What's going on in the Russian fiction market

First there will be my subjective part, a little history, my vision of the market and its problems. Then the survey results and conclusions from them. And at the end, a couple of wishes and suggestions to participants in the book market.

History and hypotheses

There was no book market in the Soviet Union. Just like the market in general. Then the nineties came, the market began to boil and seethe, but it had no laws. There was also no concept of copyright. More precisely, there was a concept, but its mention only caused laughter. The book market lived on the illegal printing of low-quality translations of foreign literature.

By the end of the nineties the situation began to improve.

Official publishing houses were formed, and they began to publish Russian authors. Internet was still rationed and not everyone had it. Books by even new authors were published in editions of 15-20 thousand copies, which provided some kind of royalties. With a long-term contract with a publishing house, the writer could look into the future with relative confidence and create.

By the end of the 2000s, the calm ended and everything began to change rapidly. Now everyone had the Internet. In 2007, the first iPhone appeared, and other smartphones followed. In 2009, the Flibust website was launched, and along with it, other pirate libraries flooded the Internet. As soon as a paper book entered the market, it was scanned the same day and posted online.

Litres was launched in 2005, but the offer to pay for electronic products only caused a smile from most people. And it wasn’t so easy to pay. Payment systems remained far from modern convenience. Buying something on the Internet remained the province of geeks.

The circulation of works began to fall rapidly. By 2015, the average circulation for an unpromoted author was five or even three thousand copies. It was no longer possible to talk about any noticeable fees. Many writers became disheartened and began to look for other ways to make money. It has become very difficult to write high-quality works in such conditions.

During the same period, digital samizdat began to develop. In 2001, the Samizdat website was launched, but the idea of asking samizdat readers for money was still a long way off.

It took about ten years for the market to adjust to the new reality and stabilize. Control over copyright compliance has become more stringent, pirated resources have begun to be blocked, and some of them have even begun to independently block access to works at the request of copyright holders. Along with this, payment systems also developed; paying for a purchase on the Internet has become no more difficult than paying with a card in a regular store.

Changes have also occurred in people's minds. Of course, there is no talk of a complete voluntary renunciation of pirated content, and it is unlikely to ever happen. However, buying such content no longer seems stupid to people; people pay for games, movies and books. Currently, the most popular e-book store is in first place in terms of traffic among Russian sites in the “Electronic commerce and shopping” category and in 140th among all Runet sites.

In the mid-1990s, platforms began to appear where authors could make money on their own from their works. In 2015, Litnet was launched, in 2016, Author.Today, and others emerged that did not become so popular.

And this is what we have come to now.

Publishing on paper has ceased to be a necessary condition for becoming a writer and earning an income. The paper pleases the ego rather than brings anything. Many authors do not even try to contact publishers, considering it more profitable for themselves to release their work exclusively on electronic platforms.

At the same time, the publishing filter that prevented completely outright graphomania from entering the market disappeared. And publishing editing disappeared; now only the author is responsible for the quality of the text.

Promotion also became the responsibility of the author. It’s not enough to write text; you also need to be active on social networks and engage in marketing.

In total, all this increases the diversity of works. If previously unformatted works could not reach the reader at all, now they have a chance. But we remember that Tolkien’s novels were also considered unformat for many years, and publishers refused to print them.

And at the same time, a huge number of works appear at the level of school essays. However, they also find their readers.

Of course, publishing houses have not disappeared, and the old way still exists. Basically, they publish those who have already promoted themselves, but it is still possible to get to them by simply sending a manuscript. Even though it's difficult. However, it was never easy.

Let's move from abstract reasoning to real data.

Study

I would like to start not with surveys, but with an assessment of the number of reading people in Russia. Nowadays it is common to say that people have stopped reading books. Even the state allocates some money to popularize reading. Is it true that people don’t read much in Russia now?

Attendance at Litres is twenty-six million people per month. Most of them are from Russia. The population of Russia in 2024 is about 146 million. It is clear that both figures are very conditional, although you can focus on them

Let's add here the traffic of other literary resources.

Let's look at the number of application downloads on Google Play.

Liters – 500k,
Liters audiobooks – 5 million,
Livelib – 500k,
Bookmate – 1 million,
Litnet – 1 million,
Authortoday – 100k.

It can be concluded that a significant proportion of the country's population reads books. And he even pays for them, and not just downloads pirated ones.

Now the poll results. The numbers and graphs themselves will be given at the end of the article so as not to complicate the reading.

