When reporting on the recent AAP trade publishing statistics for January, we raised the question of why AAP data was so out of alignment with Nielsen Bookscan data for the same month. The AAP report looked like terrible news. Even leaving aside declining ebook sales and looking at “print only” AAP data, they showed “net” trade sales (in dollars) as down 14.9 percent for the month. New print book shipments on their own, on a “gross” basis without counting returns, declined 9.4 percent. Meanwhile, Nielsen Bookscan painted a very different picture of January in the consumer marketplace, showing print sell-through […]
