Yearly in Poland we ritualistically lament the nation’s low-level readership, however we’re but to see the state take any significant motion. What are the results of this lack of regulation, when readership is clearly not vital sufficient for the state to create circumstances that will assist each publishing homes and feminine writers – typically undervalued – to develop?
Debates in regards to the guide market, feminine authors’ pay, and the challenges dealing with publishing homes have been happening for years. The thought of setting an ordinary value for books was mentioned as early as 2007, then later revived in 2021 when author Andrzej Sapkowski sued the pc video games firm CD Projekt for PLN 60 million (€14 million) after its adaptation of his Witcher novels proved extra profitable than he had anticipated. This adopted an earlier dialogue about novelist Kaja Malanowska’s earnings. Every of those debates was adopted by silence. They introduced no change.
This time the silence was damaged by Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak, creator of Chłopki (Peasant Ladies) and Służące do wszystkiego (Servants for Every part), who introduced on Instagram that the courts are to settle the dispute she has been combating together with her writer, Marginesy, since August 2024. Regardless of being revealed in 2023, Chłopki stays certainly one of Kuciel-Frydryszak’s bestselling books in Poland.
It’s not clear how a lot cash she has created from the guide, however preliminary estimates put the determine at PLN 900,000 (€212,000). Kuciel-Frydryszak herself emphasizes the disproportionate nature of her earnings in relation to the publishing home’s earnings. Within the 12 months Chłopki was revealed, Marginesy recorded PLN 14.5 million (€3.4 million) extra income than within the earlier 12 months. Kuciel-Frydryczak is claiming a share of the earnings and is entitled to take action underneath the so-called ‘bestseller clause’ (i.e. Article 44 of Poland’s Copyright Act).
The creator has are available in for heavy criticism for having signed such an settlement. Nevertheless, she shortly discovered assist from writers similar to Jakub Żulczyk, Katarzyna Tubylewicz, Grażyna Plebanek, Małgorzata Rejmer and Jacek Dehnel, who, like Kuciel-Frydryczak, had managed to flee the ranks of the precariat. To go to courtroom, you want cash. And to keep away from being branded a problematic author and ending up unpublished, you’ll want to achieve success.
It seemed to be a dispute between authors and publishers, with the latter supposedly ripping off the previous. In any case, an creator who receives an advance that allows them to dwell modestly for 3 months out of the 12 months it takes to write down a guide gained’t be going up in opposition to anybody.
Precarious work
After all, contracts range, and we don’t know a lot about them because of the imposed confidentiality clauses. Nevertheless, a survey carried out by the Literary Union exhibits that between 2017 and 2021 the common advance was between PLN 4,000 (€940) and PLN 27,000 (€6,360), relying on the style and the creator’s gender – proof that the pay hole additionally impacts the guide market. The median gross month-to-month wage for an creator is PLN 2,500 (€590). But, within the phrases of Maciej Jakubczyk, ‘Hey presto: they take it’, as ‘the work is socially momentous, bestowing satisfaction and honour. The truth is, it’s not even a job, it’s a mission. And while you’re fulfilling a mission, you don’t discuss cash’.
This mechanism was described way back by David Graeber in his guide Bullshit Jobs. Work that’s socially vital, carried out in accordance with one’s beliefs and based mostly on accountability, is undervalued. The ethical, social or creative values of labor aren’t thought-about within the capitalist market. As an alternative, these values are cynically leveraged to exert psychological strain and scale back resistance to exploitation. This is applicable not solely to artists, but in addition to academics, nurses, scientists, journalists and different precarious staff. And much more so when they’re girls.
Capitalism requires sources, together with low cost labour, low cost creativity and low cost care, which it then transforms right into a commodity. The way in which to manage these sources is to tie folks to a month-to-month wage that daunts threat and forces them to search for work on the facet. This leaves no time for leisure or, above all, for understanding one’s state of affairs. That is compounded by the embarrassment of supposedly being clever but incomes solely PLN 2,500 a month.