Readers

People of all ages read.
Almost everyone reads electronically. But 70% of respondents also buy paper books.
They pay for e-books.
Unpublished books on paper on sites like Litnet and AuthorToday are read by 45% of respondents.
Almost no one uses city libraries anymore. Only 10% answered that they buy books there.
Although before there were such people in the majority.

In general, readers do not feel any crisis in the field of fiction.
Although 23% feel that finding interesting books has become more difficult over the past 10-20 years.
40% of respondents have difficulty finding interesting books.
At the same time, they actively use various resources and recommendations.
Views on how the quality of works has changed with the transition to the Internet are divided among readers. 40% believe that the level has fallen, 25% believe that it has become higher, 30% did not notice any changes at all.

Interestingly, almost half of the respondents tried to write themselves. Some even sent it to a publishing house and made money from their texts online.
At the same time, only 32% of respondents among readers believe that finding a publisher in the modern world has become more difficult.

Writers

Most of the respondents were writers from the new generation, who began writing in the era of the Internet and e-books.
According to the survey, the institution of literary agents does not exist as a class.

Although acquaintances from publishing houses claim that there are literary agents and their associations in Russia. It’s just that the scale of this phenomenon is quite modest, much less than in Europe.

Long-term contracts are also not very common, and only 30% of respondents have them.
Only 30% of authors feel that the income from writing is enough for them to live a comfortable life. Moreover, only two of those who answered this question positively have a long-term contract with the publishing house.
65% of respondents were faced with the fact that with the transition of literature to the Internet, paper circulation began to fall. This became noticeable between 2005 and 2010.
Almost all respondents receive income from the sale of their e-books.
At the same time, almost everyone published electronic versions of their works themselves; only in a few cases did the publisher do this
30% of respondents believe that sites illegally sell their e-books. Three of the respondents believe that their books are being sold illegally on the most popular book selling platform.

I'll add this on my own behalf. I really wonder who is behind this situation. Judging by the traffic statistics, the platform should have enough honest income not to take such legal risks. The publishing house may also be behind the illegal sales – they posted the books on their own behalf, but the author was not notified and did not pay royalties. Or some person posted books on behalf of the author. However, maybe it really is the platform itself. If so, it really upsets me.

A journalist I know advised those who are faced with such a situation to contact the Russian Authors Society. Perhaps they can take charge of resolving this conflict.

Absolutely all respondents claim that their works are available on pirated resources. Apparently, all efforts to combat piracy have not been crowned with any success.

However, if we return to the survey of readers, we can see that people’s awareness has increased significantly, and they buy books, even having the opportunity to download them for free. Perhaps there is no longer such a great need for a legal fight against piracy.

Among the author respondents, 55% have a negative attitude towards piracy, the rest are neutral. At the same time, 36% admit that they themselves read books from pirated resources.
Writers are more unanimous in assessing changes in the quality of literature than readers. 60% believe that the level has fallen, 30% – that it has not changed.
All writers are also avid readers; read both paper and electronic books; 50% have difficulty finding books.

Long answer questions for writers.

The answers are given without editing, with the author's spelling and punctuation.

What is missing in the Russian book industry?

Competent writers and normal editors. Texts should be checked for plot holes and illogical narratives.
Variety of genres
Publishers who are not afraid to entrust their book
Publisher support for unknown authors
Promotions
Books without the dominance of harshness, blood, violence, fake love

Was it difficult to find a publisher for your first work? Tell us how it was.

I do not consider publishing houses because I am not satisfied with the process and terms of cooperation that they offer.
My stories were read by people related to the publishing house
Various publishers applied on their own, but the first 3 times they did not reach an agreement for various reasons. 2 books in paper will be published in 2023, I don’t plan any more
The publisher found me through competition entries. I guess they are “hunting” all more or less high-quality books by beginners. It’s easy to find a publisher, the main thing is to understand WHAT you are writing, FOR WHOM and WHY. Wonderful authors who create novels about the last century, but at the same time have never read or wanted to read anything like this, wonderful comrades who dump their autobiography into SI, and geniuses of the pen who write romance novels, but are embarrassed by kissing scenes, replacing them with scientific ones discussions about rocket science will not find a publisher. This all applies to non-format. A non-format is a work that itself has not decided why it exists. And even if it is written in competent Russian, this does not increase its value.
I didn’t look for any publishers, why do I need them? Electronic is more profitable.
Easy but disappointing
It’s not possible yet, publishers are now looking at subscribers on social networks and weeding out non-blogger writers with a small audience
Completely independently and for a long time

What should a young author do now? How to contact a publisher? Do you need a publisher?

