AAP Reports eBook, Audiobook Sales Up in First Part of 2014
The American
Association of Publishers released a new report today with the latest stats on the US book market. As with their past monthly reports, the AAP has released the bare statistics to the press, and from what I can see the news is generally good.
Based on the net revenues reported by 1,209 publishers, the AAP reported on Wednesday that the US trade book industry increased by 4.1% in the first 7 months of 2014 ($3.57 billion to $3.7 billion).
The adult segment showed a drop in sales of 2.2%, while the religious pressed reported an increase of 1.9%. Much of the latter could probably be attributed to an increase in the sale of religious ebooks, which saw a 25.7% increase over the same period in 2013.
The best performing segment was kids/YA, which shot up by 25.8% ($762 million to $958 million). This includes a 59% jump in YA ebook revenues, thought the specific value for that segment has not been shared.
In terms of formats, downloadable audiobooks continued to be the fastest growing format remain with a +26.2% growth over the same period in 2013. eBooks came in a distant second increasing by 7.5% ($871 million to $937 million). Hardback books dipped by a fraction of a percent, while sales of paperback book grew by a not insubstantial 5.3% ($1.08 billion to $1.13 billion).
Comments
fjtorres October 28, 2014 um 11:41 am
No mention of MMPB, huh?
That being where trade paperback growth is coming from they probably didn’t want to muddle the "good news" with the reality that MMPB is steadily going away.
Nate Hoffelder October 28, 2014 um 11:50 am
There’s just the one paperback category. And at this point the decline in PB sales has slowed enough that I’m not sure they’re going away.
fjtorres October 28, 2014 um 12:48 pm
Oh, they’ll eventually go away because it’s a way to raise prices.
Not totally, because some of the big sellers will still get MMPB, but a lot of the titles that would be MMPB and TradePB originals aren’t getting print editions at all. That trend is already in place.
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