Friday, September 07, 2012

US Trade Sales Rise In May; eBooks Hit New Record


PublishersLunch
The AAP monthly sales reports remain relentlessly cheerful, with May statistics released Wednesday morning showing strong trade sales and another burst in ebook sales. Total trade sales from the reporting publishers were $535 million, up 17 percent from $457 million a year ago. In contrast to some previous months, the gains came from higher true shipments/sales in multiple categories, rather than just fewer returns.
eBook sales, which had been growing at a slower pace since last fall, hit a new record for the month, at $133.7 million overall--well ahead of the previous high mark of $121.1 million in January. Since the whole trade is healthy, though, ebooks remained at about 25 percent of all sales, consistent with the year's pattern. And the gain, while big, was up 77 percent compared to a year ago--still below the doubling that had been common when the market was smaller.
Adult ebooks alone rose to $106.3 million--up from $70.1 million a year ago--though they were still outpaced by both trade paperbacks ($135 million) and hardcovers ($106.6 million). They comprised 27 percent of all adult sales. Children's ebooks of $27.7 million comprised 20 percent of sales across that segment (a new high), up sharply from $7 million (and 5.5%) a year ago. Here are updates of our standing charts to visualize the ebook sales trends. Updates of our standing charts that visualize the ebook sales trends are available at the PM site.

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