Saturday, May 05, 2012

US BookTrade Sales Up 22% In February, While eBook Sales Flatten Out


PublishersLunch
The AAP reported sales for February, the second installment in their expanded Stat Shot tabulations. Though it doesn't fit the narrative in the general and tech press, trade sales of $438 million were up 22 percent over last year's revised count of $360 million, driven by a $58.5 million gain in children's and YA (not doubt due in part to the major success of the Hunger Games books, which added 12.5 million units in print in the first three months of the year). Those sales were cleaner as well, with the absence of the big Borders returns a year ago and a more efficient supply chain in place: Returns were $49.5 million lower for the month. Net hardcover sales actually rose, and declined very modestly in trade paperback and mass market books.
In the new ebook breakouts, adult ebook sales registered $92.5 million, and children's/YA ebooks comprised $22.4 million--accounting for 26 percent of all trade sales. (On Tuesday, Simon & Schuster said their worldwide digital content sales were 26 percent for the entire first quarter, meaning they were likely a little higher than that in the US.)
The ebook comparison to a year ago will surprise some people--adult ebook sales of $92.5 million were only 9.9 percent higher than the $84.2 million from the same month a year. (Children's ebooks of $22.4 million rose 180 percent over just $8 million from a year ago; overall trade ebook sales of $114.9 million were up 10 percent.) As you may recall, however, last February was an outlier--the one month out of the first seven or so where ebook sales appeared to spike. Upon further research, the AAP has concluded the February 2011 figure was "abnormally high," due to "an unusual one-off retail revenue transaction." We have underscored in the past that publishers tell us any individual month's figures should not be viewed that strictly; these are publisher reports, rather than direct point-of-sale data, and can reflect reporting as well as billing/collection irregularities from accounts.
On a month-to-month basis, February's $114.9 million of ebooks is lower than January's $122.1 million (when ebooks comprised 27 percent of trade sales).

The February highlights:
Adult trade paper $94.8 million -3.3%
Adult ebook $92.5 million +9.9%
Adult hardcover $68.3 million +24.4%
Adult mass market $28.2 million -4.3%
Children's/YA hardcover $62.9 million +71.8%
Children's paperback $46.3 million +62.5%
Children's ebook $22.4 million +177.8%
Board book $4.1 million -8%
Other $3 million +18.8%

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