As you may have noticed, we recently expanded our Dealmakers pages with the addition of a “sales” tab. For the agents and other publishing professionals who get annual Bookscan service through PM, this new feature displays actual Bookscan and PubTrack Digital sales data within tens of thousands of deal records, unlocking a significant body of data and putting it in context. It also makes a wealth of Bookscan data more accessible by embedding it in our interface. Beyond that, all PM members get to benefit from this capability. While only our Bookscan subscribers can see the actual data, the new […]
Industry Statistics
What Ingram Learned Studying 150,000 Titles on Amazon for Three Years
The Ingram Consumer Insights team has a terrific analysis detailing observations from studying the sales of 150,000 titles on Amazon over a three-year period. They chart how Amazon’s “lost” buy boxes for books (which send preferred sales to third-parties) directly correlate to supply chain issues, from the onset of the pandemic to periods of printing shortages. (Unfortunately the study period ends in August 2021, so it does not show us the most recent holiday selling season or any other recent changes.) In normal times, about 25 percent of buy boxes go to third-parties — though the leading winner of those […]
AAP Sales Show First Decline In March, As Hardcovers Fall After Big Gains A Year Ago
After showing publisher revenue gains in January and February — in contrast to unit declines in customer sell-through as tracked by NPD Bookscan — the AAP’s March 2022 data from StatShot reporting publishers reflected the first decline of the year: Trade sales registered $650.4 million, compared to $691.6 million last year, down 6 percent. That said, however, the comp was extraordinarily high. A year ago, AAP March sales were up a whopping 35 percent. Adult books decreased (8.9) percent to $417.6 million. Hardcover sales were down (22.2) percent to $122.8 million, while trade paperback sales gained 4.7 percent to $150.4 […]
When Down Might Still be Up
It’s hard for a lot people — sometimes especially in the media — to keep in their heads different and nuanced ideas about statistics at the same time. But following the state of the trade market this year likely involves juggling a few different measures that do not necessarily align neatly. Our simplest, clearest weekly read on the market only tells us so much: NPD Bookscan has reported that US print book sales have been quite stable for the past five weeks, consistently running at 6 percent below the levels reached this time a year ago — and still 16 […]
Trade Sales Up 11.9 Percent in February
The AAP released its February 2022 StatShot data from reporting publishers, showing total trade sales of $648 million for the month, an 11.9 percent increase over last year, when sales were $579 million. Adult books increased 7 percent to $443 million, with hardcover sales up 8.8 percent to $129 million and paperback sales up 26.4 percent to $151 million. Mass market sales were down (26.5) percent to $16 million. Children’s and young adult books had overall sales of $205 million, a 24.2 percent increase. Paperbacks saw the highest gains, with sales of $83 million, up 34 percent. Hardcovers were up […]
About Last Week (The Sales)
That supposed “nosedive” in print sales the week after Easter was…completely normal. As NPD Books analyst writes in their weekly media report, “The week after Easter always sees a significant drop of more than 20%, and this year was no exception. It’s perfectly normal.” In fact, “The week after Easter always sees a drop of 20% to 28%.” This year, “Volume was down 24% from last week but was up 10% over the same week in 2019, which was also an Easter week and therefore is a helpful gauge of where we are relative to pre-pandemic numbers…. The week after […]