Ukrainian Book Institute

Is your publishing house currently able to operate?

Yes – 74% (191)

No – 11% (28)

Partially – 15% (39)

Do you need help with saving your layouts, archives and other objects of copyright of your publishing house?

Yes – 3.5% (9)

No – 89.5% (159)

No information about the state of the layouts – 7% (18)

The Ukrainian Book Institute has conducted another poll among Ukrainian publishers to find out whether they have adjusted to work conditions during the martial law, as well as to reveal the most urgent needs. A total of 258 publishers took part in the poll and could be reached in spite of the difficulties under the martial law. Meanwhile, 42 more publishers could not be contacted.

As of now, 191 publishing houses (or 74% of the polled publishers) are able to operate, which is a 42% increase, compared to the first round of this poll conducted by the UBI and published on May 6. Currently, a total of 28 polled publishers (or 11%, compared to 39% as of 6 May 2022) are not able to operate for various reasons; 39 (or 15%, compared to 29% as of 6 May 2022) of Ukrainian publishers are able to operate partially, in certain areas, in particular editing, translations, layout design, work with authors, page layout, informational projects, book sales, etc.

Employees of 228 publishing houses (or 88.4%) are safe, while employees of 30 (or 11.6%) publishing houses are not safe (have not left the combat zones or are fighting on the frontline). Indicators of this bloc have slightly changed in a positive direction, as 81% and 19% respectively were reported in May.

"In order to understand the situation of the Ukrainian publishers and how the war has impacted them, we have conducted the poll among the largest ones. Comparing data of the two rounds of the poll, we have concluded that more publishers have been able to renew their work. While two months ago, when we published the first results of this poll, there were only 32% of them, as of now, 74% of the polled publishers proceed with their activities. Being constantly in touch with Ukrainian publishers, we do realize the price of their adjustment to new circumstances, but we also believe in the contribution of the publishing industry to the fight against the Russian aggression on the frontline,” says Tetiana Popova, head of the UBI’s libraries and book publishing support department, who has coordinated the poll.

As of now, a total of 225 (or over 87.2%) of the polled publishers have preserved their publishing capacity. 9 publishing houses (or 3.5%) have lost all of their capacities, 12 (or 4.65%) have lost 50% of their capacities, and 12 (or 4.65%) do not have information about the preservation of their capacities. During the last two months, the number of the publishing houses able to preserve their capacities has slightly increased.

Not all of the publishers were able to save layouts of their books, archives and other objects of copyright with the help of supplementary resources. 9 of the polled publishers (or 3.5%), including large Ukrainian publishing houses still need help in this area. 18 more publishers (or almost 7%) do not know anything about the state of their valuable information on electronic resources. Other polled publishers, namely 231 (or 89.5%) reported having saved layouts, archives and objects of copyright on their own. Indicators of this bloc have not considerably changed during the last two months.

Let us remind you that you can find more results of the previous round of the poll here.

Upd: The UBI should point out that the work of Ukrainian publishers is currently undermined by the full-scale war underway and is far from being in full operation of the pre-February 24 level. In spite of that, the results of our research show that more publishers have found a way to come back to work.

Reference:

The Ukrainian Book Institute is a government entity, part of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Its mission is to shape state policy in the area of book publishing, promote book reading in Ukraine, support book industry, provide incentives for translations and popularize Ukrainian literature abroad. More about the UBI’s activity during the war here.

Additional information: [email protected].