It’s one way or the other symbolic that Kuciel-Frydryszak has damaged her silence over her guide Chłopki, whose reputation stems from a collective remodeling of the legacy of serfdom and patriarchy – an unjust, violent and unequal system that assured low cost labour and which we couldn’t rid ourselves of on our personal. This method contributed to the short-lived success of the wealthiest when the grain of the First Polish Republic flooded Hanseatic ports, adopted by a protracted, painful decline.
Borderland opacity
Nevertheless, it will be mistaken to imagine that the connection between an creator and a writer is equal to a feudal one. Publishing homes are additionally exploited. That is very true of smaller, extra bold ones, that are in quest of authors and thematic niches. In the end, it’s a case of the extra you care, the much less you get, as a result of in the event you care a lot, you’re going to do it anyway. Your dedication is a useful resource.
Publishers typically say that working a publishing home in Poland is a chance. The guide market is small and deregulated. Poles don’t learn a lot, so promoting 2,000 copies is taken into account affordable and promoting 3,000 copies is taken into account superb. The Czech guide market is twice the dimensions of ours, regardless of serving a inhabitants of 10 million in comparison with Poland’s 38 million. Studying just isn’t in trend in Poland. There is no such thing as a cultivation of a studying tradition. Most poles solely learn when they’re in school, the place it’s obligatory. Those that suggest college studying lists appear to know this, so that they embody as a lot as they’ll whereas they’ll. Nevertheless, books nonetheless lose out to TV collection and social media, which require no focus.
Above all, it loses out to the tradition of laborious work described by the cultural semiotician Zofia Smełka-Leszczyńska. We’re one of the overworked nations. On the identical time, the worth of our work stays a lot decrease than the worth of labor in different Central European nations: the median gross wage is lower than PLN 7,000 (€1,650). Since 1989, we have now been the japanese frontier of capitalism, supplying Western Europe with low cost labour. With an training system that almost all of us depart behind with a sigh of aid after 12 years, books are related to compulsion.
The authors of ArtRage, a podcast dedicated to the publishing business, declare that publishers conceal gross sales figures, which makes it difficult to research and perceive the market. Polish bookseller Bonito has determined to disclose its gross sales figures and embrace the truth that promoting 50 copies in a month makes a guide a bestseller. Szczepan Twardoch has offered 170,000 copies, Wojciech Chmielarz has offered a million, and Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak has offered 500,000. Whereas this will likely appear rather a lot, for a inhabitants of 38 million, it’s a paltry sum.
In line with the guide market analysis company Nielsen BookScan, 130–150 million books are offered yearly in Poland (based mostly on the 20-35% of the promote it has been in a position to entry). Two-thirds of those are college textbooks, a big proportion of that are kids’s colouring books. This leaves an estimated 1.6 books per inhabitant per 12 months in Poland. In France and Germany, by comparability, the determine is 10.
Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, the authors of the guide Historia świata w siedmiu tanich rzeczach (A Historical past of the World in Seven Low-cost Issues), lately revealed by Krytyka Polityczna, use the class of the borderland to analyse capitalist processes. Its traits are opacity, ambiguity and ignorance – as a result of it’s within the borderlands that devaluation takes place, the transformation of what capitalism desires to promote into sources.
Devaluation is a becoming time period for the precise borderland, the buffer zone between Poland and Belarus / Ukraine, the place human life and well being is disadvantaged of worth unwitnessed, and for contracts on the guide market, the place the work of authors and publishers is devalued, hampered by confidentiality clauses and the dearth of entry to distribution stories. The opacity of the market is not any accident, and the state needs to be eager to remove this, as it’s not in our curiosity.
In monetary phrases, as calculated by Marcin Bełza within the on-line literary criticism journal Mały Format, the worth of all books revealed in a given 12 months in Poland is round PLN 4.5 million (€1.06 million), of which literary fiction accounts for lower than 20%, or PLN 600,000–800,000 (€140,000-189,000). Bełza compares this determine with the beer market, which generates PLN 26 million (€6.1 million) per 12 months.
The deregulated
This tiny publishing cake has been divided very erratically. Why? As a result of it has been deregulated. It’s a very free market. However wait a minute! There may be additionally a free publishing market in France and Germany, but these nations have rules in place and the next literacy charge. In addition they work fewer hours and spend extra on well being and training. They worth their work, their time and their tradition.
