The AAP recorded reports of $39 million in ebook sales for August from the 12 publishers who provide data, another strong month, slightly below the $40.8 million from a month ago. (We’ve been warned by a participant that reporting methodology can vary and one should not get too attached to these numbers as reflecting a particular month’s activity; the cumulative numbers over a period of months are more accurate indicators.) The $263 million in ebook sales recorded for 2010 so far from that core group of reporting publishers comprises 8.3 percent of all net trade sales of $3.174 billion as […]
Industry Statistics
Blair’s Opening Sale Sets Record, Sort Of
Tony Blair’s memoir A JOURNEY sold 92,060 copies in the UK in the first four days on sale, in outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan UK (which covers nearly the entire market over there). That qualifies as the biggest opening for a memoir since Nielsen started recording book sales in 1998, the Bookseller reports, though Margaret Thatcher’s THE DOWNING STREET YEARS was estimated to have sold 120,000 copies when it was first released in 1993.Bookseller In more Blair news, his “secret” book party is going ahead as planned tomorrow night at the Tate Modern, despite threats of protest from the Stop […]
AAP June eBook Sales Rise Slightly–Conclude As You Wish
The APP and IDPF released their admittedly-limited data on ebook sales for June (and thus the second quarter and first half of the year), which as usual is leading to a variation of interpretations. eBook sales are rising, falling, slowing down, plateauing and doubling or tripling all at the same time, or so the stories go. The data shows sales of $29.8 million for June (and $88.7 million for the second quarter, versus $91 million for the first quarter). As a reminder, it reflects publishers’ wholesale dollar sales only, and it only tracks a dozen publishers, so it does not […]
Publish Film Sell?
The LAT claims that “a movie’s release often leads to only a small uptick in a tie-in book’s sales” while declaring the EAT, PRAY, LOVE tie-in “the big exception this year.” The interesting part is that the book returned to the top of the bestseller lists in late May, well in advance of the movie’s marketing campaign. Separately, Nielsen released a chart on sales for the Elizabeth Gilbert book, which recorded sales of 94,000 units in the week ending August 1 alone. Sales in 2010 of 721,000 copies are more than double last year’ sales (and the movie release August […]
Meyer Tops A Million
Little, Brown Children’s says that it has sold over a million copies of Stephenie Meyer’s novella A THE SHORT SECOND LIFE OF BREE TANNER since its release on June 5–making it “the biggest selling new book of the year so far.” In other publisher announcements, Bantam will release Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s THE GRAND DESIGN on September 7.
eBook Numbers
We generally do not report on the AAP’s monthly numbers (or the Census Bureau’s monthly bookstore numbers) because they are so incomplete and idiosyncratic that they produce more confusion than clarity as far as we are concerned. (It leads to disconnects like today’s pairing from Shelf Awareness:) “AAP: April Sales Increase, Big Gain for Hardcovers”“Bookstore Sales Slip 5.1% in April, Flat for Year” But with the thirst for ebook data and general confusion about the changing landscape of business terms, lots of outlets are seizing on the monthly AAP ebook numbers. Year-on-year numbers are still increasing–April was up 127 percent […]