‘Grill Girl’ Magazine Launches, Augments Food Site (mediapost.com)

Millennials and Gen Z are known as “robust samplers,” meaning they are accustomed to a risk-free subscription model for media consumption. Think Netflix, Amazon Unlimited, Audible, and Spotify. As it turns out, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA), “in the traditional, print-centered book publishing ecosystem, libraries are the place for robust sampling.” According to the new report Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use, Gen Z and Millennials (roughly ages 13 to 40) are using public libraries, both in person and digitally, at higher rates than older generations.

With all major categories posting huge gains, unit sales of print books jumped 22.7% for the week ended Jan. 16, 2021, over the comparable week in 2020, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The biggest gains came in the YA categories, with fiction up 47.6% and nonfiction rising 46.9%. The release of Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas, which sold nearly 18,000 copies, helped to lift YA fiction. In YA nonfiction, Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi was the top title, selling more than 4,100 copies. Juvenile fiction sales rose 30.7% over the week ended Jan. 18, 2020, led by Little Blue Truck’s Valentine by Alice Schertle, which sold just over 28,000 copies, and Dav Pilkey’s Cat Kid Comic Club, which sold nearly 22,000 copies. Juvenile nonfiction sales rose 28.8% over 2020. Two educational titles led the way: Crystal Radke’s My First Learn-to-Write Workbook sold more than 7,000 copies, and Big Preschool Workbook sold 6,400 copies. Adult fiction unit sales rose almost 30% over 2020.

As the Postal Service enters the busiest weeks of the year for mailing and shipping, the agency reported new service delivery performance scores that showed improvements for First-Class Mail and Periodicals, and steady performance for Marketing Mail for the first six weeks of the fiscal first quarter. First quarter-to-date service performance scores covering the period Oct. 1 through Nov. 12 included: *First-Class Mail: 91.1 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 2.6 percentage points from the fourth quarter. *Marketing Mail: 92.4 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fourth quarter. *Periodicals: 83.2 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of .5 percentage points from the fourth quarter.