We don’t put a lot of stock into the AAP’s sales estimates (a hybrid of Census data and reports from 86 AAP member publishers, both of which are incomplete data streams). But for those who like to follow them, today the organization published its 2009 sales estimates. Trade sales of $8.1 billion were “steady,” with adult hardcover rising 6.9 percent and adult paperbacks falling 5.2 percent. Mass market paperbacks totaled $1 billion, down 4 percent. By their count, ebook sales of $313 million–up 176 percent–overtook audio sales, which at $192 million were down 12.9 percent. Religious book sales fell 9 […]
Industry Statistics
BISG Surveys eBook Consumers
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has released headline results from their first survey of Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading, conducted among approximately 550 people from Bowker’s PubTrack Consumer panel who said they had purchased an ebook within the past year. Computers were still the top ereading “devices,” cited by 47 percent of respondents, followed by the Kindle at 32 percent and other ereaders at 10 percent. “Roughly one-fifth of survey respondents said they’ve stopped purchasing print books within the past 12 months in favor of acquiring the e-book editions.” One question asked how, for a favorite author, consumers would […]
Bookscan Adds to Data Pool
New for 2010, Nielsen Bookscan now includes point-of-sale data from BJ’s Wholesale Club (over 180 stores); Meijer (with 190 supercenters); and The Paradies Shops (with over 500 stores in more than 70 airports and hotels).
2009 By the Real Numbers: US Units Down 3 Percent, and UK Off Only 0.5 Percent
One good idea for the new year is to not be too influenced by the popular press and their facile pronouncements about the “failing publishing industry.” As Crain’s noted last week, in the US unit book sales as tracked by Nielsen Bookscan were down approximately 3 percent for the year (which was only a “surprise” if you hadn’t been paying attention to the real numbers throughout the year). The biggest weakness was in adult nonfiction, down 7 percent. Also bear in mind that ebook sales–not currently tracked by Bookscan–jumped from roughly 1 percent of the percent to approximately 4 percent […]
The Last Decade in Books: The Biggest Thing that Didn't Happen
The annual season of round-ups and predictions covered not just the years past and ahead, but a full decade. We’ll be sharing our own thoughts on the biggest trade developments of the past ten years but first we’re leading the most significant thing that didn’t change at all in the oughts. Though there are regular predictions that the big six publishers will change and consolidate (Bob Miller is just the latest to suggest “the big six could be the big three in five years), we find it rather striking when you realize that the list of the biggest US trade […]
How the NBA Nominees Have Fared
With the National Book Award winners due to be announced on Wednesday evening, we took a look at what the marketplace has had to say so far about the fiction nominees. Unfortunately, the NBA nominations traditionally do not have a lot of impact on the marketplace. In both total sales to date as well as sales since the nominations were announced, Colum McCann’s LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN is the clear stand-out. With just under 2,400 copies sold in the last three full weeks as recorded by Nielsen BookScan, he has outsold the rest of the field combined (the other […]