Business Insider obtained a rare document: A 25 page confidential report, “used for a weekly business review at Amazon,” that provides data about their book retailing business for the first 10 months of 2022. It’s not the complete data of our dreams, and the reporter has not posted the full document so there are many nuances and gray areas that still leave us with more questions than definitive conclusions. (Per their historical policy of not providing data like this on an official basis, the company declined to provide any clarity on the data, or validate the article in any way.) […]
Industry Statistics
Adult Book Sales Grew 25% In April
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released StatShot sales data for April, reporting $657 million in adult and children’s sales for the month, an increase of 19 percent over last year, when sales reached only $551.5 million — and still strong compared to $629 million in 2022. The strong AAP data comes as Circana Bookscan continues to show renewed strength among consumers, with five consecutive weeks of print sales running ahead of the same period a year ago. For weekly sales ending June 8, Bookscan showed print sales up 3 percent over the same week in 2023. Adult books sold […]
Book Sales Were Strong In May
Despite prominent staff cutbacks, by the numbers print book sales were strong throughout May. Circana Bookscan notes that weekly sales were ahead of 2023 in all four weeks of May (and have been ahead of last year in 8 of the last 11 weeks). Still driven by adult fiction, overall print sales were up by almost 3 million units during the month. Bookscan analyst Brenna Connor notes, “If the strong performance continues, we’ll see sales flat over last year and a possible gain over the summer months.” That strong performance puts 2024 so far nearly even with 2023, running just […]
Trade Sales Down 3.6 Percent In the First Quarter, As AAP Launches Expanded Stats
The Association of American Publishers released revamped versions of their monthly StatShot reports, with more granular data breakouts as well as an expanded pool of reporting publishers. The reports now break out sales by fiction and nonfiction, plus formats, for both adult and children’s books, more precisely reflecting the actual fluctuations within the market. (The new breakouts also apply to sales for religious presses and university presses.) Also, they are now receiving data from about 130 additional publishers (the total pool is up to 1,277 publishers) — including over 50 additional Simon & Schuster distribution clients, and about 50 additional […]
That Stat Isn’t A Stat
The discourse is once again reckoning all over the internet with a factoid from the PRH-S&S antitrust trial in 2022 that was not an established fact at all. The provocative Substack declaration — “no one buys books” — is based on an exchange during the trial that has been misunderstood from the start. The popular takeaway is a belief that the Department of Justice found that half of the new books published every year sell fewer than 12 copies in a year. But going by the public record, that was never a fact introduced as evidence or supported by documentation […]
Deals Rebounded In the First Quarter, Led By Strong Six-Figure Reports
Deal reports rebounded in the first quarter of 2024, likely helped by an early convening of the London Book Fair and driven by strong investment in adult books. The gains come in comparison to a lower bar from a year ago, when Harper Collins was dealing with a strike and cutbacks. This quarter’s deal volumes were nearly back to the record total from 2022, and six-figure sales hit a new high. Adult fiction sales set a new record, up 20 percent over last year. Adult nonfiction recovered meaningfully from last year’s lull, gaining 10 percent, though still well off its […]