PublishersLunch
eBook sales as reported by a small but
growing group of publishers to the AAP remained lower than their peaks earlier
in the year in November, at $77.3 million up modestly from October's reported
$72.8 million. Overall, ebooks comprised 16 percent of trade sales, compared to
12.6 percent in October. The peak during 2011 was February, when high ebook
numbers and low print shipments made digital 29.5 percent of the month's
reported sales. Further skewing the month-to-month and year-over-year
comparisons, the number of publishers reporting ebook sales to the AAP keeps
changing from month to month. For November, 8 more university presses have
started reporting ebook sales, making 26 reporting publishers in all. (Columbia
University Press and Rizzoli have dropped off this month, but are expected to
report again in the future.) Last December, there were only 12 reporting
publishers.
Following the year's pattern, the gain of
$30.7 million in ebook sales over last November couldn't make up for the larger
drop in print shipments, as total AAP trade sales declined $29.7 million or 5.7
percent for the month. (Indeed, for the 11 reported months, overall trade
dollars are down 5.8 percent compared to 2010, which isn't bad considering the
disappearance of Borders and the growth of lower-priced ebooks.)
Children's and YA hardcovers were the
biggest gainers after ebooks in the month, at net shipments of $87.2 million up
27 percent compared to a year ago. That made children's hardcovers the second
largest trade segment for the month (with ebooks once again just barely in
fourth place). Religious books--which we don't count as trade, but the AAP
does--also rose slightly for the month.
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