The AAP and BISG have hired Bowker as the data collection provider for the new set of industry statistics they are setting out to compile together. Publishers are encouraged to participate in the new data-gathering process, with a “target rollout date” of BEA-time this May. The new venture will compile statistics for 2010 as well as gathering new historical data for 2009 and 2008 along the same criteria. AAP president Tom Allen and BISG executive director Scott Lubeck write in a joint message: “The industry’s response to the new joint venture has been overwhelmingly positive, due to the critical need […]
Industry Statistics
BISG E-Book ISBN Survey Shows Just How Much More Work Needs To Be Done
Last week the Book Industry Study Group held a meeting to review findings of a study conducted by Michael Cairns of Information Media Partners on how ISBNs are deployed with respect to e-books – or more specifically, how there is nowhere near a consistent standard or best practice for doing so. The full study will be available in a few weeks but Cairns has made the executive summary available at his blog Personanondata. Thanks to the proliferation of e-book formats and Amazon’s insistence on its own proprietary format, ASIN, the study finds that “the ISBN agency is virtually irrelevant to […]
A New Survey Shows A Widening Generational Gap of Mystery Readers
Sisters in Crime, in conjunction with Bowker PubTrack, released the results of a survey of 1,056 mystery readers conducted in September 2010 on their book-buying habits. And while many of the results will not be a surprise both to those in the industry and in the mystery community, what struck me in particular is the gap between readers over and under the age of 40, and how current acquisitions may appeal more to the younger group while it neglects, for good or for ill, older readers. Generally, the majority of mystery/crime fiction buyers tend to be women over the age […]
AAP-Tracked eBook Sales Hold Steady, But Are Under 7 Percent of Month’s Sales
The AAP reported their October sales numbers this morning, with everyone’s favorite number to watch–their tabulation of ebook sales for 12 reporting publishers–up slightly at $40.7 million. (They have been about the same, month to month, since July.) With net print trade sales from a larger group of publishers reported at $569 million, ebooks comprised 6.7 percent of sales for the month. That’s below the 8 percent of trade sales that ebooks comprise for the entire year through October. (We’ve discussed previously that monthly ebook figures may not be all that precise; also as previously written, our percentages differ from […]
Wimpy Kid More Nearly Doubles Hefty Bush Opening-Day Sales
Jeff Kinney’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: The Ugly Truth, the fifth in his bestselling series, sold over 375,000 copies in its first day on sale according to publisher Abrams. The launch included an event at Book People in Austin, TX, where the author addressed over 1,600 fans to kick off his tour. The specially-branded tour bus will take Kinney to events in Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, and Birmingham, AL, with up to 2,000 fans expected in the various venues. That opening-day sale is said to be up 50 percent from the big first day for the fourth book in […]
A New Look at the Monthly eBook Percentage: Adult eBooks Are Roughly 9.5 Percent
The AAP reported their monthly industry sales statistics for September, including ebook sales compiled from 12 publishers (including the big six). They show ebook sales for the month of $39.9 million, ahead of August’s $39 million, but behind July’s $40.8 million. (We repeat our warning that insiders have told us not to make too much of the monthly precision on these numbers, based on how data is accumulated by publishers). With total trade print sales of $489.5 million for September, that makes ebooks 7.5 percent of sales overall for the month. The total of $304.6 million in ebooks for the […]