In the meantime, no Polish authorities since 1989 has acknowledged the strategic significance of readership for state improvement, regardless of analysis clearly exhibiting its correlation with well being, civic engagement, the power to establish disinformation and an understanding of worldwide challenges, relationships and training. There is no such thing as a regulation, even if cultural items and books are described within the structure as ‘a supply of identification for the Polish nation’. Moreover, Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union dictates that books shouldn’t be handled purely as marketable items however needs to be supported and promoted.
Nevertheless, quite than investing in tradition, Poland depends on custom. This custom is known as parochial, conservative, xenophobic, patriarchal, Catholic and feudal. It’s averse to and distrustful of dwelling, progressive, equal, accessible and subsequently emancipatory tradition. One want solely recall the holding of rosary prayers exterior theatres or the ’rainbow Virgin Mary’ case. As an alternative, most holidays are celebrated with a army picnic and a mass.
And but, within the face of the challenges posed by a altering world, it will be extra acceptable to foster an open and alluring creative tradition that would embrace followers of a wide range of traditions, not simply parochial Catholicism.
The Polish state is ready to create beneficial circumstances for numerous enterprises. The state is subsidising the mining business with PLN 9 billion (€2.1 billion) this 12 months, although it’s unprofitable. It has allowed coal mines to empty brine into the Oder, as a substitute of forcing the acquisition of a system to desalinate mine water. The Oder disaster of 2022 didn’t result in any adjustments. In 2024, the Ministry of Local weather and Surroundings didn’t difficulty a right away deceasement order to mining corporations however merely really useful that they develop a plan, timetable and pricing, which isn’t anticipated for one more 5 years. It is a excellent instance of shifting prices onto nature – and onto us, as a result of the cash for the clean-up of the Oder is popping out of our pockets.
Clearly, if the state desires to assist industries, it might. Within the case of the guide market, nonetheless, it doesn’t need to. Pressured by stakeholders, the Ministry of Tradition has proposed that market gamers get collectively and provide you with a joint proposal themselves. Nevertheless, it’s tough for small publishers to barter with an oligopoly of distributors.
5 earn as a lot as 300
A report by the Polish Economic system Community (PSE) in December 2024 highlights the elemental difficulty recognized by publishers. The guide market is dominated by 4 main distributors (some additionally depend Azymut that’s making losses), which management 80% of the market. The biggest is Empik, adopted by Ateneum, Dressler Dublin (previously Olesiejuk) and Platon. They don’t compete with each other. If one lowers its costs, the others comply with go well with. They’ll afford to interact in a value struggle and promote at a minimal value as a result of they make their cash from the lots anyway. In the event that they personal chains of bookshops, they’re successfully transferring cash from one pocket to a different. Publishers can’t afford such low margins, however distributors can. Marcin Bełza calculated that in 2023 these 5 distributors earned PLN 4 billion (€9.4 million), which is as a lot as 300 publishers mixed.
The Workplace of Competitors and Shopper Safety (UOKiK) is accountable for making certain aggressive circumstances. It permits the focus of capital and market monopolization, for instance, by approving Empik’s takeover of Platon and the Foksal Publishing Group. The report ready by the PSE additionally highlights that UOKiK is late in initiating investigative proceedings in opposition to a number of main entities.
On this association, a distributor who owns a publishing home and a series of bookshops can do no matter they need. As Krzysztof Cieślik and Michał Michalski clarify on the ArtRage podcast, smaller publishers are primarily given the selection of ‘agree or get misplaced’ when coping with distributors.
In line with the PSE report, the common low cost for distribution is as excessive as 50% (generally reaching 70%), whereas for bookshops it quantities to 38% of the quilt value. Bookshops are going bankrupt, with one in three closing between 2010 and 2020. E book costs are rising as a result of publishers should elevate the quilt value to keep away from promoting beneath manufacturing prices.
Intervention wanted
There are methods to extricate cultural creators, who play an vital position within the formation of ‘nationwide identification’, from the realm of sources. However they require a state that believes that tradition is a strategic sphere that should be protected by rules.
