By Siobhan O’Leary

According to a survey conducted by the Emnid Institute for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, 72% of Germans don’t look to bestseller lists to help them decide which books to buy. Of the 27% of German’s who do look to bestseller lists for direction, most were women, and 35% of those allow lists to influence their purchases, compared to only 19% of the men surveyed.

German eBook cooperative eBuch.net reported 5% growth in its membership (to 382 book retailers) in the first half of 2009 and a 7% increase in sales, as discussed in the Boersenblatt. At the Frankfurt Book Fair they plan to announce the creation of a new initiative that will enable each eBuch member to create their own online bookstore, should they need one. The eBuch stand is located in Hall 4.0 H1300.

SchirmerGraf publisher Tanja Graf will be splitting from publishing partner Lothar Schirmer to launch her own publishing company under the umbrella of Ullstein Buchverlage, part of the Bonnier Group. Her first list will appear in Fall 2010, according to BuchMarkt.