Active Interest Media Sells Several Magazines to Pocket Outdoor Media (foliomag.com)

Combined print book and e-book sales hit 942 million units in 2020 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan, a 9% increase over 2019 and the most unit sales recorded in a single year by BookScan since the service was created in 2004. In a webinar held last week, Kristen McLean, executive director of NPD Books, said the gain was due to a combination of strong sales of both print and digital books. Print sales rose 8.2% over 2019, the largest annual increase since 2005, and the print total of 751 million units sold was the highest since 2009, the year before e-books started to become a meaningful part of the book business. E-book unit sales, as measured by NPD’s PubTrack Digital service, rose 12.6% over 2019 and were at their highest level since 2015, when 208 million units were sold (e-book sales figures for November and December are projections).

FY23 third quarter service performance scores covering April 1 through April 14, included: *First-Class Mail: 91.5% of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal second quarter. *Marketing Mail: 95.8% of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter. *Periodicals: 87.8% of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter.

The Book Manufacturers’ Institute (BMI) held its Annual Conference Nov. 5-7, 2017 at Turnberry Isle in Florida. The Annual Conference - attended by a number of book manufacturing companies as well as suppliers to the industry -- is the flagship event of the association where members go to learn and network. The Annual Conference is also where new board members are voted into the leadership of the association. At the event, Kent Larson of Bridgeport National Bindery, finished his two-year term as president of the BMI. Taking over for Larson is Jim Fetherston, who is President and CEO of Worzalla in Stevens Point, Wis. Not only is BMI seeing a change in its volunteer leadership, the association is also experiencing a change in its staff leadership. Dan Bach, a longtime industry veteran, has led the BMI as executive VP since 2009. Bach announced his retirement earlier in 2017 and the BMI set out to find his replacement. Click Read More below for additional information.