Publishing Companies in Italy
Italy has a lively literary culture, and new publishing companies crop up every year. As of 2007, there were 2,901 publishing houses in Italy, employing nearly 38,000 people. The following are important facts about the houses of Italian literature.
Location
By far, Italian publishing houses are most heavily concentrated in Milan. It is here that you will find some of the biggest and most important companies, as well as most of the literary agencies. Besides Milan, some of the other important and highly concentrated cities for publishing are Rome, Bologna, Turin and Florence on the mainland, and Cagliari in Sardegna (Sardinia).
Retail Production and Volume
In 2007, over 61,000 individual titles were produced in Italy, and 268 million copies were printed. Similar to the trends witnessed in the United States, retail sales of trade books are increasingly happening in chain stores (nearly 30 percent of bookstores in Italy are chain stores), as well as large-scale retail outlets. Recently there has also been dramatic increase in online book selling. Among its high production of books are foreign books; Italy is an important country for translation, as nearly one in five books is of foreign origin.
Important Publishers
Many of the important Italian publishers have satellite bookstores around the country, increasing, in part, the sales in bookshop chains. Among these are Feltrinelli, Ricordi, Rizzoli and Einaudi (a subsidiary of Mondadori). Mondadori is the biggest publisher in Italy and has also become an important force in foreign publishing, particularly in Spain where its corporate headquarters are located. Mondadori's imprints include Giulio Einaudi Editore, Sperling & Kupfer Editori, Mondadori Electa and Mondadori Education; and it has partial ownership of Edizioni Piemme, Harlequin Mondadori, Edizioni Electa Bruno Mondadori, Edizioni EL, Grupo Editorial Random House Mondadori and Mach 2 Libri. DeAgostini is another successful publisher with roots in Italy and has now become an international publisher with editorial offices in 33 countries.
Italian Publishers in America
Though a few publishers have branched into the worldwide market, the Italian publishing company that seems to have had the most success in the United States is RCS Libri/Rizzoli. RCS Libri has become an important international publisher that bought the prestigious Flammarion in France in 2000, but its roots in the United States go back further to 1974. With a flagship store in Manhattan and an active acquisitions department in the United States, Rizzoli is one of the few Italian companies that has aggressively created an editorial department in New York. While Rizzoli's Italian imprints span the gamut of genres, the American version specializes in art, architecture and photography.
Publishing as Part of the European Union
The fact that publishers, like the Italians, have become intertwined with one other throughout the European Union is one of the many reasons why a European Federation of Editors was created. In Italy, the Italian Association of Editors (AIE) and the European Federation of Editors combined to protect book-trade interests throughout Europe. Most recently, and perhaps most crucially for publishing relations with the United States, is the class action Google Books settlement, in which European book publishers aim to keep books that are still in print in Europe from being searchable by Google's engines in the United States. The AIE along with the European Federation of Editors has been integral in proposing an alternative plan called ARROW to the Google Books settlement.
