Trade sales as reported to the AAP by approximately 1,200 publishers were solid in January 2014, driven by strong sales of Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy and steady performance across the board. Total trade sales of $506 million were up 12 percent (or $54 million) compared to the same month a year ago. Most of that gain came from surging children’s/YA sales, up $44 million in January compared to a year ago, at $144 million. Adult sales rose $10 million, at $362 million. Total ebook sales for January were $137 million, up $15.5 million or 12 percent — exactly in line […]
Sales
Google Play Continues Growth
Google reported first quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon that were somewhat short of analysts’ expectations on both sales and earnings. Our narrow interest in their earnings reports remains the hints regarding their expanding Play store. The category that includes Play results — “other revenues” — was up 48 percent compared to a year ago, at $1.554 billion. The same revenue line comprised $1.65 for the previous holiday quarter, and just under $5 billion for all of 2013. As we noted earlier, this business category includes the Google Play store; their hardware line (Nexus devices and Chromecasts, but not Chromebooks); and their […]
A Strong Finish for Trade, Even with eBook Decline, As Every Other Major Publishing Segment Rises In 2013
Trade publishing finished 2013 with two strong months of sales, according to the publishers who report to the AAP, closing the gap to put full-year trade sales a little shy of the big 2012 results. Measured sales from the approximately 1,200 reporting publishers were $6.441 billion for 2013, down by $74 million (or 1 percent) from 2012 — which was a banner year, thanks to the Hunger Games and Fifty Shades trilogies. (By comparison, total AAP trade sales in 2011 were $6.082 billion, when Borders went bankrupt and liquidated.) November sales of $651 million were up strongly, by $62 million […]
Some Hints on UK eBook and Self-Published Sales
In London, Nielsen presented 2013 data about the UK market from their Books & Consumers surveys at their annual conference. (They survey approximately 3,000 book buyers per month. Surveys are different from Nielsen Bookscan’s direct point-of-sale data, so bear that in mind when reading about these results.) They estimate based on their respondents that UK book sales totaled £2.2 billion in 2013, with ebooks comprising 25 percent of unit sales but only 13.5 percent of revenues, at £300 million. In their view, ebook sales rose 20 percent during the year. We had noted recently that consumer surveys are one tool […]
Context: Looking Across Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and More
Most publishing-focused media is looking solely at Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report from yesterday, but Google also reported earnings Thursday evening. The search giant’s sales and profits both rose 17 percent. Their sales are smaller than Amazon’s (about $17 billion, versus $25.5 billion) — but they had profits of over $4 billion (which is more than Amazon’s lifetime earnings). More importantly, with Google pushing their consolidated Play store and Apple continuing to grow iTunes sales, it’s time (long past time, actually) for us all to be looking across the digital media competitors. Amazon‘s total “media” sales for the year were […]
eBook Sales Grew Less for Biggest UK Publishers, Too
The Bookseller elicited some 2013 ebook sales information from the UK’s five largest trade publishers. The article shares only partial data points, but it seems to reflect what we have seen more clearly in data from a much larger group of publishers in the US — that growth in marketwide ebook sales in revenues has slowed considerably. (Also note that in the US, the AAP consistently measures publisher sales in dollars only, not units.) For these UK publishers, ebook unit growth remains stronger than revenue growth. The Bookseller shows unit sales at Penguin Random UK; Hachette UK; Harper UK; Pan […]