October 3, 2012
By Publishers Launch
One of the great ironies of the e-book era is that while digital data streams and a market concentrated among a small number of retailers should result in an easily measured, fully transparent marketplace, we are left with the opposite, since those retailers have declined to share any data.
In the US, publishing associations continue to try to improve general knowledge about e-book sales data, and at least some progress has been made. In 2011 the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) joined forces to compile better sales data on the publishing business in their BookStats project. It is the most comprehensive publisher data compilation yet in the US — but all the released numbers include substantial statistical modeling, so we refer to those numbers as estimates only. In fact, actual publisher sales data comprises only 61 & of their tabulations overall (and probably less within trade).
For 2011, BookStats estimated that trade publisher e-book revenues were $1.97 billion, comprising almost 16% of trade dollars. The e-book total was $838 million in 2010, accounting for 6.7% of trade sales. It’s no surprise that adult fiction drove the e-book gains, more than doubling to $1.27 billion from $585 million in 2010, and comprising 31% of dollar sales within that category. (BookStats tabulates publisher receipts — and thus combines wholesale dollars and, for the small number of agency publishers, consumer payments after the deduction of retailer commissions).
The only readily available tabulation of actual publisher e-book revenues comes from the separate monthly and annual compilations that the AAP issues on its own, now called StatShot (to distinguish it from BookStats). As of 2012, the AAP’s pool of reporting publishers grew substantially, adding hundreds of publishing clients from nearly all the largest distributors, now incorporating source data from 1,149 publishers in all. The new AAP stats also provide e-book sales breakouts for adult and children’s/YA titles, as well as specific counts for religious and university press e-books. As the AAP reports monthly numbers for 2012 — it reported April figures in early August — it is restating historical numbers for 2011 on a month-by-month basis for comparison.
Full detailed piece at Publishing Perspectives
One of the great ironies of the e-book era is that while digital data streams and a market concentrated among a small number of retailers should result in an easily measured, fully transparent marketplace, we are left with the opposite, since those retailers have declined to share any data.
For 2011, BookStats estimated that trade publisher e-book revenues were $1.97 billion, comprising almost 16% of trade dollars. The e-book total was $838 million in 2010, accounting for 6.7% of trade sales. It’s no surprise that adult fiction drove the e-book gains, more than doubling to $1.27 billion from $585 million in 2010, and comprising 31% of dollar sales within that category. (BookStats tabulates publisher receipts — and thus combines wholesale dollars and, for the small number of agency publishers, consumer payments after the deduction of retailer commissions).
The only readily available tabulation of actual publisher e-book revenues comes from the separate monthly and annual compilations that the AAP issues on its own, now called StatShot (to distinguish it from BookStats). As of 2012, the AAP’s pool of reporting publishers grew substantially, adding hundreds of publishing clients from nearly all the largest distributors, now incorporating source data from 1,149 publishers in all. The new AAP stats also provide e-book sales breakouts for adult and children’s/YA titles, as well as specific counts for religious and university press e-books. As the AAP reports monthly numbers for 2012 — it reported April figures in early August — it is restating historical numbers for 2011 on a month-by-month basis for comparison.
Full detailed piece at Publishing Perspectives
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