Factbook

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Publishing

76,000 new books published in Japan every year

[UPDATED: 2-12-2018]

Around 76,000 new books are published in Japan every year. This compares to 470,000 in China, 340,000 in the United States and 170,000 in the United Kingdom, the top three nations, according to the International Publishers Association (IPA).

Japan is ranked 8th behind Russia, France, Germany and Brazil in terms of the number of new titles published annually.

There are about 1 million books in print in Japan. The number of new titles published each year in Japan is relatively stable, but overall sales of books is falling.

When measured on a per capita basis Japan, according to IPA analysis, is ranked 20th in terms of new books or new editions published per million inhabitants.

76,000 new books published in Japan every year Posted March 22nd, 2017 by Richard Nathan

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Factbook

76,000 new books published in Japan every year

New international standards for measuring time, weights and measures encouraged some to call for Japan to adopt a Westernised writing system abandoning traditional alphabets[UPDATED: 7-7-2023]

In 1841 Shakespeare’s name appeared in print in Japan in Japanese for the first time[UPDATED: 6-14-2023]

Japan experts, Japanologists, commentators, as well as visitors to Japan, have been deriding each other’s ‘Knowledge’ of the nation for over a century[UPDATED: 5-10-2023]

By 1905 Japanese people were already buying the ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’ on subscription and their prompt payment was used to highlight the trustworthiness of the nation[UPDATED: 4-3-2023]

By the early 1900s so many books had been published ‘Explaining Japan’ that one author felt compelled to write a book summarising them[UPDATED: 3-22-2023]

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