Since Spotify started offering US premium subscribers 15 hours of audiobook listening a month at no extra cost nearly a year ago, we know the company has been putting real money into the hands of publishers and authors, marking one of the few initiatives in our world from a big tech player that actually seems to have grown the market. (When Spotify launched a regular, a la carte audiobook sales program the year before, the impact was minor at best.) Digital audio had been growing a lovely 12 to 15 percent a year by industry statistics and through the first […]
Industry Statistics
Record Fall/Frankfurt Adult Deals Follow Big Third Quarter
Yes, your fall and pre-Frankfurt deal submissions really have been even more overwhelming than usual this year. As we noted yesterday, US publishers were strong buyers in the third quarter of the year and that continued in October, as we saw new records for overall deals during this key five-week-plus selling stretch, lifted by adult books in particular. (As a reminder, we measure the five weeks and a day leading up to the Wednesday opening of FBF. Usually that begins with Labor Day, though last year and this year Frankfurt is a week later than usual.) US deals were up […]
July AAP Sales Jump Across the Board, Topped by Big Gains In Audio, Adult Fiction
The Association of American Publishers released data from participating StatShot publishers, reporting trade sales of $687 million in July, a 21.5 percent increase from 2023. That’s close to the best July ever, recorded in 2021, when sales were $705 million. And the strong AAP reports show publisher dollars running well ahead of unit sales, which were nearly flat for the first six months of the year as measured by Circana Bookscan, down 0.5%. Adult books sold $505 million, up 24 percent, led by paperbacks, which sold $177 million (compared to $150 million last year) and made up 35 percent of […]
Adult Fiction Gained 8 Percent in June
The AAP released StatShot data from participating publishers for June 2024, reporting trade sales of $617.9 million, up 2.7 percent from 2023. Adult books sold $464.6 million, up 3.8 percent, comprising $266 million in fiction (an 8.2 percent gain) and $198.7 million in nonfiction (down 1.5 percent). Paperbacks were the top selling format, comprising 36.8 percent of the total (up 3 percent to $168.1 million), with hardcovers making up 31.4 percent or just below flat at $127.2 million. Digital formats continued their growth: ebooks were up 8.5 percent to $73.2 million (12.5 percent of total) and audio rose 9.3 percent […]
AAP Annual Stats Show Trade Unit Sales Falling 8.1 Percent in 2023, Balanced By Price Increases
The AAP released their StatShot Annual Report for 2023, now compiled by the same firm that took over the organization’s monthly statistical reports for 2024. In line with that change, the annual data comes from a smaller pool of reporting publishers — 1,275 companies — that looks to align closely with the entities that report monthly data. (Previously, the pool of companies reporting annually was close to 2,300 publishers. The AAP indicates that distributors reported on behalf of fewer distribution clients this year.) As a result of the change in data compiler, the new report carries refreshed data for the past […]
Adult and Children’s Fiction Grows in May
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported StatShot numbers for May, with trade sales of $716.8 million in adult and children’s books, up 16 percent over 2023. Adult sales grew 18 percent to $526.0 million, with $297.2 million in fiction (up 25 percent) and $228.8 in nonfiction (up 9 percent). Hardcovers were up 22 percent to $178.4 million (making up 34 percent of total sales in the category), paperbacks were up 20 percent to $184.3 million (35 percent of sales), ebooks sold $71.9 million (14 percent of sales), and digital audio sold $69.2 million (13 percent of sales). Children’s sales […]