In contrast to the early years of independence, when post-Soviet consumers and especially book buyers tended to hoard products and entire print runs sold out in a matter of days, Lithuanians just aren't buying anymore ? at least not enough to keep an extra-large number of domestic publishers in business.
Rasa Balcikonyte, head of the department of publishing and libraries at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, said that 1991 was the most prolific for the publishing industry, with some 25 million editions released in a country with a population of 3.5 million.
"Since then, the number of copies of all new publications has been gradually diminishing, reaching 10.2 million in 2001," she said.
Until 1990 the average print run of Lithuanian fiction was 5,000 to 10,000 copies and poetry 1,000 to 1,500 copies, now the print run of fiction is 1,000 to 1500 copies, and for poetry 500 to 1000 copies, she said.
Algis Paulauskas, director of the publishing house Gimtasis Zodis, which publishes mainly instructional materials, said the reason people bought so many books earlier was because there was a real deficit.
"The publishing house finan-ces all the costs of publishing a book if no institution supports the book," he said. "Bookstores raise the price of a book, adding 20 to 25 percent. They aren't obligated; if they sell it, fine, if not, no tragedy."
But the problem for Lithuanian publishers isn't simply that consumers are faced with too many choices these days.
"As an example, at a (primary) school they often work with one book lying on the table," Pau-lauskas said. "Lower print-runs, of course, increase the price."
The Lithuanian Publishers Association, whose 32 members cover around 70 percent of the domestic market for books, agrees that the industry is living through hard economic times, but also blames the lack of a government policy.
Major problems in the industry include a lack of money in the pockets of book buyers after the general economic recession following the Russian financial crisis, and a 30 percent drop in book sales in 1999 compared with 1998.
But more than that, association members worry that there is no nationwide publishing policy, and that after Lithuania joins the European Union they will have to adapt to changed conditions, while most publishers are just fighting to stay above water currently.
The administration of the Lithuanian Publishers Association said there were simply too many publishing operations in Lithua-nia, and mergers and bankruptcies are to be expected.
According to Lithuanian Culture Ministry expert Rasa Balcikonyte, there are 543 publishers registered in Lithuania, but just 38 account for 80 percent of total book production. She cited statistics compiled by the Center of Bibliography and Book Science which show that of that group, only four companies published more than 100 titles in 2001, namely the two educational publishing houses Alma littera (214 copies) and Sviesa (368 copies), the publisher Technologija (188 copies), and the Vilnius University publishing house (190 copies).
Furthermore, 51 publishing houses published from 10 to 20 titles, and 450 publishers issued from one to 10 books in 2001. The number of titles published in 2001 came to 4,402 with an average print run of 2,300 copies. In 1991 print runs were from two to four times greater.
The Lithuanian Publishers Association said that in 2001 some 419 publishers released at least one publication, and that on average more than a third of Lithuanian publishers release just one book per year.
Association representatives said most publishers are concentrated in the larger cities, mainly in Vilnius.
Both the association and the Culture Ministry spoke hopefully about the prospects of increasing exports, which are so far negligible and mostly confined to sales at international book fairs and to Lithuanians living abroad, following the Frankfurt event.
Given that the market is almost purely domestic for Lithuanian books, what does it take to become a Lithuanian bestseller? Not much, according to Balcikonyte.
"If 6,000 copies of a book are sold in two months, the book is considered a best seller," she said.
"Normally among the best sellers there has been foreign fiction, although during the last three years some have been academic books," she said.
"The History of Lithuania: From Ancient Times to 1569" written by medieval expert Edvardas Gudavicius. The book was published in 1999 and the total print run was 17,000 copies
Balcikonyte noted that Juozas Erlickas, the Lithuanian humorist, is extremely popular.
His book "Knyga" ? an ironic view on the contemporary life in Lithuania - sold 20,000 copies and his "The History of Lithuania" sold another 12,000 copies.
Additionally, the average print run of the novels of Jurga Ivanauskaite is 7,000 copies.
"The print run of good foreign fiction is 4,000 to 5,000 copies," Balcikonyte noted.
This week's best sellers according to the Lithuanian on-line bookstore www.super.lt formed a strange collection. In first place was the German children's book "One Doesn't Kiss Witches" by Hortense Ullrich, followed by an American how-to manual on salesmanship.
Alain de Libera's "Penser au Moyen Age" translated into Lit-huanian was third, continuing what seems to be the Lithuanian reader's love affair with the Middle Ages.
While those books may not be representative of the Lithuanian readership as a whole, they do point out the problems involved in meeting slight demand with low-volume printruns, and the problem of predicting where the fickle tastes of the domestic market, not to mention any possible international market for translations, might lead in the near term.
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