Suomen tietokirjailijat ry or the Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers is the biggest organisation representing the interests of writers in Finland. It has over 3,100 members and membership is increasing the whole time. The Association looks after the interests of non-fiction writers and has a number of common tasks. Each year it distributes grants to the value of two million euros. The grants are supported by revenue collected from copyright through the organisation Kopiosto.

We are living in a golden age for non-fiction. Of books written by Finnish authors and published in Finland, 90 per cent are works of non-fiction. Each year 6,700 are published. Commercial publishers are responsible for just a third of this total, with various interest group publishers responsible for the remaining two thirds. Their principal area of operation is not publishing but they do publish literature supportive of their own area of activity. Examples of these are SITRA, the City of Helsinki, which publishes 80 books a year, and many companies, associations and official bodies. There is more and more self-publishing and the overall quality is improving.

The internet has meant that encyclopaedic and reference works are no longer going concerns from the publishing point of view. Digitalisation has presented both a threat and an opportunity for the book world. The internet, a miscellaneous ocean of knowledge has in point of fact given non-fiction authors a renewed sense of purpose. The need for knowledge isn't getting less – on the contrary. We need more and more experts who are capable of ordering material and serving as a compass in an increasingly complex world.

Further reading (in Finnish)

• Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen ”Kirja-alalla kuohuu. Kustannusalan trendit 2000-luvun Suomessa” (’Books are buzzing. Publishing trends for the 2000s in Finland’). 
• Jukka-Pekka Pietiäinen ”Ahneita kustantajia vai laadun tekijöitä?” (’Greedy publishers or quality workers?’).