According to the NSO, the local publishing industry has seen a significant increase in book sales during the Covid pandemic. From 2020 to 2021 an increase of 16% in total gross book sales with imported books decreasing. And from 2019 to 2021, total gross book sales increased by 28%.
People in the industry have always seen the figures as inflated with the probability of double-counting going on in the NSO methodology, but the increase is the first ever significant increase in many years.
During this time I was executive chairman of the National Book Council and we ramped up significantly our marketing efforts. Back then I was also working on a new book sales survey with the NSO with an updated methodology and the questionnaire was sent during my headship. Today, we are still waiting for the results. We’ll wait and see.
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