distribution platform TookBook
• Croatian telecom operators entered the e-book business
• Croatian (i,e. Deutsche) Telekom
• PagePlace = Planet 9 bookstore in Croatia
• VIPnet (i.e. Vodafone group)
• VIP e-bookstore powered by Lamaro digital
• later on: eLibrika in 2012
• Free Reading Zones project, 2016 = Croatia Reads app, access to Total BooX
platform
• Velvet Café, from September
• Croatia, December 2016 = one-month experiment, not a sustainable model

5. PUBLISHING ECOSYSTEM – RECENT ISSUES
• consumers indifference for commercial projects
• Planet9, closed in June 2015
• Vip eKnjižara closed on August 17, 2015
• collapse of retail chains
• Algoritam
• Tisak media (Agrokor)

6. e- PUBLISHING “MODEL“
PUBLISHER
CONVERSION
SERVICE
PLATFORM A
MINISTRY OF
CULTURE
PLATFORM B
PLATFORM C
PLATFORM D

7. PLATFORM RESEARCH (DATA HARVESTING)
Growth rate of e-book assortments vs. unique titles (2013 – 2017)

8. Croatian e-book distributors and their assortments (2013 – 2017 )
✝
✝
✝

9. Non-commercial vs. commercial e-book distributors and their
assortments (2013 – 2017)

10. Publishers dominating the national e-book scene (2017)
E-knjige.hr
TookBook

11. Most popular e-books formats (2014 – 2017)

12. The avarage e-book price
• 40.58 HRK, i.e. 5.34 EUR in 2013
• 44.55 HRK, i.e. 5.86 EUR in 2014
• 54.95 HRK, i.e. 7.32 EUR in 2017

13. • surveys in Croatia were conducted in May/June 2014 and May/June 2017
using Survey Monkey
• problem: addresses of active publishers (Chamber of Economy, ISBN office
… web pages ...)
• 2014: links were sent to 233 active commercial publishers, 55 responded,
response rate 23,6%*
*in 2014 response rate was 55.6% in Sweden, and 58.6% in Lithuania
• 2017: links were sent to 226 active commercial publishers, 29 responses
(20 complete), response rate 13%
PUBLISHERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS e-BOOKS

14. 69%
31%Yes
No
2014
Yes = 28%
No = 72%f
Q1. Do you publish e-books?
2017

15. Q2. Do you plan to publish e-books?
69%
31%
2014
Yes = 72%
No = 28%
Yes
No
50%
50%
2017

16. Q4. If yes, when?
69%
31%
2014
2014 = 17%
2015 = 44%
2016 = 13%
Later = 26%
50%
50%
Later
11%
89%
2017

17. Q12: The importance of different distribution channels
very
important
important
less
important
not at all
important
own
website
other
distributors
websites
bookshops public
libraries
scientific/acade
mic libraries
2017
2014

18. Q14: Estimation of Croatian e-book market
development during the next 5 years
2017
2014
status
quo
slowly
grow
86%
14%

19. Q16: Perceived barriers for the e-book market
development in Croatia
very
important important
less
important not at all important
small market problem with
selling
(croatian)
books abroad
reader
preferences
towards
printed book
reading
device prices
lack of e-
books
borrowing
model via
libraries
2017 2014

20. CONCLUSIONS
• publisher attitudes towards e-books
• signs of pessimism and “digital resistance” with half of the respondents
planning to publish e-books after 2019
• low investment rates into own e-book distribution infrastructure, although
publishers see own platforms as solution
• deus ex machina syndrome
• barriers as seen by publishers
• price of reading devices
• strong print culture
• adding value chain is changing

21. • e-book distribution
• the number of commercial distributors decreased
• mobile services/internet providers are not anymore interested in
developing e-book platforms and distribution services
• subsidized illusions
• but, there is no decrease in assortments
• “The smaller the language, the greater the eagerness of publishers to
apply the brakes“ (Elena Maceviciute)

22. WHAT NEXT?
• regular market monitoring
• re-setting communication
• publishers’ mission and book formats
• ecosystems, e.g. educational – the responsibility of changing the way we learn
• changing structures
• e.g. paratext, the way of organising, comprehending, thinking …
• changing practices
• all the interactions, uses… associated with substrates
• ...