Paper prices rose by 50 percent last year, and another 20 to 30 percent are expected in 2023.

How is your publisher dealing with the crisis?

Tobias Ruether

Editor in the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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The increase in paper and energy prices presents us with a major challenge, but it has no programmatic consequences.

The length of the individual books, I am traditional in this respect, determines the authors who write them.

We are definitely not cutting any programs; on the contrary, there are some areas where we would like to continue to grow.

We are trying to absorb the cost increases elsewhere.

“Make our books cheaper!” Kurt Tucholsky asked his publisher Ernst Rowohlt in 1932 – and the publisher later advertised the cheap rororo paperbacks with this slogan.

But our books have become up to 6 percent more expensive in the past year.

Is price increase the only way?

Publishers have responded to rising costs in the past and raised the prices of books.

All areas of life are becoming more expensive, and I am convinced that it is not primarily the price that decides whether someone uses a cultural offer or not, but the attractiveness of a book, concert or play.

Ultimately, it is now the task of the publishers to make the books and their authors visible, to bring them into conversation, to continue to arouse the desire to read - and then to determine the value of a book by its usefulness, by the need to read.

Sales collapse in retail.

Wouldn't it be high time for a concerted action by all those involved, big and small?

Times are difficult, but I don't see the situation that bleakly, on the contrary.

The book market is stable, especially in times of crisis.

The reading euphoria is still there, the Christmas business in Germany was already back at the previous year's level, and at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October you could clearly feel the enthusiasm within and outside the industry for the medium of books.

However, there are indeed worrying developments that have been emerging for many years and that we as an industry – trade, media and publishers – have to face together.

Reading must remain attractive as inspiration, pleasure and intellectual stimulation.

The question is whether an abstract concerted action would achieve this.

My approach is to continue to find the right framework for each individual book in order to pave the way for retailers, the media and the readers and to create the conditions for the greatest possible perception.

In the end, we will probably achieve more with this.