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 […]
Industry Statistics
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 8.8 million print units alone) and the rapid rise of Freida McFadden (who sold roughly 5.3 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 with acquisitions […]
The Continuing Rise of Bloom Books
The NYT celebrates the continuing success of Sourcebooks’ Bloom Books imprint. In 2023 Bloom had already grown to sales of more than $100 million less than three years after its founding, and sales for 2024 are up another 58 percent. “In an era when TikTok can catapult authors to success overnight, Bloom has developed a lucrative formula: courting self-published authors who have a built-in fan base, taking over their print distribution, building up their brand and market share and turning them into mainstream best sellers. That model has propelled the careers of novelists who now rank among the genre’s most […]