MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
June 18 – June 25, 2009 Edition
Book Publishers' TRENDS
Shows Unit Sales Decline
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/06/18/09–Total U.S. book publishers' net revenues reached $40.32 billion in 2008, up 1.0% over 2007, while 2008 unit sales reached nearly 3.1 billion, down 1.5% over 2007, according to Book Industry TRENDS 2009.
Rising Revenues
Sales of professional books showed strong revenue growth, posting a 4.0% increase between 2007 and 2008. Sales of Elhi and College books also continued to grow in 2008, seeing an increase of 4.5% in net revenue for each category.
Falling Revenues
In a tough year for publishing overall, the Religious segment underperformed the book publishing industry as a whole in 2008, with revenues declining 10% against total industry growth of 1%. While the economic downturn played a role in the recent performance, sales in this sector had already reached a plateau over the last few years.
Trade publishing also experienced lackluster sales, with Adult and Juvenile Trade declining 2.3% and 1.3%, respectively. Despite the downturn, many executives interviewed by BISG's research partner expect continued experimentation into digital publishing.
"Digital will move ahead quickly, and the down economy is not likely to hinder this much," said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster. "The big driver is the number of devices on which you can read an e-book now."
Hardcopies of TRENDS 2009 will be available to ship mid-July. Pre-order yours today at
