The National Library of Poland has issued its annual report on the publishing market in Poland
Since 1955, the National Library of Poland has published an annual report on books and periodicals that appear in Poland based on the legal deposits it receives. In 2021, the publishers sent 33,957 books to the National Library of Poland. This number was much greater than the year before, and similar to the results achieved in the last years before the pandemic. While in the first year of the pandemic, publishers, concerned about the uncertainty of the economic situation and the difficulties in cultural life, sharply reduced the number of publications, in the second year of the pandemic, they apparently did not see such a need anymore.
Publishing houses extensively turned to popular literature. As compared to the previous years, significantly more romance novels were published, and the number of crime and mystery books also increased considerably. A substantial increase in the number of comic books published in 2021 has also been seen. The pandemic did not impede the intensive development of this branch of the publishing market that has lasted for a decade.
However, it is worth emphasizing that it is not only the number of popular literature books that is increasing. Ambitious prose is also published more and more often: the number of such books has been growing since Olga Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize in 2019.
Among the books that the publishers were particularly willing to publish in 2021, apart from literary fiction, we can find essays, non-fiction books and guidebooks.
Moreover, the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic abounded in books about the pandemic itself. They include very different publications: scientific and trade publications, autobiographies, reportage and essay books, as well as novels, poems and books for children.