Publishing Revival?

Publishing Gives Hints of Revival, Data Show
By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: August 9, 2011

The publishing industry has expanded in the past three years as Americans increasingly turned to e-books and juvenile and adult fiction, according to a new survey of thousands of publishers, retailers and distributors that challenges the doom and gloom that tends to dominate discussions of the industry’s health.

BookStats, a comprehensive survey conducted by two major trade groups that was released early Tuesday, revealed that in 2010 publishers generated net revenue of $27.9 billion, a 5.6 percent increase over 2008. Publishers sold 2.57 billion books in all formats in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008.

The Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group collaborated on the report and collected data from 1,963 publishers, including the six largest trade publishers. The survey encompassed five major categories of books: trade, K-12 school, higher education, professional and scholarly.

“We’re seeing a resurgence, and we’re seeing it across all markets — trade, academic, professional,” said Tina Jordan, the vice president of the Association of American Publishers. “In each category we’re seeing growth. The printed word is alive and well whether it takes a paper delivery or digital delivery.”

Higher education was especially strong, selling $4.55 billion in 2010, up 18.7 percent in three years, a trend that Ms. Jordan suggested could be traced to the expansion of two-year and community colleges and the inclination to return to school during a rough economy.

Sales of trade books grew 5.8 percent to $13.9 billion, fueled partly by e-books, the report said. Juvenile books, which include the current young-adult craze for paranormal and dystopian fiction, grew 6.6 percent over three years.

One of the strongest growth areas was adult fiction, which had a revenue increase of 8.8 percent over three years.

E-books were another bright spot, thanks to the proliferation and declining cost of e-reading devices like the Nook by Barnes & Noble and Amazon’s Kindle, and the rush by publishers to digitize older books.

In 2008 e-books were 0.6 percent of the total trade market; in 2010, they were 6.4 percent. Publishers have seen especially robust e-book sales in genre fiction like romance, mystery and thrillers, as well as literary fiction. In 2010, 114 million e-books were sold, the report said.

The survey does not include sales data from 2011, a year of substantial e-book growth. In its monthly snapshots of the industry so far this year, the Association of American Publishers has also tracked some decline in print sales.

And the report’s estimate of the size of the industry was significantly smaller than those in previous surveys of the book business, which were conducted by the Book Industry Study Group and released annually.

Dominique Raccah, the publisher of Sourcebooks, a midsize publisher in Naperville, Ill., worked on both surveys and said the older methodology was flawed.

“We probably overstated our estimates,” she said. “And today we have a better methodology and more data.”

Ms. Raccah emphasized that the newest survey incorporates data from a much larger group of publishers, in addition to distributors, wholesalers and retailers like Barnes & Noble. In its definition of what is a book, the report counted professional and scholarly journals and databases, multimedia teaching materials and mobile apps.

It also noted that publishers, many of which have expanded in recent years, are experimenting with multimedia products that go far beyond the traditional print book, she said.

“It shows that the industry as a whole is really healthy,” Ms. Raccah said. “That, I think, is exciting. You’re seeing an industry that is transforming itself.”

The newest survey showed that sales of adult hardcover and paperback books from 2008 through 2010 were relatively flat, growing about 1 percent over three years. Sales of mass-market paperbacks declined 16 percent since 2008.

Hardcover books became a slightly smaller portion of the trade market, dropping to 37.7 percent in 2010 from 39.6 percent in 2008. Trade paperbacks also lost some market share, dipping to 37.8 percent in 2010 from 39.5 percent in 2008.

Professional publishing, which focuses on science, medicine, law, technology and the humanities, increased by 6.3 percent from 2008 through 2010, to $3.75 billion. Scholarly publishing, the smallest category in the business, had net revenue grow by 4.7 percent since 2008.