The annual Tehran Book Fair is the country's most important event in the book field and, essentially, in culture. The latest edition of this fair hosted more than 3 thousand exhibitors including 210 booksellers, 100 foreign publishers and 2,700 domestic publishers in the in-person and virtual sections.
In this piece we will take a statistical look at the books offered at this fair and examine the bestsellers of the 34th Book Fair. Given that the report of the book fair's virtual section has been presented in compiled form by Iran Book House (Khane-ye Ketab), the figures announced also mostly relate to this section, which can almost be generalized to the fair's in-person section as well.
Total book fair sales; is in-person sales greater, or virtual?
At this edition of the Tehran International Book Fair, total net sales in the physical and virtual sections were more than 401 billion tomans, of which 62.6 percent (251 billion tomans) related to the in-person section and 37.4 percent (150 billion tomans) related to the virtual section.
The average price of products offered was 163 thousand tomans and the average price of products sold was 123 thousand tomans. In other words, the average value of products offered was 40 thousand tomans more than the value of products purchased. Although analyzing these figures requires examining further details, in general it can be said that the rise in book prices and the decline in purchasing power have led to creating a gap of 40 thousand tomans between the average offer price and purchase price, and audiences have obtained cheaper books.
The bestselling types of books at the book fair
The announced statistics show that 61.2 percent of the books sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair were original works. Also, 38.1 percent of the books sold were translations and about 0.7 percent related to other sections (undefined).
Figure 1- Books sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair by type (translation or original)
The classification of books sold also shows that of the total 1,369,724 copies of books sold in the fair's virtual section, 72.1 percent were in the general category, 18.4 percent in the children's category, 6.3 percent in the educational category and 3.2 percent in the supplementary-educational, children's supplementary-educational and other categories.
Table 1- Overall classification of books sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling provinces at the fair
Studies show that more than 93 percent of the number of books sold related to sellers (publishers and bookstores) of the provinces of Tehran, Qom, Khorasan Razavi, Isfahan and Gilan. The share of sellers of the other 26 provinces of the books sold is less than 7 percent.
Table 2- Sales of the top 10 provinces by number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The next statistic relates to the ratio of the number of book buyers to the province's population. This statistic shows the people of which provinces, in order, attach greater importance to buying and reading books. On this basis the provinces of Qom, Tehran and Semnan, with respectively 0.78, 0.44 and 0.33 percent, are in first to third place. The provinces of Yazd, Isfahan, South Khorasan, Zanjan, Alborz, Markazi and Qazvin have also taken ranks four through ten in this classification.
Table 3- Purchases of the top 10 provinces based on the ratio of the number of buyers to the province's population in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling subject groups at the 34th Book Fair
Available statistics on the amount of sales in subject groups show that the subject groups children and young adult, literature, religion, social sciences and supplementary educational (and educational), with respectively 18.4, 15.5, 13.6, 12.9 and 8.8 percent of book copies sold, have taken first through fifth place.
Also in this classification, books related to the subject areas of general knowledge and sports, with respectively 0.5 and 0.3 percent of book copies sold, are in the lowest rank.
Table 4- Sales in subject groups by number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling books at the book fair
In this section we will look at the bestselling books of the virtual section of the 34th Tehran International Book Fair. Based on the announced statistics, "The Midnight Library" with 2,353 copies accounted for the highest number of sales in this section.
"Maharat-haye Zendegi", "Setareha Chidani Nistand; drawn from the life of an American girl", "Khatoon va Qomandan; an account of the life of Umm al-Banin Hosseini, wife of the martyr Alireza Tavassoli (Abu Hamed), commander of the Fatemiyoun Division", with respectively 2,211, 2,095 and 2,018 copies, are other books that have achieved sales of more than 2,000 copies in the virtual section of the 34th Tehran International Book Fair.
Table 5- The ten bestselling books by number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling creators
The bestselling creators in the principal roles (author, poet, translator, rewriter) are Mohsen Abbasi Valadi, Mehdi Mirkiaei, Ali Safaei Haeri, Master Morteza Motahhari and the Supreme Leader, with respectively 8,811, 7,581, 5,715, 5,347 and 5,155, each of whom has been able to achieve sales of more than 5,000 copies in the virtual section of the 34th Tehran International Book Fair.
Table 6- The ten bestselling creators in the principal roles (author, poet, translator, rewriter) by number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling publishers
In this section we have examined the bestselling publishers of the fair's virtual section. On this basis Qadyani Publications with 30,676 copies, Daftar-e Nashr-e Maaref (affiliated with the Institution of the Supreme Leader's Representation in the University) with 27,687 copies, Sureh Mehr with 25,395 copies, Nashr-e Cheshmeh with 17,227 copies and Ketab-e Arjmand with 16,561 copies are the five top publishers in terms of the number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Tehran Book Fair.
Table 7- The ten bestselling publishers based on the number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
The bestselling bookstores
The bestselling bookstores of the fair's virtual section in the 34th have been able to achieve five-digit sales figures in terms of the number of book copies sold. On this basis the bookstores Donyaye Ketab-e Qom and Payam-e Edalat, with respectively 14,883 and 13,256 copies of books sold, have taken first and second rank among the bestselling bookstores in the virtual section.
Table 8- The ten bestselling bookstores based on the number of copies sold in the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair
Final word
This piece has been compiled with the aim of providing a statistical look at the works offered and the bestsellers of the 34th Tehran International Book Fair. The announced statistics show that total net sales in this fair's physical and virtual sections were more than 401 billion tomans, and sales of original books are still more than translated books and other books. In subject groups, the children and young adult group has led sales, and the book "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig has been the bestselling book of the virtual section of the 34th Book Fair.
A statistical comparison with the previous edition shows that rial sales of the Tehran Book Fair in the 34th edition increased by about 60 percent relative to the previous edition and rose from 250 to 401 billion tomans; whereas the number of copies sold increased by only 14 percent and rose from about 3 million copies to 3.5 million copies.
The statistics presented about the amount of sales and visits to this fair indicate acceptable reception by audiences. Given that this reception has also been accompanied by a rise in book prices, it indicates people's interest and inclination toward the book field. For this reason, if Iran's publishing industry can operate more agilely and more strongly than in the past and respond to society's needs, there is ground for greater and continuous reception of books in society.
Machine-translated from Persian by Namafar; the Persian original is authoritative. Read the original in Persian