For years, the Ukrainian book industry struggled to thrive in the shadow of Russian publishing houses, who dominated Ukraine’s book market.
When the Kremlin launched its war against Ukraine in 2014, that started to change. The Ukrainian government limited trade with Russia and restricted imports of many goods, including books.
But while state policy squeezed many Russian publishers out of the country, Russian books continue to dominate the Ukrainian market.
Today, nearly 300 Ukrainian publishers must satisfy demand for both Ukrainian- and Russian-language literature on their own. But the publishers are fighting an uphill battle: There are too few investors for them to develop their industry and they face unfair competition from counterfeit Russian books, according to Bohdan Horbai, head of Ukrainian publishing house Yakaboo Publishing.
That keeps the Ukrainian book market small and leaves publishers struggling to stay afloat — and keep domestic Ukrainian literature from getting lost in a sea of Russian books.
Unfair competition
The Ukrainian Book Institute, a state agency that forms government policy on publisher and promotes reading, estimated the market at $120 million in 2018. By comparison, the book market was valued at $10.3 billion in Germany, $14.5 billion in the United States and $1.2 billion in Russia.
Moreover, the competition for readers in Ukraine is stiff, especially among the country’s biggest publishers —Ranok, Vivat, The Old Lion and Folio.
To stay profitable, many open their own bookstores and paper factories. They also engage in price wars.
Price is more important than quality because the country lacks a fixed price — when books cost the same nationwide, both online and in stores, according to Natalia Mospan, owner of bookstore and coffee house chain My Book Shelf.
So unlike French, German, Norwegian or British publishers, who have to abide by the fixed price rule, Ukrainian publishers can give different discounts to different stores, so the price varies. This makes competition unfair, Mospan said.
“It is bad for the market,” she said. “When the companies compete on prices, they do not attract new customers and do not grow.”
Ukrainian bookstore and coffee house chain My Book Shelf sells books in Kyiv but has to fight an unfair competition with its more powerful competitors. Head of the bookstore Natalia Mospan claims that Ukrainian publishers engage in price wars — they give different discounts to different stores, so the price varies. This makes the competition unfair, Mospan said. (My Book Shelf / Facebook)
Russia’s influence
Russian publishing houses have always viewed Ukraine as part of its own market, because many Ukrainians speak both Russian and Ukrainian, according Horbai.
Russian publishers long dominated the local market: They were cheaper and published more popular authors. Even size-wise, the Russian market is nearly six times larger. Ukraine published around 62 million books in 2019, while Russia put out up to 305 million.
Before Russia began its war against Ukraine, it controlled 70% of the Ukrainian book publishing market and exported $30 million worth of books to the country annually, according to Oleksandr Afonin, head of the Ukrainian Association of Book Publishers and Book Sellers.
After the revolution, Ukraine banned most of the book imports from Russia, allowing only certain literature to be sold here. According to Afonin, the number of Russian books dropped to nearly $2 million in money equivalent in 2019.
However, in Ukraine, it is still more profitable to sell books in Russian rather than in Ukrainian because the demand for them is higher, according to Andriy Domaransky, spokesperson at Ukrainian bookstore chain Ye.
To continue working in Ukraine after the import restrictions, Russian publishers opened subsidiaries in Ukraine that publish books in Ukrainian and Russian and work with local retailers, including Ye and Yakaboo, the largest online bookstore in Ukraine.
In December 2019, Yakaboo came under fire for selling books published by a subsidiary of Alpina, a Russian publishing house founded by the famous Russian publisher Alexey Ilyin.
Both rivals and members of the public criticized Yakaboo, even though the company didn’t break any law.
Yakaboo, in turn, alleged that its competitors, including Ye, had launched a trade war against it. In fact, Ye also sells books published by Russian subsidiaries in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, those books that are still imported have become more expensive, meaning the competition is now a bit fairer for local publishers, according to Horbai.
“Ukrainian book retail reflects the demand on the market,” Horbai said. “Readers vote for books when they buy them. To win those votes, we have to make a Ukrainian book more attractive (than a Russian one).”
Head of Ukrainian publishing house Yakaboo Publishing Bohdan Horbai claims that Ukrainian publishers struggle to stay afloat because there are too few investors for them to develop the book industry and they face unfair competition from counterfeit Russian books.
But Russian imports don’t hurt the Ukrainian economy as much as counterfeit books, which now make up nearly 35% of the market, according to Afonin.
To sell all Russian books in Ukraine and avoid paying taxes, some businesses publish them illegally. These are usually paperback books printed on low-quality paper — they often have many mistakes and feature poor translation, Horbai said.
Illegal publishers do not spend money on salaries, taxes and royalties for the writers, so counterfeit books can be 50% cheaper. Although it is hard to track where such books come from, experts say they are usually printed in eastern Ukraine, closer to the Russian border.
The gray book market takes a toll on the publishing industry nationwide, but nobody is paying attention, Horbai said.
Risky business
Although the local book publishing market is growing, reading is still not a popular hobby in Ukraine, according to a recent survey by Yakaboo. Only 43% of Ukrainians — usually young people with higher education — read regularly.
Horbai believes one of the reasons is that Ukrainians do not see books as much as in the past.
There are only 222 bookstores in Ukraine, according to Iryna Baturevych, an analyst from the Ukrainian Book Institute. This is not enough for a country with a population of up to 40 million, given that Ukrainians still prefer printed books to electronic ones.
Businesses are afraid to invest in bookstores because they do not see enough demand to merit the risk, Mospan said.
Horbai agrees. People are afraid to invest in publishing because the industry doesn’t bring fast profits, he says.
“To turn a book into cash” local publishers have to find a story that resonates with Ukrainian readers, Horbai told the Kyiv Post. And yet many Ukrainians will be reluctant to pay more than $7 — even for a good book — and instead opt for stealing books from the internet.
In a country where the average salary is $420 a month, books usually lose the battle for consumers’ hard-earned cash to food, spirits and petrol, experts said.
Publishing is also expensive: The company has to pay for the translation, copyright, promotion and printing. The process usually takes 12 months and a publisher can only get return on their investment in a few years, according to Horbai.
According to Afonin, publishers and bookstore owners can only survive with the government support, including tax and rent relief.
Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which delivered a heavy blow to the book industry worldwide, local businesses didn’t receive much support. They are struggling to recover their losses, experts say.
For all these reasons, “this business is either for those who can invest big money or for book enthusiasts,” Horbai said
