Friday, August 07, 2015

Soft April AAP Sales Confirm eBook Declines

Publishers Lunch

US Trade sales as reported by the AAP fell by a modest $6.5 million to $488.4 million overall for April, with small gains in adult sales overtaken by a $15 million drop in children's/YA sales. The biggest gap for the month was ebook sales, which fell by $20.6 million to $120.2 million, down almost 15 percent compared to a year ago. Both adult and children's/YA ebook sales fell in April, and it was the fourth monthly decline in a row for ebooks, with the format down 10 percent so far in 2015, declining $51.7 million to $476.4 million so far. Digital audio continues to gain, however, up $17 million over the past 4 months, at $64.3 million so far this year.

Adult sales for April of $383.3 million were up by $8.6 million -- really on lower returns rather than on higher shipments, with adult hardcovers finally showing some gains, up $17.5 million to $128.6 million. (So some will infer that dollars shifted from ebooks back to hardcovers, but we can't really tell that from one month of AAP data.) Children's/YA sales totaled $104.9 million for April. Visit PublishersMarketplace.com for our updated chart of monthly data.

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