You need a publisher, but it can be very difficult to reach one. You have to rely on luck (competitions, meetings with publishers at conferences) or pay for pitches. The chances of getting into a publishing house by gravity are slim. To even have a chance, you need to be able to write a cover letter and synopsis in the correct format that is convenient for the publisher, and this information has to be fished out through the channels and chats of writers and editors, and sometimes the requirements of some editors contradict the requirements of others.
Not really needed
Go to samizdat and download social networks. First the audience, and then sales.
No, paper only amuses one’s vanity)). E-mail is more stable and brings in better income than most authors I know.
Write more, they will find it themselves
Needed. But it's hard to find
Depends on the genre and goals. If you write children's fairy tales, obviously, you have nothing to do in C (children do not read electronic messages, it is harmful to their eyesight). If you write modern romance novels or science fiction, then paper will bring you three kopecks, but electronics will allow you to live in peace and do what you love. If you need a publisher, get ready to knock on the doorstep of a large holding company that publishes literature similar to yours. If this is not the case, by the way, then it is not you who is an innovator, but your book has problems with self-determination, or you have written something completely wrong. If your genre is comfortable in C, work there. In any case, a young author must be prepared for long and hard work. If some idiot told him that being a writer was easy… Well, sorry to disappoint. In the modern world, a writer must have the skills of an editor, proofreader, illustrator, marketer (at least basic), be able to copywriting and promote his own work, communicate with bloggers and develop his media image in every possible way, you can also immediately prepare to invest well in this way (starting budget for e-mail now it will be from 10k and above, on paper you will have to pay more than 50k – boxes, postcards, posts, joint readings, rosya). A young writer will now have to work from three months to several years before making his first income. Neither the literary agent nor the publisher will lift a finger to help you. The author himself must constantly move around, find out information, and appear at events. In general, the path is thorny and long, but what you love is worth it. Good luck!
no, they find it themselves
Don’t fool yourself with publishers and go to Litnet or AT.
Needed. I don't know how to get out. I would like to know)
It's better to unwind yourself first
Only try to get published through open calls and contests
Himself is the best publisher

Conclusions based on the survey results.

In general, the survey results correspond to my vision described at the beginning of the article. However, there are a few nuances that caught my attention.

Among the reader respondents, only 45% read books that have not been published on paper. At the same time, there are still people who use the Internet less actively and were not included in the sample. That is, among all readers, such books reach only 30% of the audience.

While many authors refuse to publish on paper on principle. It turns out that most works do not reach the majority of readers.

It is likely that this balance will shift in the future.

The line between writers and readers is blurring. Many people write and publish their works, although they do not consider themselves writers. Moreover, among those who responded to the survey for writers, there were those who had never been published and did not make money from their works. I can only assume that such self-determination depends on how significant his creativity is for a person.
Mostly people don't feel any crisis in fiction. This feeling turned out to be my subjective one. Although many people notice that the quality of the works has become lower.
Many people have problems finding books. This makes me extremely happy. So, it’s not in vain that we are making our application.
Authors are forced to be bloggers. This likely affects the selection of works that reach the reader.

Offers to the market

I don’t know who these proposals are aimed at. Perhaps, over time, our own application will be promoted, and we will have the resources to implement these proposals ourselves.

Everyone should mind their own business. A writer – to write, a publisher – to publish, a marketer – to sell. It’s great that now a writer can do all this on his own. But what about those who cannot? I would really like to read not only the works of blogger writers, but also those who sit for ten years on their secluded lighthouse in the middle of the ocean and painstakingly write something epoch-making, without communicating with people at all. It seems to me that literary agents could save the situation. I would really like to see this institute actively develop.
Let's resurrect offline libraries. Libraries are wonderful. I am sure that people will be happy to take books from them. If a service that corresponds to modern realities appears. In recent years, a lot of money has been allocated to modernize libraries, and they have been rebuilt into co-working spaces. It's better than nothing, but I personally would like to preserve the libraries.

I see it should work like this. I want to read a book. I go to the website/app of Russian libraries, select a city, enter the name of the book, and get a list of libraries that have it. I click the “Order” button. Then the book is delivered to me, or I pick it up in person. You don't need a library card; a small deposit is enough. If the book is not returned on time, the cost is automatically debited from the deposit.

This concept is so convenient and relevant that state participation is not necessary for its implementation. Such libraries can easily exist within commercial companies.

And of course, you need a good recommendation system. Which will be able to find good books from among those not published on paper, and offer them to those who are not used to reading such books. And in general, help with finding books.

We can handle this task. Our application “What to read?” Already at the testing stage and will soon be released into beta access.

In the meantime, subscribe to our channel and follow the project news.

Thank you for your attention!

And many thanks to those who took part in the surveys.