It's Book Week (Boekenweek) here in the Netherlands – an annual event. But even in other 'normal' weeks, bookshops notch up huge sales, for the Netherlands is a country of avid readers.

Dutch writers have been travelling throughout the Netherlands this week, to meet their readers. Likewise, fans have been chasing after autographed copies of books by their favourite authors.

"Would you put 'for Els' and 'for Roxanne’?" Dozens of people are queuing up at this bookshop in the central city of Utrecht, to have their books autographed by Joost Zwagerman.

Buy a book, get a gift (book)
Joost Zwagerman (1963) is the author of the 2010 Boekenweek gift. Everyone who purchases a Dutch-language book during this special week receives a free copy of his book. Some 958,000 copies have been published, a huge number for a small country such as the Netherlands (approx population 17 million).

Joost Zwagerman and many other writers have been journeying up and down the country this week, doing what he is doing now – signing books in a bookshop. He’s doing it at a very quick pace too; one after another.

Is his hand numb? “Not at all. I could go on like this for hours!”

 
Sales figures
Boekenweek is organised every year by the CPNB, a foundation which promotes Dutch literary works. The foundation’s director, Henk Kraima, says the sales figures during the week are comparable to those during peak periods such as the week before Sinterklaas (5/6 December) and Christmas (25 December).
 
"We are doing this now for the 75th time. The idea originally came from the United States, where it died a slow death. The Netherlands is the only country where it has become such a revered tradition. Writers and publishers in foreign countries look to the Netherlands with jealousy and desire.”

Many books are bought and read in the Netherlands. “We need the good sales figures in order to maintain the infrastructure: the publishing companies, libraries, book shops.”
 
Readers and authors
There is a lot of contact between readers and writers during the rest of the year as well. A special organisation has been set up for this purpose: the foundation ‘Writers School Society’. The director of the foundation, Margreet Ruardi, estimates that writers here make some 13,000 public appearances each year. The meetings are for new and experienced readers of all age groups and they usually take place in libraries and schools.
 
Readers enjoy listening to writers. But the interest is reciprocal. Margreet Ruardi:

“For an author, it’s often interesting to learn how a reader views and interprets his or her book. It can even make them see their work in a new light. By speaking with readers they often gain a better understanding of what kind of book they have written. This also helps them, to a small extent, to get a new perspective on their book and gain ideas for a new one.”
 
Once Joost Zwagerman has finished signing books for the people in the queue at the bookstore in Utrecht, he begins to read from his novel. After that, he hurries off to get to his next stop and next appearance in the town of Wageningen.