BookNet Canada, which tracks point-of-sale data covering approximately 75 percent of the market, says that for the four weeks ending November 23, dollar sales rose 2 percent and unit sales rose 4.9 percent, concluding that “Canada might be the only English book market still in positive territory.” Unfortunately, that could be due in part to the relative cheapness of books in Canada compared to the US, with the Canadian dollar still trading at a very low .80 against the US dollar.Release In general, the dollar has retained its recent strength, which for the time being helps lift the performance of […]
Industry Statistics
UK Sales Down Over 4 Percent
Even as holiday sales volume picks up in the UK, as compared to last year sales are consistently down 4 percent or more. According to Nielsen Bookscan figures, total expenditures for the four weeks ending November 15 were down 4.1 percent, while unit sales declined 4.5 percent. For the recent week by itself, total spending dropped 3.9 percent compared to last year.Bookseller
A New Trend in BISG Stats
At its annual meeting held in NYC this morning, the Book Industry Study Group celebrated a year of growing membership, record revenues (up 23 percent at almost $840,000) and high-profile engagement in issues including environmentally responsible practices and the identification of electronic books and related products in the supply chain. Executive director Michael Healy and co-chair (and head of Sourcebooks) Dominique Raccah both noted in their morning presentations a major planned change in the organization’s annual compilation of statistics on the US book business, Book Industry Trends. The organization has set out to create a new methodology to “provide clear, […]
VSS Stats Forecast
Veronis Suhler Stevenson has issued their new annual Communications Industry forecasts covering 20 media segments. They estimate 2007 spending on consumer books was $23.64 billion, with an annual compound growth rate of 3.8 percent since 2002. Their forecast is pretty much more of the same, guessing at 2012 spending of $28.1 billion with five-year annual growth of 3.5 percent a year.Release
Publishing News to Close
The UK trade magazine, which has long been somewhat of a loss leader for the parent company’s more profitable operations, like the British Book Awards and their book business research agency BML, will cease publication as of the July 25 issue. Founder and chairman Fred Newman says: “This has been a sad and difficult decision to make, but the nature of the book trade which today offers a multiplicity of ways for publishers to sell books both to booksellers and to consumers, has changed dramatically. For the biggest book publishers the trade press is now only one of many options […]
Lunch for Wednesday, May 28
McLellan’s Book Criticizes Bush Former White House press secretary Scott McLellan’s book WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception makes headlines after Politico and then the NYT purchased embargoed copies in advance of next week’s release. Politico calls it a “surprisingly scathing memoir” that says Bush “veered terribly off course” and was not “open and forthright on Iraq.” President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment” and has engaged in “self-deception,” the NYT writes, and he says “White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of […]