Consumer Book Revenues Up 6.0% Last Year

Trade (Consumer Book) Revenues Up 6.0% Year-To-Date, and Down 5.3% for Month of December

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released its StatShot report for December 2024 reflecting reported revenue for Trade (Consumer Books), Religious Presses, Higher Education Course Materials, and Professional Publishing.

Total revenues across all categories year-to-date were up 6.5%, reaching $14.2 billion.

Revenues for the month of December 2024 were down 4.3% as compared to December 2023, coming in at $904.6 million.

Trade (Consumer Books) Revenues

Year-To-Date 

Trade revenues were up 6.0%, at $9.5 billion on a year-to-date basis. Hardback revenues were up 6.8%, coming in at $3.5 billion; Paperbacks were up 3.0%, with $3.2 billion in revenue; Mass Market was down 13.3% to $122.9 million; and Special Bindings were up 4.3%, with $231.7 million in revenue.

eBook revenues were up 1.6% as compared to 2023 for a total of $1.0 billion. The Digital Audio format was up 23.8%, coming in at $1.1 billion in revenue. Physical Audio was down 37.4% coming in at $8.7 million.

December 2024

Trade (Consumer Books) sales were down 5.3% in December, coming in at $687.9 million.

In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of December, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 1.0%, coming in at $247.0 million; Paperbacks were down 11.0%, with $220.0 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 9.2% to $10.1 million; and Special Bindings were up 0.1%, with $19.1 million in revenue.

eBook revenues were down 11.8% for the month as compared to December 2023 for a total of $78.4 million. Digital Audio was up 12.0% for December, coming in at $92.9 million in revenue. Physical Audio was down 57.9% coming in at $500 thousand.

Religious Presses

Year-To-Date 2024

Year-to-date for 2024, religious press revenues were up 18.9%, reaching $909.2 million. Hardback revenues were up 23.7% at $560.1 million in revenue, Paperback revenues were up 11.6% to $171.0 million, eBook revenues were up 0.7% at $51.6 million, and Digital Audio revenues were up 13.4% at $51.3 million.

December 2024

Religious press revenues were up 14.7% in December, coming in at $68.2 million. Hardback revenues were up 13.3% to $40.0 million in revenue, Paperback revenues were up 14.5% to $13.5 million, eBook revenues were up 1.9% coming in at $3.6 million, and Digital Audio revenues were down 1.7% at $3.7 million.

Education

Year-To-Date 

Higher Education Course Materials revenues were $2.5 billion, up 6.7% for the twelve months compared to 2023.

December 2024

During December 2024 revenues from Higher Education Course Materials were $127.4 million, down 1.4% compared with December 2023.

Professional Books

Year-To-Date 

Professional Books revenues for the twelve months of 2024 were $459.7 million, down 0.5% as compared to 2023.

December 2024

Professional Books, including business, medical, law, technical and scientific, were down 6.5% during the month of December, coming in at $36.8 million.

AAP’s StatShot

AAP StatShot reports the monthly and yearly net revenue of publishing houses from U.S. sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, and other channels. StatShot draws revenue data from approximately 1,280 publishers, although participation may fluctuate slightly from report to report.

StatShot reports are designed to give ongoing revenue snapshots across publishing sectors using the best data currently available. The reports reflect participants’ most recent reported revenue for current and previous periods, enabling readers to compare revenue on both a month-to-month and year-to-year basis within a given StatShot report.

Monthly and yearly StatShot reports may not align completely across reporting periods, because: a) The pool of StatShot participants may fluctuate from report to report; and b) Like any business, it is common accounting practice for publishing houses to update and restate their previously reported revenue data. If, for example, a business learns that its revenues were greater in a given year than its reports first indicated, it will restate the revenues in subsequent reports to AAP, permitting AAP in turn to report information that is more accurate than previously reported.