The Global eBook Report: Current Conditions & Future Projections. Update October 2013

integration between publishers, booksellers, and ebook sellers seems to make a strong case for a rather peaceful cohabitation of the analogue and digital side of the business, and the attitude is shared even by independent ebook sellers.
    In a majority of CEE countries, most of publishers discount ebooks by about 30 percent, with Slovenia being the only exception, as publishers have decided to set the prices of ebooks equal to those of paperback editions, the main reason for this being the fact that, due to the higher VAT and higher royalties, the production costs of ebooks more or less equal those of printed books.
    In all CEE countries, the preferred format for local ebook titles is EPUB , and most publishers use hard DRM, but with a growing skepticism as to its value, so watermarking is gaining in popularity.

Slovenia
    In the tiny Slovene publishing market, which is worth an estimated €80 to €100 million at consumer prices, according to the official statistics, more than 6,000 titles are released every year. However, recent research has shown that, out of these 6,000, only 3,500 to 4,500 titles are published for sale on the marketplace, while the rest are reports, directories, and self-published titles for both corporate and private use.
    Slovenians are remarkably strong readers and are used to reading books not only in their native language but also in English and, to a lesser degree, in German. In larger bookstores, English titles — which represent an estimated 15 percent of the Slovenian market — are not in separate foreign language sections but are seamlessly intermingled with domestic titles. Public libraries with more than 12 loans annually per inhabitant add to the ample reading diet of Slovenians.
    In 2013, two ebook distribution platforms, Biblos and e-Emka , appeared. Owned by fiction publisher Studentska zalozba, Biblos started as a library lending platform in cooperation with Slovene public libraries and quickly registered more than 7,000 ebook library users. In September 2013, Biblos started to offer users the opportunity to buy ebooks from the library platform if no copies for lending were available. Mladinska knjiga started to run its ebook store in July 2013 with 200 titles, including a majority of its bestselling authors.
    By the time this report was completed, it was clear that, in first nine months of 2013, sales of Slovene ebooks grew more than 300% in comparison to all of 2012 (when only Apple’s iBookstore was open for business), and the number of available ebook titles in Slovene has doubled. Nevertheless, ebook sales still represented less than 1% of the overall market, and only Mladinska knjiga and Studentska zalozba are systematically publishing their new releases as ebooks, together with print.
    The e-bestselling authors of 2012 and 2013 were Jonas Jonnason and Sylvia Day, and the Slovene publisher of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy decided against an ebook version of this title. Two heavy bestsellers of 2013, Dan Brown’s Inferno and Sylvia Day’s Entwined with You were published simultaneously in ebook and print formats. It can be assumed that, concerning reading devices, tablets and smartphones prevail.
    Ebooks are subject to the normal 22 percent VAT, while printed books benefit from a reduced rate of 8.5 percent. A legal deposit applies to all Slovene ebooks.
    Table 7-10. Slovenia
    Key Indicators
Values
Sources, comments
Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices)
€80 million in 2012
Estimates by Mladinska publishers
Titles published per year (new and successive editions)
5,621 (from 6,139 in 2010, of which around 3,500 are trade titles)
Estimates by Mladinska publishers
eBook titles (available from publishers)
1000
Estimates by Studentska zalozba and Mladinska publishers

Romania
    The Romanian book market saw a major downturn around 2008–2009, and since then, it has remained flat. Kiosk (or partwork) editions have also decreased in volume recently.
    An ebook segment only started to emerge in 2012, and for 2013, it is estimated that the market share will be above 1%. Approximately 65% of newly published fiction books are converted to eformat and put on sale as ebooks. According to industry estimates, only 10 to 12 trade publishing houses have started to release ebooks, including Polirom, Humanitas, and Litera. Currently, some 1,500 to 1,800 titles are available in digital format, mostly in EPUB. The leading ebook distributor is Elefant .
    Besides local