We have launched the first of our new tools for the year at Publishers Marketplace. Salary Search lets you check posted salary information over time for any job position by searching through many thousands of listings from Publishers Lunch Job Board archive. Since salary transparency laws in major states were implemented over the past couple of years, the richest data is also the most recent data, though the feature will match historical listings for whenever a salary was posted in a PL job listing. Every column is sortable, so you can easily sort by job posting date, salary level, title, […]
Industry Statistics
2024: The Year In Deals
A soft fourth quarter for overall deals (-3.2 percent overall) had only modest effect on what was a record-setting year for PM reports overall in 2024–even with continued weakness in the children’s market. Overall deals were higher than ever, as adult deals set new records by a large margin. And publisher investment, in terms of reported six-figure deals as well as in major and significant deals in particular, well exceeded previous records. In particular: – US deals overall were up 3.5 percent, just beating the previous record set in 2021 when pandemic retail sales also set new records. – Adult Fiction continued […]
Strong Holiday Sales Put Print Units Up for 2024
As we reported a week ago, shoppers turned to books late in the holiday season but with conviction, making print sales for the week ending December 21 the best holiday week of sales recorded by Bookscan over the past five years. That momentum continued into the final few holiday shopping days, with the sales week ending December 28 recording the highest “week 52” sales by far over the past five years. Barnes & Noble ceo James Daunt told the FT, “If you are in the ‘last minute’ game — and we are to an extent — then [ . . .] it was a […]
2024: The Year In Deals
A soft fourth quarter for overall deals (-3.2 percent overall) had only modest effect on what was a record-setting year for PM reports overall in 2024–even with continued weakness in the children’s market. Overall deals were higher than ever, as adult deals set new records by a large margin. And publisher investment, in terms of reported six-figure deals as well as in major and significant deals in particular, well exceeded previous records. In particular: – US deals overall were up 3.5 percent, just beating the previous record set in 2021 when pandemic retail sales also set new records. – Adult Fiction continued […]
Big Final Full Holiday Week Helps Book Sales
After four straight weeks of declining year-over-year book sales, the final full holiday week of sales, for the week ending December 21, was very strong, according to Circana Bookscan. Sales of 33.34 million units were up 4.6 percent over the comparable week from 2023, when consumers bought 31.88 million units — making it the best holiday week of print sales recorded by Bookscan over the past five years. That late surge in book sales also suggests that the final sales week of the year, which will include two more days of holiday sales, could be strong on a comparison basis […]
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 […]