The AAP’s monthly StatShot report for April provides some of the first concrete evidence of the effect of COVID-19 shutdowns on book publishing dollar sales. Note that as usual it reflects data reported from the major mainstream trade publishers, and therefore does not show some of sales boon in products like educational workbooks from some independent publishers. Instead of focusing on the usual “net” sales numbers, though, this time the real indicators are in publishers’ gross shipments to accounts, and the returns processed. Shipments were down markedly, as you would expect, and returns were far lower than usual. Adult trade […]