By: Albana Beqiri

The paradox is obvious from the beginning: the more we complain (especially on social networks) that the reading and buying of books has significantly decreased, the more it seems that the number of those who write and publish for fun, especially on social networks, has increased , and also the publishing houses that are surprisingly not few in number continue to publish without stopping.

It is difficult to grasp this paradox that does not help you at all to understand the impasse created between the book, publishing, reading, readers and publishers. The latter are the ones who complain the most and seek funding from the state because, as they say, without this kind of institutional infusion, they cannot sustain the publishing activity which in a normal free market is and should be profitable. Probably, in Kosovo, with a small exception which in this case is the exception that reinforces the rule, no publishing house is supported by itself - even the one or the few that may have publishing activity as their sole or primary activity, each year benefit from funding in various forms from the state, mainly from the Ministry of Culture through the Book Council, book purchases, or from various calls for funding, etc.

When it comes to publications, publishing houses pretend to have some kind of editorial independence by publishing books with few copies almost without criteria and that go unnoticed - except for self-promotions on the authors' social networks.

This reality of the book and publications then leads to other chain realities which only complicate even more the stalemate that has followed this activity for years. We thus arrive at the quantity which, as usual in such cases, drowns out the quality.

Lack of editors and self-financing

Publishing houses, especially smaller ones, usually do not have editors - when we talk about an editor, we are not talking about a name marked as such on the side covers of the book, but about the function of an editor as publishing houses all over the world have. In fact, publishing houses in Kosovo do not function like their sisters in other countries, so this deficiency is not surprising either. But, let's stay with the position and function of the editor. When we say that publishing houses usually do not have editors, we are talking about editors who positively "mutilate" the book that should go to print, by "mercilessly cutting" parts, passages (prose) or entire verses (poetry), without fear that the author will be hurt or react and not allow his work to be touched. But, this could only hypothetically happen if the publishing house finances the book (without institutional window dressing) and even gives royalties to the author (and for many, the above statement seems illusory and will remain so for at least a long time, as long as our publishing houses resemble publishing houses around the world).

The survival of publishing houses in our country can depend on everything, except for the sale of books, especially those of our authors. And, another way of survival is to publish books through self-financing. In this case, I believe that there is not much to discuss: the selection criterion almost disappears, the role of the publisher is purely technical, he is "paid" by the author for the work he does - in this case that of the intermediary with the printing house and the provider of the publishing house's logo. That's all. Then the book (published in the best case in 200 or 300 copies) leads its own "life" separate from that of the publisher. The author deals with self-advertisement, distribution, etc.

Lack of a functional book distribution network and literary agents

Here another problem associated with this activity arises, which is the lack of a real and serious book distribution network. Publishing houses, especially when the books are self-financed, do not take over the distribution of the book, so in most cases it is the authors themselves who send the book to bookstores, trying to also do the job of the distributor. How much the book sells is another matter and, in all likelihood, it sells little or not at all. Books by Albanian authors - which are printed in few copies anyway - are mostly forgotten. Authors, I believe none of them, even the most famous ones, can live from literature, that is, from the sale of their books; buyers are mainly oriented towards foreign literature, perhaps also because foreign authors, when it comes to marketing, get a good salary from publishing houses.

Albanian literature continues to remain a small literature, especially in terms of the book market; the translations of our authors into other languages ​​are quite sporadic, and this is primarily due to the lack of literary agents, which we lack at all. In all this multitude of new professions dictated by the labor market, no one has thought of becoming a literary agent, thus turning into an intermediary between the author, the translator, and then further, publishing houses in different countries where it is thought to the book is published.

Even institutionally, the translation and publication of our authors in other languages ​​is not supported. In the multitude of these funds that are distributed almost without criteria for the book, the publications do not have any funds to first support the translation and then the publication of the authors in other languages ​​and countries, thus creating for the authors the possibility of a real confrontation with the foreign market, and Albanian literature with the possibility of a much wider geographical recognition.

