the school and university book market | Italy

1.1 Definition and scope of study

A textbook is a particular book used for educational purposes within schools and universities. Thus, textbook publishing refers to a segment of the publishing industry, consisting of all textbook publications.

The global textbook market is growing, due to rising book prices. However, McKinsey shows how Americans' spending on new books is decreasing, in favour of rental books (-8% from 2012 to 2018).

This market in Italy is worth almost a third of the three billion of the overall publishing sector, according to data published by the Italian Publishers Association (Aie) at the end of last year. The school textbook sector today is mainly controlled by four groups: De Agostini, Mondadori, Pearson Italia and Zanichelli.

In recent years, the textbook market has evolved significantly from a product that was exclusively paper-based two decades ago, to one that now includes e-books, homework solutions and digital course tools under the umbrella term "textbooks."

The market segment is facing several threats, consisting of used bookstores and online resale marketplaces offering textbooks at steep discounts that are attractive to students, but are also a big competitor to textbook publishers that rely on new book sales. Recently, a new type of player has emerged, the textbook rental reseller. While this change has benefited publishers so far, it could significantly threaten their market share over the next three years.