Now that Borders is moving towards liquidation, we thought it might be useful to look back at our special item from last month featuring consumer survey data elicited exclusively for Publishers Lunch readers by Bowker PubTrack Consumer on where regular Borders customers might take their book-purchasing dollars if the chain goes out of business. Some of the results are likely to differ now, since the data comes from the roughly 10 percent of surveyed book buyers who indicated buying a book from Borders in April, but it addresses critical questions on the minds of all publishers and authors right now. […]
Industry Statistics
AAP eBook Numbers Rise, Making Up About 19 Percent of April Trade Sales
Monthly ebook sales as measured by the AAP from 14 reporting publishers rose slightly in April to $72.8 million, the second-biggest ebook sales month so far this year after February’s monster month of $90.3 million. Once again, that puts ebooks behind adult trade hardcover ($111.4 million) and trade paperbacks ($95.9 million) for the month, and but this time they comprised just under 19 percent of all trade sales for April. The sales numbers seem to indicate that Random House’s move to the agency model in March (when ebook sales were at $69 million) has been absorbed into the overall ebook […]
Where Would Borders Shoppers Take Their Book Dollars?
We’re excited to launch a new, regular feature today in conjunction with Bowker PubTrack Consumer. They will be including questions posed by Publishers Lunch as part of their regular monthly online surveys of over 6,000 book buyers across the country. The result and analysis of that information will run exclusively here in Publishers Lunch and at PublishersMarketplace.com. We’ll be looking to survey consumers on hot button issues for the trade that don’t usually receive this kind of focused treatment. Feel free to share your thoughts with us on potential future lines of questioning. And of course the folks at Bowker […]
As Expected, eBooks Slide to 17 Percent of Sales In March As Trade Rebounds, But E Is Now Amazon’s Top Format
Monthly ebook sales as measured by the AAP from 14 reporting publishers ebbed in March–which we were expecting–more or less on par with the second-biggest ebook sales month on record (January 2011), at $69 million. That puts ebooks behind adult trade hardcover and trade paperbacks for the month, and they comprised less than 17 percent of all trade sales for March. Why was a pullback from February’s $90.3 million expected? For starters, March is when Random House moved to the agency model, which means their ebook receipts should have declined, all things being equal. Just as important, recent quarterly earnings […]
AAP eBook Sales Reach New High in December, Finish Year at 8 Percent/$441 Million
The AAP reported sales from December for the limited set of reporting publishers they monitor, tabulating ebook sales from a dozen companies of $49.5 million for the month. Electronic books registered $441.3 million for the year among the reporting companies, compared to $166.9 million a year ago. When properly calculated, ebooks were just under 8 percent of net trade sales for the year. For December alone, ebooks comprised 9.5 percent of monitored sales. It was the highest monthly ebook sales number yet, outpacing the previous high from November of $46.6 million. Consistent with our analysis last month of figures for […]
The New York Times Unveils Their E-Book Bestseller Lists
The NYT’s first-ever e-book bestseller lists will appear in print on February 13 and online on February 11 (reflecting rankings for the week ending January 30), as the paper previewed for publishing people at an event this morning. Not only will the paper publish a separate e-book list, but there will also be a hybrid print and e-book bestseller list. A spokesperson said the paper “wanted to provide more comprehensive lists of which books are selling.” Unlike USA Today’s approach, the hybrid lists give no indication of whether e-books outsell print editions; a note on their methodology says only that […]