Tomorrow, the Belgrade International Book Fair begins under the slogan "The Return of the Written", which indicates the break between this and the previous manifestation caused by the corona virus pandemic.
Bora Babić, director and editor-in-chief of the publishing house "Akademska knjiga" from Novi Sad, specifies that "almost 36 months have passed since the closing of the previous Fair. It is a long period of time in which we have experienced a pandemic, the war in Ukraine has been raging for almost nine months, we are constantly hearing threats of world and nuclear war, and inflation is tightening the ring around the budget of each of our citizens. In such an atmosphere, publishers can hardly be optimistic and expect a large visit to the Book Fair and good earnings."
He specifies that "the largest part of the income from the sale of books will go towards paying the rental costs and equipping the stands", and recalls the "excellent example of the German Ministry of Culture and Media, which through the program Restart Culture (founded in 2020 to strengthen the book and publishing industry and support the holding of book fairs) and this year subsidized publishers with 30% of the cost of renting stands at the just-concluded Frankfurt Book Fair."
He says that it would be good if "Serbia follows the example of Germany and finds mechanisms to support publishers in this difficult and unstable time."
"Book printing costs have increased by 100% compared to 2019 because the prices of paper and other raw materials have increased significantly. Fortunately, the Academic Book was able to increase production. We are coming to the fair with 52 new titles, and by the end of the year we will publish over 60."
There are data showing that social science and humanities books were not read, and yet, the Academic Book does not give up such editions. "Numerous titles do not bring any profit, but we publish them because we are aware of how important they are for the development of society and the creation of critical thinking. In all European countries, non-profit publications in the field of social sciences and humanities are supported by various state funds. In Serbia, a very small number of titles, compared to the total annual production, are financed with the support of the state. Our society is occupied with numerous problems, so culture and education are not in focus."
This year's Book Fair begins in the background of the story about the delay of the Ministry of Culture to buy books from publishers for libraries, that is, about the results of that competition. One of the objections to the commission's decision was that the residents of Novi Sad received a larger part of the budget than the residents of Belgrade.
"It is not good to divide publishers into those from Novi Sad and Belgrade, from Vojvodina and Serbians." First of all, every publisher has a program by which it is recognizable to the cultural public. We must reduce each irregularity, if there were any, to a specific case and approach it that way. I hope that all associations will do the same," says Bora Babić.
He also reminds that "last year, the Commission for Redemption did not list 17 titles of Academic Books, and those were monographic works published for the first time by domestic and foreign authors, as if they were the biggest swindle." And we are talking about very important works in which we have invested a lot of money. Those books will never reach the libraries again because they have modest funds for acquiring books."
Bora Babić believes that "two funds should be formed for the purchase of books: a significantly larger one for the purchase of books published for the first time, and the second, significantly smaller one, for the purchase of reprint editions." If first editions dominated the purchase, publishers would be stimulated to invest in new valuable editions in the following years as well. Otherwise, old editions will only be reprinted, and that is not good for the culture of a country."
Although there is a possibility that, due to procedural reasons, the Ministry of Culture will not be able to pay the publishers the money for the purchased books by the end of the year, Boba Babić hopes "that it will not come to that, because it is not logical." It would be a precedent for the Ministry of Culture to work to the detriment of publishers, libraries, readers and authors."
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