2024: The Year in Finance
It surprises some people, but trade publishing sales have been good this year. Really. Dollar sales, as measured by the AAP, grew 5.8 percent in the first 10 months of 2024. Adult fiction remained particularly strong, helped by big sales for Sarah J. Maas (who moved well over 8 million print units alone) and the rapid rise of Freida McFadden (who sold roughly 4.9 million print units). The arrival of Spotify drove significant growth in audiobook sales—which have outpaced ebooks sales for the year so far for the first time ever. And the big publicly-reporting publishing companies boosted the topline […]
Scholastic Institutes Layoffs As Sales Fall in Q2
Scholastic reported financial results for the second quarter ended November 30, with sales of $545 million, down 3 percent, an expected outcome due to the timing of the company’s big book publications. Operating income dropped 26 percent to $74.4 million with adjusted EBITDA down 12 percent to $108.7 million due to lower sales in the children’s publishing and distribution and education solutions segments. In Children’s Publishing and Distribution, sales were down 6 percent to $367 million with operating income down 9 percent to $102.1 million. Trade books sold $103 in the quarter, down 13 percent, due to lower frontlist sales […]
People 12/19
AAP Publishers Recorded Strong Sales In October
The Association of American Publisher released StatShot data for October, reporting robust trade sales of $958 million, up 6 percent from last year. (That is the second-best October recorded by the AAP, next to the massive sales of $1.042 billion in 2021, which was the best year ever for trade book sales.) Adult book sales totaled $664 million, a 7.5 percent increase, with $324 million coming from fiction (a 17.5 percent increase) and $340 million in nonfiction (just below flat). Hardcovers grew 7 percent to $297 million and paperbacks were up 10 percent to $191 million. Adult audiobooks grew 19 […]
Ask an Expert: Foreign Rights Director Lyndsey Blessing
Lyndsey Blessing started her career in publishing while in college, interning in the subsidiary rights department of Grove/Atlantic. She then worked for several years at the literary scouting agency Maria B. Campbell Associates, recommending American books to publishers around the world. She also lived in Europe for a number of years, working freelance in publishing in Paris and Berlin and teaching English in Berlin. Lyndsey is a graduate of the University of Virginia where she received a BA in English and American Studies. She joined InkWell Management in 2009 as co-director of foreign rights. Could you give a little foreign […]