The AAP reported monthly StatShot statistics for September — as well as cumulative data for the first three quarters of the year. (If you’re thinking this is quick/early; you are right. The AAP has done a good job of picking up the pace in timely reporting of their monthly data during the year, now with the shortest lag we have seen.) A modest September report — adult trade sales were down $7 million, while children’s/young adult trade sales were up $19.5 million, putting the total of $718.5 million up less than 2 percent — completed a good third quarter. As […]
Industry Statistics
AAP Reports A Good August
The AAP reported monthly StatShot statistics compiled from 1,080 reporting publishers for August. Trade sales of $643.8 million were up $35.6 million compared to a year ago, up 5.9 percent. Adult sales rose by $22.7 million, as children’s and young adult sales were up by $12.9 million. On the consumer side, digital audio continued its brisk gains, at $36.2 million — compared to $24.9 million a year ago — and ebook sales were flat at $88.7 million
Amazon’s CreateSpace Continues to Grow, Devour Self-Published Print Market
Bowker released their annual statistics for 2017 charting the release of self-published books that carry ISBNs issued by the company (and as we know, a large number of self-published titles, particularly ebooks, do not carry ISBNs at all). The report has essentially become a chronicle of Amazon’s steady march to dominate print self-publishing in the same way that their KDP has long dominated ebook self-publishing. For 2017, there were 879,587 self-published print titles that carried ISBNs — and 751,924 of them came from CreateSpace (which is now being merged with KDP), comprising over 85 percent of the total. CreateSpace’s output grew by […]
Dealmaking Is Modest Heading into Frankfurt, As Nonfiction and Film/TV Gain
With the Frankfurt Book Fair now officially underway, it’s time for our regular look at dealmaking trends ahead of the show (in the five week period from the day after Labor Day to yesterday). This year’s deal activity has been in line with both recent trends — ahead of the London Book Fair in April major nonfiction deals were robust, with overall US deal volumes just below flat — and long-term patterns, which had pre-FBF deal totals peaking in 2013 and 2014, and declining slightly year-over-year since. As we have seen before, nonfiction volumes remained strong, as fiction deals continue […]
Trade Prepares for NPD BookScan’s Migration
Next week, BookScan will complete its transition from the old Nielsen platform to the NPD system and at outset, the biggest adjustment for users may be getting accustomed to system updates on a different day of the week. At launch, BookScan’s weekly data will be refreshed on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. That change may only be temporary. “The goal is to bring the SLA back to Wednesday sometime in the weeks ahead,” said NPD Book President Jonathan Stolper. The rollout of the new, integrated BookScan tracking system on the NPD platform comes nearly two years after the company’s purchase from […]
AAP Sales Rebounded Some In July
As we have noted many times, AAP sales data can reflect significant swings from month to month, and that holds true for their just released July StatShot data. Following a soft June report (adult sales were down 5.7 percent and children’s/YA sales were down 10.7 percent), it makes sense that the July data swings the other way, with adult sales rising 11 percent and children’s/YA sales up 10.3 percent. Adult books gained across all print formats, with children’s gains coming mostly from hardcovers. From a broader view, July can be a particularly variable month as well, depending in large part on […]