Forbes released its list of the 500 Best Midsize Employers, including several publishers. Penguin Random House ranked #4; Scholastic ranked #41; McGraw Hill ranked #277; Simon & Schuster ranked #342, making the list for the first time; and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ranked #420. Forbes and market research company Statista compiled the list by “surveying 60,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees.” Respondents were asked “to rate, on a scale of zero to ten, how likely they’d be to recommend their employer.” Additionally, they rated factors like working conditions, development opportunities, compensation, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Statistics
More Indications of A Strong Year, with Big Gains for Print Fiction
Further to Monday’s report on data from the AAP and NPD Bookscan suggesting the year’s strong book sales are likely to hold up through the end of the year, NPD Bookscan analyst Kristen McLean wrote in her November sales analysis, “The US Book market is pretty much locked in for a strong end of year.” While backlist has continued to drive sales all year, as it did in 2020, comprising over two-thirds of all unit sales, McLean noted, “Supply-chain issues did not affect November frontlist share. In fact, frontlist share gained one year-to-date share point, up from 31% last month.” […]
Holiday Sales Update
NPD Bookscan issued their weekly analysis of print book sales, which remain strong heading into the final holiday sales week. The big question is whether that last week of sales before the holiday — which is the single biggest week of the year — can remain strong given the limitations of everything from store capacity to shipping times and inventory availability. For the sales week ending December 12 (week 49 of the sales year), unit sales of 30 million were approximately 2.9 million units above the comparable week a year ago. Year to date, sales of 679 million prints units […]
July AAP Shows Another Strong Month for Trade Books
July’s AAP StatShot report shows a continuation of June’s trend of rising sales, at $647 million, up $103 million compared to last year. Adult sales gained $79 million, to $460 million, while children’s sales were $24 million higher, at $187 million. Returns remained modestly lower than a year ago, down (10.7) percent. The month’s big gains were from hardcover sales: Adult hardcovers were up by $58 million, as children’s hardcovers gained $17.5 million. At the same time, ebooks retained their pandemic-driven strength, with sales of $98 million, up from $78 million a year ago. Digital audio grew to $55.4 million, […]
Briefs
Controversies After UK thriller writer Mark Dawson admitted — or boasted? — about buying his way onto the Sunday Times bestseller list with a modest purchase of 400 hardcovers, Nielsen Bookscan has recalculated that Top 10 chart to remove Dawson’s book and the paper will issue a correction. Nielsen says they initially believed the purchase was related to a virtual book signing. Dawson, who still promotes his “top 10” listing on his Twitter page, said in a Twitter thread he was only cheating a little, not a lot: “If I was intent on ‘gaming the system’ I would have bought […]
The Deals Are Alright
As you may have noticed informally, deal reports have been looking pretty steady over the past month at PublishersMarketplace.com, and with April coming to an end, we can share some data on dealmaking patterns since the pandemic hit. Broadly speaking, deal volumes were strong in the first half of March up until the cancelled London Book Fair. As companies moved to work from home and shelter-in-place orders rolled out across the country, deal reports got much quieter in second half of March. But April has seen a steady pick up in reports. Looking at the month on its own, we […]