In the Albanian book market, where sales usually depend on fairs, festive seasons or bestselling titles by well-known authors, a sudden shift in public attention is enough to change buyer behavior.
This is happening these weeks with the titles of author Mimoza Ahmeti, for which major bookstores in Tirana are reporting an increase in demand, following the author's return to the center of public conversation.
The writer has been part of the reality show Ferma VIP since last month, where with her spontaneous style, sharp irony and jokes, she has gone viral on social networks, beyond the traditional literary audience.
This interest is already being reflected in consumer behavior in the book market. At the Adrion bookstore, sellers say that it is not a matter of a huge sales explosion, but of a clear movement in demand.
"The demand for her books has been higher in recent weeks, so much so that we visibly removed them from the bookshelves, because people started asking every day," they say, describing a typical phenomenon of the Albanian book market, where public attention is often enough to bring titles that had remained silent back into circulation.
The same trend is confirmed by the Leximtari bookstore. Albert Gjoka tells Monitor that "there has been a slight increase in the last two weeks," a signal that interest is not simply television curiosity, but is being translated into concrete purchases, however modest in volume.
Meanwhile, on the social network Tiktok, in addition to videos with her moments inside the reality show, videos with the hashtag "Mimoza Ahmeti libra" have exploded, where both bookstores and individuals are bringing her books to attention.
This is not a new phenomenon for our country. The most recent precedent remains the effect created by Luis Ejlli, a participant in the reality show Big Brother VIP a few years ago, when his popularity not only affected television audiences, but immediately stimulated entire retail sectors. From clothing and accessories that were imitated by the public, to the demand for products, events and commercial collaborations that bore his name or aesthetic, the market reacted quickly to the trend of the moment.
The phenomenon is not unique to Albania. In international markets, television and current trends have often produced similar effects on book sales. In recent years, the same mechanism has been seen with streaming series, where screen adaptations bring books that had been in circulation for years back to the center of the market. The latest case was the new series on Netflix “The Museum of Innocence” that brought back global attention to the book of the same title by author Orhan Pamuk, including in Albania./Monitor