The authors of the PSE report have some recommendations for regulating the business, one being standardized pricing. This concept just isn’t new. The publicist and Krytyka Polityczna contributor Piotr Wójcik wrote about it in 2021, and even then it wasn’t the primary try. The proposal ready by the Polish Chamber of Books (PIK) on the time envisaged setting an ordinary value that will stay in place for one 12 months. The authors responded at size to the objections, most of which stemmed from the capitalist dogma of the free market, explaining that competitors is not only about enjoying with costs, and that publishers ought to be capable of compete with attention-grabbing titles.
Smaller publishers are involved that the introduction of an ordinary value for books will solely lead to a rise in guide costs. Distributors will proceed to take books on consignment at reductions of over 50% and should even make the most of the usual value to demand larger reductions as a result of their gross sales will fall.
Different rules supporting publishers ought to subsequently comply with the introduction of an ordinary guide value. The state may buy books from publishers on the cowl value for libraries, regulate top-down reductions for distributors and get them organized to reveal gross sales information. It may additionally create a stabilization fund for publishers and deal with bookshops as cultural establishments, which might entitle them to advantages similar to lowered hire. As well as, the state may present assist for writers within the type of scholarships and insurance coverage packages. If the state helps farmers and monks, why not writers too? The state’s initiative to cut back VAT on books to five% has solely benefited builders – sorry, distributors – however this error is hardly surprising, is it?
Solidarity amongst those that are being exploited would even be helpful. PSE proposes the institution of a cooperative to deliver collectively publishers and booksellers, who would collectively have higher bargaining energy with distributors. Literary organizations such because the Polish Writers’ Affiliation and the youthful Literary Union may work in the direction of introducing higher transparency in contracts. They might additionally assist smaller publishers by encouraging revered and extensively learn writers, similar to Jacek Dehnel, to publish with them quite than with bigger publishers, which normally poach bestselling authors. Because the largest gamers out there are in a position to keep away from competitors, maybe the smaller ones may additionally act in opposition to the established guidelines that drive the oligopoly.
A frontline nation in polycrisis
Poland is a borderland nation, and for a number of years now it has additionally been a frontline nation in polycrisis affected not solely by struggle but in addition by the event of AI, world warming and migration. We now have reached a turning level. We now have a alternative: both to proceed down the trail set out at first of the transition, competing out there with low cost sources – low cost labour, low cost training and low cost tradition, permitting particular person gamers to develop – or to begin valuing ourselves and dealing collectively in order that as many individuals as attainable can take part in tradition. We needs to be opening up tradition as a substitute of forcing migrant kids in integration centres to assimilate ‘Polish sensibilities’, as Inside Minister Maciej Duszczyk places it.
And superficial measures aren’t sufficient. It’s not sufficient to say that we have to begin with training, as a result of training is in the identical place as literacy, and the disaster is already right here. The collapse of healthcare and state brutality in the direction of migrants are eroding the worth of life. Tradition and science have gotten much less worthwhile – AI is being educated on stolen books and the work of scientists. Creators and scientists don’t get a penny for this. But, it’s tradition that may assist us on this polycrisis and function a subject of freedom and dignity.
Ukraine has skilled a increase in studying throughout the struggle. Persons are publishing, shopping for and studying books, and discussing them in cafés whereas on depart. Within the face of fixed hazard, tradition is proving to be a unifying and mobilizing pressure, offering solace and dignity. Ukraine is combating in opposition to barbarism, standing agency on the facet of civilization and basing its identification on this.
Now can be an excellent time for the Polish state to handle the legacy of serfdom, of the agricultural property and of the tradition of laborious work that’s driving us right into a lure. The state ought to facet with society by imposing fastened reductions on distributors and negotiating taxes from huge tech corporations which have been capitalizing on our time, consideration and creativity for years. This would offer sufficient funding for a fundamental revenue. Even a minimal fundamental revenue would permit us to work much less and unencumber time for studying, considering, relaxation, focus, freedom, engagement and creativity. It’s going to allow us to reclaim essentially the most human elements of ourselves that we’re dropping and rescue us from the borderlands, even when we stay geographically near the frontline.
This text was first published by Krytyka Polityczna on 19 April 2025. Its English translation was commissioned as a part of Come Collectively, a undertaking leveraging present knowledge from neighborhood media group in six completely different nations to foster revolutionary approaches.
