Hello everyone,

My name is Paul and I am a student from Germany. I'm currently writing my Master's thesis about E-Publishing and one part is about the Polish E-Publishing Market. Unfortunately I dont speak any Polish. Can anyone pls help me to find documents and studies about the current E-Publishing Market in Poland?

I need infos like:
- How large is the market?
- Who are the main competitors?
- How is the User acceptance?
- Forecasts for the coming years
- ...

Any information would be helpful, but I especially need reliable sources like reknown companies or Governmental Institutions... And preferrably in English, but Polish should also be ok (thanks to Google Translator).

Thanks a lot for your help and time!

You will have a hard time wrinting that part. AFAIK there in no cental database counting the numbers in this area. One of the best places that might be useful is versita's blog. Sometimes they do publish some estimations, like here: http://literalubicyfre.pl/2011/10/20/dl ... st-polska/
But this has nothing to do with government nor scientifical approach.

Thanks, t3d.

I am already having a hard time with that, unfortunately.

And what about the Publishing Industry in general (not specifically Electronic)? Do you think there is more info on that? And if yes, where can I find this kind of info?

Thanks!

I'm afraid there aren't many studies about eBooks here - it's still a new topic in Poland and companies are still trying to figure it out. I remember Nexto doing some research, but can't find the source. Legimi did some study (you can read the report here: http://kultura.wp.pl/title,Kim-sa-e-czytelnicy,wid,13879988,wiadomosc.html), but you have to take into account that their data came from their own application (so, it's only from Legimi's Android and Onyx Boox users) and does not represent the whole market.

We've got about 2-5k commercial publications, mostly in PDF and ePUB format. Majority of them are DRMed with ADEPT (DRM from Adobe). Recently we've observed the rise of eBooks protected only with watermarks - it's the only security measure used at Bookoteka, some watermarked eBooks are also sold at Gandalf. Virtualo recently introduced watermark system, but haven't yet applied it to any books I think.

While Kindle seems to be very popular in Poland, we haven't got many stores with MOBI books - they've just arrived at Virtualo (and still there are no commercial works in MOBI0 and in some self-pubs (like RW2010).

There are quite a lot free (public domain) works. We've got Federacja Bibliotek Cyfrowych, which is an association of digital libraries in Poland (and it's claiming to have nearly 800k eBooks indexed). There is albo Polska Biblioteka Cyfrowa, which is government-funded and owned (AFAIR).

The main competitors would be Virtualo and Nexto, others being smaller ones (like Bookoteka, Gandalf, Legimi or Zixo). PWN is probably going to be an interesting player, owning Azymut (and already working iBuk.pl).

We've got a number of self-publishing bookstores (like RW2010 or Wydaje.pl), but it seems that self-pub is still percieved as a domain of graphomaniacs and not "real" writers (and therefore people are afraid to try self-pubs and won't spend much money on them). Due to being low-cost companies, if any security measure is used - it's watermarks.

Forecasts? Well, we'll be probably seeing some transition in how our eReader distributors operate. There are too little customers here to make a fair profit on simply selling the devices - so they'll be forced to work with content distributors. Because of the price of Kindle, devices will probably have to be cheaper. With more and more tablets and smartphones being bought each year we'll be seeing some reading on them (especially magazines due to them being full-color). It seems that DRM will be less and less popular (again - thanks to Kindle, which only supports it's own DRM system).


As for the publishing industry in general - there should be some studies. There is "Rynek książki w Polsce" by Biblioteka Analiz, issued yearly, although it costs quite a bit.

I've written a bachelor degree about "Development prospects of polish e-book market". Tough it's about hundred pages to translate. I can do it for you, it won't be a problem, but it will take some time.
My non-polish sources are "Long Tail" by Ch. Anderson and http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/ ... an_fre.php All other are from Poland and written in polish. When it comes to reliable sources: there are nearly no one. National Library publishes report about reading in Poland, but there is no single word about e-books.
I made my own research, so I can email you results (your decision if I am a "reliable source. 8-])