The number of new books published last year was the lowest in 20 years, as publishers were wary of taking risks amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a National Central Library (NCL) report released on Thursday showed.
Publishers released 35,041 new titles, including e-books, last year, which was a 4.81 percent decline from the previous year, the report on the nation’s publication trends showed.
Book sales declined 2.79 percent, or NT$440 million (US$15.42 million), to NT$19.04 billion, the library said, citing Ministry of the Interior data.
The figures suggest a general decline in the publishing industry from production to distribution, the library said.
That major publishers have been conservative in releasing new titles in the wake of the pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on the industry, National Central Library Director-General Tseng Shu-hsien (曾淑賢) said.
Most of the country’s 4,649 publishing houses are small and about one in 10 published more than 10 books, she said, adding that 45 released 45 books each, while one published more than 1,000 titles.
The pandemic has also led to changes in reading habits, she said.
There were 497 fewer titles released in the travel literature category, at 109 books, marking a 70.86 percent decline, while business management and art titles fell 20.04 percent and 10.66 percent respectively, she said.
A few genres saw growth in titles published, such as motivational books, of which 1,601 titles were released last year, up by 240, or an increase of 17.63 percent.
Most new books were in history and geography with 4,177 titles released, making up 11.92 percent of all new books, followed by 3,937 children’s books at 11.24 percent; 3,500 sociology books, 9.99 percent; 3,289 novels, 9.39 percent; and 2,821 comic books, 8.05 percent.
Twenty-seven percent of new books were translated from a foreign language, with more than half of the titles originally released in Japanese, while books translated from Korean were also on the rise, Tseng said.
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