- Although government purchases registered a decrease of 0.67% from 2006, the government remained the largest buyer of books in the country, with investments of $726.8 million, or approximately 24% of total sales in the sector, the market bought more books in 2007, showing that consumption of books by the general population also grew. Sales for the market totaled U.S. $2286 billion – an increase of 6.41% in the previous year.

- There was a small drop of 2.3% in the number of titles published in 2007. over the previous year with a total of 45,092 titles published against 46,025 in 2006. A noticable increase came in the religious books sector, where 27.98% more titles were published in 2007 than in 2006.

- In 2007, Portugues language editions were well above that of translated books. Of the 45,092 titles published last year, 39,506 were from Brazilian authors, 5586 amongst foreigners. Regarding the number of titles, there was a drop in both local authors (-1.71%) as of translated books (-4.18%) in comparison 2007-2006.

A huge thank you to everybody at the 22^nd Florianopolis Book Fair where we conducted a number of interesting interviews with not just members of the public but also editors and organisers of the book fair. Having previously posted about the culture of book purchasing, reading and the Brazilian market, the book fair offered an ideal opportunity to explore some issues around the role of the book and of reading in everyday life. We’ll be posting more material shortly in both English and Portugues but to start with here is a quick clip with a consumer discussing the role of the bookshop. He wasn’t alone in highlighting the often exclusive nature of the book purchasing environment and the fact that the market for buying books seems to lag behind the entertainment culture in which it competes.

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