By Carlo Carrenho, Contributing Editor
Among the week’s headlines: Germany launches a physical audiobook product for adults; a new version of Onix has dropped; a court case in Europe could impact fixed book pricing laws across the continent; and a new survey sheds light on reading in Russia.Germany Gets a ‘Tonies’ for Adults
According to BuchMarkt, Germany’s Bastei Lübbe is launching shelfie.audio, a physical audiobook format with an embedded NFC chip that unlocks a digital title on a smartphone without a subscription. The product offers permanent, transferable usage rights and debuts with an initial catalog of about 30 titles by authors including Ken Follett, Dörte Hansen, and Jojo Moyes. Bastei Lübbe says the platform is open to other publishers, and positions it as a new adult audiobook format combining digital access with a tangible retail product. The offering launches at the Leipziger Buchmesse, with exclusive availability at Thalia stores starting on May 4 for a nine-month period at a recommended retail price of €16.99 ($19.52).
This may not be a new idea, but in today’s Germany it may land differently. In a market shaped by the extraordinary success of Tonies—where roughly one in two children in the target group owns one—it’s easy to imagine plenty of parents envious of their kids and looking for a similar experience of their own. And shelfie.audio leans into that instinct: a small, book-like object—about the size of a credit card, just thicker—designed to be collected, displayed, and given as a gift. And at a moment when audiobook CDs are fading but not forgotten, this format does offer a sense of physical ownership. Its launch with high-profile authors and a strong retail partnership with Thalia will support its visibility and positioning, while the limited exclusivity window shrewdly creates momentum.
Putting “Éditions” in Its Place
EDItEUR, the international organization that maintains ONIX and other publishing standards, has released ONIX 3.1.3, a targeted update to the global metadata framework used to describe, distribute, and discover books. As outlined by EDItEUR, the revision introduces four changes: clearer attribution of reviews and descriptive content; added contextual detail about people or entities featured in a book; adjustments to publisher and imprint name order to improve multilingual sorting; and support for transliteration across different writing systems EDItEUR recommends that all ONIX 3.1 users migrate to version 3.1.3, and has updated its documentation accordingly.
It’s especially welcome to see EDItEUR focusing on internationalization in several practical ways. In many Latin-language markets, publisher names often begin with words like “editora,” “editorial,” or “éditions,” which makes alphabetical sorting messy and inconsistent—so the ability to invert names should make a real difference. And anyone who has worked with metadata in non-Roman languages knows how complex that can get, so even a relatively small step forward in transliteration support is extremely valuable. For those less familiar with ONIX, Barcelona-based consultant Arantxa Mellado’s post offers a clear and accessible way into what can otherwise be a technical topic.
Lost in Translation or Lost in English?
Circling back here to comment on a report from the London Book Fair in Publishing Perspectives, in which Penguin Random House U.K. CEO Tom Weldon suggested the publisher will not tolerate English language rights being sold to European publishers, which he said represented “a very, very dangerous situation” for U.K. publishers.
In his LBF talk with Bookseller editor Philip Jones, Weldon said PRH U.K. would not contract any book from an agent that includes the sale of English-language rights to a European publisher. The comments follow a March 10 report in The Bookseller that European publishers are increasingly looking to “claw back” English language rights, concerns heightened by bestselling PRH U.K. author Bonnie Garmus’s recent move to Bonnier Books, a deal in which Piper Verlag—Bonnier’s German publishing arm—acquired rights to publish her new novel in both German and English across Europe.
Weldon’s comments reflect the understandable desire of U.K. publishers to protect the export market for English-language titles. However, the issue highlights broader, long-simmering questions about whether market access should still be defined by geography, and how rights frameworks might evolve with shifting readership and new technology. For some, it also points back to how English, through U.K. and U.S. hegemony and influence, became a global lingua franca. In that sense, the debate also carries echoes of outdated imperialism. This is a story to keep an eye on.
Luxembourg Scans Fixed Prices
ActuaLitté reports on a little-covered legal case that could have major ramifications on fixed-price laws for books in Europe.
The case involves claims by Austrian bookseller Desch-Drexler, which sued a German online retailer (selling through Amazon Marketplace in Germany) for selling an Austrian title for 70 cents below the price allowed by Austria’s fixed book price law. The unnamed German defendant, represented by Vienna lawyer Johannes Öhlböck, countered that applying one EU member state’s fixed price rules to another EU member state violates several aspects of European Union law governing the free movement of goods, a defense that has now put the cross-border application of fixed price rules in Europe under a legal microscope. According to the report, Austria’s Supreme Court has referred the matter the Court of Justice of the European Union. And as the European Writers’ Council points out in a brief that urges the defense of fixed book price laws, EU member states have a March 26 deadline to submit their positions to the CJEU.
As I observed in a LinkedIn post, the referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg is a major development, and a ruling could significantly affect how fixed book price laws operate across the EU member states where they apply, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. If the court favors the seller’s national pricing rules over those of the buyer’s country, it could complicate cross-border enforcement and create opportunities for large online retailers that are better positioned to navigate between different regulatory regimes. But even if the court rules for the plaintiffs, any increased technical or compliance burden linked to cross-border pricing, which seems like a possible outcome, would also favor large platforms, potentially affecting smaller firms’ ability to sell internationally in Europe.
