Sales were higher and attendance had already eclipsed the record for the number of visitors set last year as the Taipei International Book Exhibition entered its final day, the show’s organizers said yesterday.
Sales in all the exhibitor zones at the biggest book fair in Asia had surged by 20 to 40 percent as the event that began on Wednesday last week wound down.
A total of 543,000 people had already visited the show in its first five days, more than the record 520,000 who attended the fair last year.
Yu Chong-hsing (游重興), head of the Cite (城邦) pavilion, said the red envelopes people received over the Lunar New Year holiday helped boost sales.
The best-selling book offered by the local publisher this year was again the Chinese version of the Sherlock Holmes series, with sales increasing by about 40 percent, Yu said.
San Min Book Co (三民書局) store manager Tseng Kuang-lung (曾廣龍) attributed his company’s 10 to 15 percent sales growth at the fair to the timing of the show, which is taking place soon after the Lunar New Year break.
Exhibitors in the comics area, where sales are usually robust, also posted a year-on-year increase in sales of about 10 to 20 percent, comic book sellers said.
Most of them attributed the growth to the economic recovery and the fact that many teenagers had time to visit the fair, which was held before their winter vacation ended this week.
Taiwan Kadokawa, which publishes magazines, comics and light novels, reported a 40 to 50 percent sales increase, the Japan-headquartered multimedia group said.
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