Rotpunktverlag Launches Crowdfunding to Face Rising Production Costs

Rising costs and falling demand are causing problems for the Zurich-based Rotpunktverlag. The publisher launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise 100,000 francs,

Read more about the crowdfunding launched by Rotpunktverlag and find the most important business news of the day with our companion app Born2Invest.

In the next 29 days, Rotpunktverlag, based in Zurich, wants to collect 100,000 francs

“We have to overcome a dry spell,” said Rotpunktverlag publishing director Patrizia Grab to the Keystone-SDA news agency.

The company is facing rising production costs, including printing and binding books. According to Grab, these have increased by around 20 percent. Rotpunktverlag cannot simply pass on the surcharge to customers.

In addition, business went well during the Corona pandemic, but then it declined. “People have other hobbies again,” said Grab.

Publishing support is not enough to save Rotpunktverlag

The publishing funding from the Federal Office of Culture is also not enough to fill gaps. Publishing less is also not an option for saving money: “We can’t just suspend a season, otherwise we will lose visibility.”

For the publishing director it is also clear: the visibility of books tends to decrease in the media, and social media as a compensation would not work so well for a publisher with a rather older audience. “We are not a Tik Tok publisher,” said Grab, alluding to the Booktok trend.

A community of book lovers has formed on the platform. The focus is on fiction.

Rotpunkverlag specializes in non-fiction and hiking books.

Publishers in Switzerland have already relied on crowdfunding in the past, such as the comic publisher Edition Moderne or Dörlemann Verlag, which publishes literature and non-fiction books.

There is no fear of wear and tear, as the Rotpunkt publishing house is supposed to be a one-off event. “We are convinced that we can do it,” said Grab.

Sales in the German-speaking Swiss book market stagnated in 2023, as the Swiss Book Trade and Publishing Association announced at the beginning of March. Total sales were 586.4 million francs , an increase of two percent compared to the previous year.

However, this increase only arose because new businesses were included in the report that had not been included in previous years. Overall, fewer books were sold. Retailers were able to maintain sales by increasing prices.

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(Featured image by klimkin via Pixabay)

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First published in Nau.ch. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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