Recently we reported strong third-quarter dealmaking trends in the US, with near-record overall deal volumes, driven by continued strength in adult fiction, and balanced by some weakness in children’s book sales. Now it’s time for our usual look at the “pre-Frankfurt” dealmaking window in particular. Like last year, the Frankfurt Book Fair falls a week later than usual, so for the second year in a row the counts include one extra day of deal reports. (Often, FBF comes five weeks after Labor Day, so the count usually covers five weeks plus one day. When FBF falls late, starting from the […]
Deals
Third Quarter Deal Trends Show Continued Strength
So far this year, we’ve seen a record first quarter in domestic dealmaking, followed by a correction in the second quarter — which still was the second-best level in five years — and across both periods there was some weakness among the biggest deals, as well as a decline in total volume of deals from the Big Five on their own. Now, the third quarter of 2022 shows a mix of factors. Total deal volume rose again, up slightly (by 1.5 percent) and close to the record level from 2020. Non-fiction deals rebounded after a sharp falloff a year ago […]
Expanding Deals
As some of you may have noticed, we are finishing up another expansion and revision of Deals/Dealmakers categories, this time with an emphasis on our sprawling nonfiction section. Long overdue (someone finally asked), we have created a Body, Mind & Spirit category, so those projects will no longer be scattered among multiple ill-fitting tags. We have also split the rather unwieldy History/Politics/Current Affairs into two separate groups: History, on its own, and Politics/Current Affairs (which still holds a wide spectrum of topics, including climate, race, feminism, gender, legal & justice, urban studies, education and more, often broadly related to social […]
Second Quarter Deals
After a strong first quarter — perhaps buoyed by relatively early calendar returns for live versions of the Bologna (March 21) and London (April 5) book fairs — deal reports in the US for the second quarter hewed more closely to the sales pattern for print books as measured by NPD Bookscan. In other words, deal volume was down compared to a record-smashing second quarter in 2021, declining 9.1 percent, but was still well ahead of previous years (and 8 percent better than in 2019, which had been a peak period). And even though total deal volume fell, reported six-figure […]
ILP Acquires Estates of Marsh, Rule and Thirkell
International Literary Properties (ILP) announced the acquisition of three more literary estates, in whole or in part: A majority interest in the literary estate of New Zealand crime novelist Dame Ngaio Marsh; a majority interest in the literary estate of American true crime author Ann Rule; and full ownership of the literary works of British author Angela Thirkell. CEO of ILP UK and Europe Hilary Strong said in the release: “I have been lucky enough to work closely with a number of crime estates, amongst them Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh is undoubtedly one of the masters […]
First Quarter Deals: Sales Remain At Record Levels, Even As Six-Figure Deals Soften
Following a record year in 2021 for US deal transactions as measured through our PM deal reports, it’s time for an update on deal trends from the first quarter of 2022. To recap the baseline, 2021 saw a surge in dealmaking in the first and second quarters, followed by a modest pullback in the third quarter and a finish to the year that was slightly ahead of the first pandemic uptick from late 2020. In the end, US deals were up 9.4 percent overall, and six-figure deals grew even more, up over 21 percent. Those results aligned with industry stats: […]