Authors without dignified treatment

Institutional policies for the book should change in favor of the author - meaning Albanian literature here. The author needs more dignified treatment than the current one, e.g. let's say that if until now the Book Council has been oriented towards distributing funds in the form of window displays with ridiculous amounts of support, which condition the publication in a few copies, the author should remain satisfied if he has a few copies left to give to friends, and this is the only "honor" that he receives in this difficult undertaking of publishing his book. Perhaps it would be better if the Book Council's criterion for distributing funds for publications were the quality and not the quantity of publications, to have a special fund for supporting young authors, while for the rest the author was more appreciated - at least through a more dignified honorarium and so on. And, by increasing the amount of support for a book, to somehow control the circulation of a book's publication, which in almost all cases is ridiculous. In the current conditions, it is utopian to think about the circulation of the former publications of Rilindja, the largest publishing house that Kosovo had until the 1990s, but nevertheless an effort must be made; an effort to restore the dignity of the author, the publisher and the entire publishing process; an effort which is actually an institutional and social obligation.

The new old book crisis

On the other hand, the book fairs that were supposed to be (at least from the Albanian point of view) a kind of distributor and point of sale and promotion of books, have started to lose the kind of shine that was given to them by turning it into a book festival. This last one, of this June, was only a pale copy, perhaps not so much of the image of a holiday. It was seen that there were few new editions and it was said (by the publishers) that there were even fewer book sales. Of course, the high prices of books, especially novels, which, after being read or re-read (in very rare cases) any other time, have no other function than to are listed in dusty display cases. If we add to the high prices of books the development of technology that at this stage seems to be dominating printed formats (newspapers, magazines, other periodicals, books, etc.) then we should not be so surprised about the decline of purchasing power and the decline in readability.

The level of education (schools) does not seem to help at this point. There does not seem to be any encouragement for pupils or students to read. They complete almost most of their tasks through internet searches, where they find sources without worrying too much about how reliable the source is. For them, it is enough to find a few reference points, and for them (unfortunately for their professors too) it is equivalent to having actually read the book. As we said above, rapid technology, especially that related to the internet, the virtual world and the online world, certainly affects the so-called book crisis - as is often said with alarm about this not-so-new phenomenon among us. However, we must admit that we have not been and are not a society closely linked to books and their reading, and we have not even read newspapers much, otherwise we would not have remained the only country that no longer has printed newspapers, not even one per se. Likewise, we have never published pocket-sized books, destined to be read en masse by, as you see all over the world, passionate readers who do not stop reading even on trains or subways. We had nowhere to read them, and now we can only read them in crowded cafes just to pass the day chatting, but I don't think anyone does. At least we don't see people in the many cafes and bars with a book in front of them - smartphones yes, even the newest and most expensive ones.

And, as for the collective mourning, mainly through social networks for the decline of reading (this mourning is also helped by some unverified and non-institutional surveys that give really alarming figures of the lack of reading) by comparing today's level of reading on earth with the times of its golden times, it must be said that it is not that there were such golden times as we vainly idealize them; there have always been and will be people who have not read and will not read even one book; there were plenty of such even when the circulation of books was over 5 pieces and above, there are such even today when the advantage that technology currently has over the printed book has weakened the reading reflex quite a lot. This brings us back to the beginning, precisely to the paradox that comes from the broken ratio: publications and readability. As a rule, if there was no high readability, there would be no flow of publications, but we all accept the decrease in readability and the increase in publications is also seen by all.

The real crisis: Quality

In this chain knot of this paradox, the weakest link in this complicated chain of the book world remains quality, first of all due to the lack of publishing filters that we mentioned above. This mostly affects Albanian literature, which is currently full of poets and writers who mostly use social networks. But let's not consider the literature of Facebook as the greatest evil (all kinds of creators and pseudo-creators are paraded there, from those who absolutely deserve this epithet, to plagiarists and ordinary copycats), because in the end it starts and ends there . Even after the publication of the book, it is still not the end of the world if the praises like "great poet" that are usually given in the comments of publications on Facebook, arrive a step higher with some words of praise in the promotion of the book of the poet or poetess in question. The real evil is that in this quagmire of praise without criteria and measure, almost all those who write and study literature have been included, turning the territory of literature into a colony of creators who function through groupings and the logic of groups, since the laudatory writings for each other up to the sharing of prices according to the principle: give me what I gave.

But the good thing about all this chaos and impasse is that literature has a place for everyone, even for the untalented, for plagiarists and copycats, good and bad, only that it itself has the selection in hand, and this mostly trust time which at this point is merciless. He steps on the untalented, the plagiarists and the copycats and then plunges them where they belong: into oblivion!

And, just as good literature has always triumphed, the book will also survive occasional crises; it will also adapt to the competition of the logic of technology, remaining the best conductor of human knowledge, but also of Mayan literature. /Telegraph/

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