BMI Releases Industry Barometer Survey Results for May

Gap Inc. has entered into an agreement to sell Intermix, a leading omni-channel fashion boutique for customers seeking a highly curated shopping experience, to private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners. