The bleak scenario of book publishing in Brazil

With an increasing number of college students and the lowest illiteracy rates ever, book sales should be on the rise in Brazil. In reality, they’re not. Instead, book publishers have lost revenue over the last four years, according to a paper published this week by Brazil’s Economic Research Foundation (Fipe).

Book sales peaked in 2013, with nearly 480 million copies sold both to individual readers and the government (the bulk of the latter being schoolbooks). In 2018, only 352 million books were sold, just 20 million copies more than in 2009 and a 25-percent drop from the peak.

Brazil’s book-buying curve is bimodal—in other words, it has two peaks. The first crest comes in the mid-1990s, when the creation of the Brazilian Real ended hyperinflation and made it easier for families to plan ahead and...