Self-Publishing: Too Big to Ignore, Too Hard to Count
In The New Publishing Standard, Mark Williams puts Amazon Kindle Unlimited’s reported $2.58 billion in author earnings by independent authors and small presses since January 2020 alongside recently released Bowker data, reported by Publishers Weekly, that shows U.S. book output surpassed four million titles in 2025, driven by a 38.7% increase in self-published titles to 3.5 million, compared with a 6.6% rise in traditionally published titles to 642,242. “The ebook plateau is a measurement error,” Williams concludes. “The market didn’t plateau; the industry’s collective willingness to count simply ran out.”
For years, self-publishing was largely dismissed by the mainstream industry and not only undercounted but effectively excluded from official statistics. A separate challenge, however, is the difficulty of obtaining reliable data—particularly from Amazon, which discloses limited information beyond aggregate earnings and provides little visibility into unit sales or Kindle Unlimited activity. Efforts to build a fuller picture of self-publishing’s impact are further complicated by the need to aggregate data across a fragmented global ecosystem of platforms such as PublishDrive, Draft2Digital, StreetLib, and Clube de Autores, while even major research firms like Nielsen have been unable to access the full scope of Amazon’s data.
Gen Z Keeps Russia Reading—Gen Alpha, Not So Much
Knizhaya Industriya reports that a new study from digital book platform Litres and research center NAFI finds that Russia’s Gen Z readers (ages 18 to 24) show the most consistent engagement with books: half spend more than an hour a day reading, with adventure novels (39%), science fiction (36%), and romance and fantasy (29%) leading their preferences. By contrast, Gen Alpha (ages 14 to 17) shows the weakest engagement, with a third rarely or never reading, and two thirds reporting abandoning books before finishing them. Millennials, meanwhile, (ages 25 to 44) overindex on ebooks at 46% vs. 38% percent nationally. Russian readers 45 and older are the most prolific, with 20% finishing more than five books in six months, and 57% percent reporting that they never leave a book unfinished.
Figures and studies from countries that are not always in focus, such as Russia, are always welcome. The strong engagement among Gen Z readers stands out positively, but the weak participation among Gen Alpha points to potential challenges ahead—particularly linked to increasing digital distraction. Genre preferences reflect both local and international patterns: romance and fantasy perform strongly, as in other markets around the world, while a notably robust science fiction segment reflects Russia’s longstanding traditions.
In Nigeria, Less Import and More Imprint
Punch Newspaper reports that Nigeria’s Federal Government has introduced 82 locally authored academic textbooks, alongside 10 additional titles for nationwide distribution, as part of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s (TETfund) Higher Education Book Development Intervention Project.
In the report, Education Minister Maruf Tunji Alausa said the initiative is aimed at reducing reliance on imported materials and addressing shortages of locally produced academic content—particularly in science, technology, and engineering. The fund has also revised author compensation, replacing bulk print allocations with honoraria and limited complimentary copies.
What Else Caught My Eye
A golden clutch. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been named a Global Icon for Bvlgari’s 2026 Carrying Culture campaign, fronting the Icons Minaudière collection. In the campaign, she carries a clutch containing a miniature book she authored—Notes on Creating Culture—according to Brittle Paper.
A manga souk. Organized by the MANGA Research Institute, IMART Global Business Matching returns to Tokyo on March 24–27, bringing together publishers, platforms, and studios to accelerate licensing and co-production across manga and webtoon.
A fair-well. After more than four decades in publishing, Pan Macmillan’s International Director Jonathan Atkins marked his final London Book Fair as he prepares to retire from corporate life. He will be missed—particularly for his openness, his availability to connect people and ideas, and his genuine curiosity about what is happening across the global publishing landscape.
A loose price. Polish Book Publishers’ Association (Porozumienia Wydawców Książek) has come out against proposals to introduce a fixed book price in Poland, calling it an outdated solution unsuited to a digital, subscription-driven market. Their statement was published at Rynek Książk.
A blown mind. This article by Ryu Takano at Hon.jp is a must-read, unpacking Toyoshi Inada’s four-quadrant framework for understanding book consumption and where publishers should focus today. Your browser will happily translate the Japanese into English, and it’s well worth the effort—it’s a sharp and thought-provoking approach.
A book heroine. Voahirana Ramalanjaona has spent three decades building book culture in Madagascar, from a bilingual children’s magazine to the Millefeuille bookstore in Antananarivo, according to L’Express de Madagascar. Her work shows that persistence—and belief in reading—can build a lasting literary ecosystem.
An explanation. Japanese digital distributor Media Do hosted a briefing for 400 industry professionals on March 16 at their offices in Tokyo to present and comment on their $80 million acquisition U.S.-based manga publisher Seven Seas.
A map comeback. Sales of paper maps, atlases, and travel guides in Moscow jumped 48% between March 6 and 10, according to TASS, as internet disruptions pushed readers back to print. Data from bookseller Chitai-Gorod shows road maps and city atlases leading the surge.
The author of this column has developed a slightly schizophrenic relationship with metadata: he knows it’s essential and advocates for it, yet still struggles to derive any real pleasure from it. He is now celebrating the arrival of an adult-friendly alternative to speaker boxes, meaning he no longer has to wait for grandchildren to justify owning one—he just needs a Swedish bookseller to start carrying shelfie.audio. In his youth, he once considered blowing all his air miles on a grand trip to Madagascar, but roaming the island alone in a four-wheel drive proved a little too much, so he opted instead for the remote comforts of Mataiva Island, in French Polynesia.