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Another way to promote the reading of translated titles across Europe is by encouraging a greater number of reviews and professional evaluations of book from countries with lesser-used languages. At the moment, in some countries, the attention of literary reviews and the cultural press is mostly given to foreign best sellers or local authors, while even very important examples of European literature go unnoticed and are not reviewed.
Bookstores- Competing with online giants
Member States have put various financial support systems in place, especially since the onset of the pandemic, to help booksellers recover after many difficult months. However, the special role of bookshops should be valued, and their activities should be supported in the long term, even after the pandemic. Beyond grants and loans, regulatory and fiscal measures such as fixed book prices and lower value added tax rates for books (since they are cultural products) have proven to be an effective way to preserve a diverse network of small and medium-size booksellers, both within and outside large urban areas.
IN AN ENVIRONMENT THAT IS INCREASINGLY DOMINATED BY ONLINE STORES, THE SPECIAL ROLE OF BRICK-AND-MORTAR BOOKSHOPS IN PROMOTING DIVERSITY SHOULD BE PRESERVED
A major challenge for the book sector and bookshops in particular is to adapt their ‘format’ and operations to an online environment to compete with online giants such as Amazon. Online stores can be seen as offering an easy way to distribute content (whether paper books or e-books), but they are also a threat to the diversity of content.
The recent closure of bookshops during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how essential bookshops are to our societies. Bookshops are very often the only cultural hub in a community. They are indispensable in promoting reading and guiding readers to ‘less obvious’ books, such as books from emerging authors or countries. They are a good place to hold author visits in cooperation with publishers.
It is therefore important to accompany the evolution of the sector through training or financial support for innovation, in order to preserve the diversity of players in the book chain. For instance, new legislation was recently passed in France to set a minimum price for book deliveries, in order to stop what the government calls ‘distorted competition’ from digital giants who sell books for as little as EUR 0.01, to the detriment of independent bookshops.
