Ukraine's book market is going through one of the hardest episodes in the history of independent publishing. According to RBC-Ukraine, over the course of several months, enemy shelling and attacks on infrastructure have led to the destruction of nearly half of the country's annual book output. Publishers publicly acknowledge that the cost of printed editions will inevitably change, meaning readers should expect a review of prices. The scale of the losses and their economic consequences are described by the heads of publishing houses whose print runs burned in warehouses and offices.
Scale of the losses: nearly half of the annual print run
The key blow to the industry came on the night of August 28, when an attack destroyed book print runs belonging to at least three dozen Ukrainian publishers and bookstores at a Nova Poshta warehouse in Sviatopetrivske, Kyiv Oblast. Among those affected were Vivat, Nash Format, Rannok, A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga, Knihohlav, Laboratoriia, BookChef and others. According to rough estimates by the publishers themselves, total losses could reach 15 million copies. "Our books are with wholesale partners and retail chains, which are also suffering from Russian attacks. So we are receiving new information about losses almost every day," said Yulia Orlova, CEO and co-founder of Vivat.
Blow to textbooks and recovery timelines
In addition to fiction and non-fiction, school textbooks were also hit: according to estimates, around 9% of new textbooks for Ukrainian schools burned as a result of attacks on various cities. This creates an additional risk for the educational process. Viktor Kruhlov, general director of the Rannok publishing house, assesses the recovery horizon pessimistically: "It will take 3–5 years to return to previous working volumes… Most likely, it will not be possible to print all the titles." Thus, the industry faces not only direct financial losses but also a long-term contraction of its range.
Why book prices will inevitably rise
Publishers explain the economic mechanism behind the price rise simply: "The larger the print run, the lower the cost per copy," they note at Vivat. Because print runs are being forced to shrink and books must be distributed faster between stores and customers, the cost of a single book is rising. At Nash Format they acknowledge: "There are preconditions for further price increases. Printing, logistics, materials and electricity are all getting more expensive — and all of this directly affects the cost of a book." Last year alone, their books rose in price by an average of around 20%. At BookChef, editor-in-chief Evhen Shyroshon adds that logistics are also getting more expensive, since warehouses used to be centralized, whereas now each project is calculated individually, and the publishing house is trying to keep price increases to no more than 10–15% per year.
What comes next: forecasts and caveats
Publishing houses have not yet named the exact size of the future price increase: much, they say, will depend on the situation in winter and on the dynamics of prices for printing, materials and electricity. At Nash Format they emphasize that "we will certainly try not to pass all the additional costs on to the reader," while at BookChef they note that specific figures for each project are calculated separately. Meanwhile, some publishing houses are already looking for alternative warehouse capacity to resume shipments. For the reader, this means that in the coming months and years the printed book in Ukraine will most likely become more expensive, and the range will no longer be as complete as it was before the series of strikes on warehouse infrastructure.
