Book Policy - Book Market in Greece 2012-2015

The Greek government amended the Fixed Book Price Law in 2014, which had been in force since 1997 (Law 2557/1997), allowing discounts on all books with the exception of fiction and children’s books, whose retail price was kept under discount control (there can only a be discount of up to 10% for a maximum of two years, as long as the book is not republished). However, VAT was raised from 6.5% to 23% on all the intermediate stages of the publication of a book (including purchasing paper, book design and printing).

The National Book Centre of Greece (NBC, EKEBI in Greek) was a private non-profit legal entity established in 1994 by the Ministry of Culture to implement the national policy for promoting books. In 2014, the Ministry merged the operations of the NBC with those of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, although without the relative personnel (Law 4250 26/3/2014).

“Biblionet” books-in-print database, created in 1998, continues to offer free access to information in Greek on book titles published in Greece.

Intellectual rights sales are a healthy vehicle for Greek publishing, because of the small size of domestic consumption. To guarantee them, however, the language barrier must be overcome. This has partially been addressed by the creation of the country’s translations subsidy scheme (called Frasis in the 2012-2014 period). The Frasis Funding Program for the Translation of Greek Books was a program set up by the Ministry of Culture and the National Book Centre of Greece.  

Greek eBooks were launched in the trade market in 2010, following their rising success in the English-speaking countries. Their degree of penetration six years later, however, is less than 1% of the value of the market.