Thursday, July 10, 2014

Book Publishing: a creative Kiwi industry with local and export markets

 PANZ

  
The Economic contribution of the New Zealand publishing industry study by PwC released today is the first to measure the size and scope of publisher activities.

As publishers know but statisticians often don’t, book industry revenue flows through many channels—export, libraries, etailers, schools, bookstores here and overseas, rights sales, co-editions and more,” says Sam Elworthy, Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) President.

“To get a solid sense of our industry requires some work and we’re thrilled to have the report. As publishers, it enables us to talk to government as an industry with real heft—employing people and producing GDP.” The survey shows publishing is an industry with total sales of $300 million, directly employing nearly 3,000 people in various roles.

The analysis used 2012 data, but Elworthy notes it covered just the start of the explosion of ebook sales in New Zealand so future growth will be noted in following surveys. “Educational publishing data was also captured more effectively than previous surveys. We expect continued growth there, and in export in particular.”

Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) commissioned the publishing survey alongside surveys of the same data for other creative sector activities including film, television and music.

“The critical objective from CLNZ’s perspective was to get comprehensive data as a starting point to be able to quantify the scale of the book publishing and other sectors,” says CLNZ ceo Paula Browning. “We need to be able to measure growth and to know where the disruption that is impacting the sectors is affecting us – both the good and the bad!”


Browning says the surveys will be repeated in 2015 with the support of CLNZ’s Cultural Fund.

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