I’m still waiting on the sales and revenue numbers, but the last day of the 23rd Lima International Book Fair yesterday confirmed books are still the nation’s joy.
Last year FIL Lima (Feria Internacional del Libro de Lima) clocked 547,000 visitors and sold 190,000 books to the value of $5.5 million. This year all we know so far is that a new record was set with 565,000 visitors squeezing into the event over the seventeen days.
UPDATE: Total book sales valued at $5.5 million, up 8% on last year.
That’s over 33,000 people a day attending a book event in Peru, on the continent where, or so we are always being told, nobody reads.
But that’s nowhere near the biggest book event in Latin America.
Mexico’s Guadalajara pulled in 814,000 visitors last year, and earlier this year the Buenos Aries International Book Fair in Argentina registered its usual 1.2 million visitors.
The global book market. It’s bigger than you think.
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