1674010283 Book Fair under threat from rising paper prices

Book Fair under threat from rising paper prices

Book fair threatened by rising paper costs (Photo: Luciano Gonzalez)Book fair threatened by rising paper costs (Photo: Luciano Gonzalez)

The paper crisis is nothing new: it has been more than a year since the shortage of the raw material affected the Argentine publishing industry. There are serious problems in the industry when it comes to book printing, especially for independent publishers and printers, who have denounced unequal treatment by the main paper supplier, which does not happen to multinationals in the literary market.

In this environment of uncertainty, the Argentine Book Chamber issued a statement warning of the situation surrounding the Book Fair. “The editorial production for the next book fair is in danger” is the title of the text published today. “We drew attention to this problem at the beginning of November at the First Congress of Booksellers and Publishers. Seventy-five days later it hasn’t changed, but it’s continuing and getting worse.

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But it also explains why. The first is “scarcity and lack of paper, leading publishers to accept any price for production”. Also, “well above inflation, craft paper, bone-free and ecological, increases by 150%” and “illustration paper for book covers and children’s book interiors, by 300%”.

CAL recently stated, “The raw material costs more than the labor of authors, editors, designers, printers and bookbinders combined. Historically, this participation has ranged between 30 and 35%’; now it’s 50%. The problem is “that the publishers cannot fully convert the increases received into the sales price of the books”.

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This “causes a loss of profitability in the publishing industry from the concentrated groups producing paper in Argentina. That is, the expense of what is produced by an entire sector, ranging from authors to bookstores, seems to line the pockets of those who have most, who are the producers of the raw material.” “increasingly impoverished” market in terms of bibliodiversity.

“Despite the various meetings we have arranged with the government bodies responsible for domestic trade, we have finally received no solution or proposal that would bring the government to arbitrate in a situation of abuse of a dominant position,” the statement concludes from the KALK.

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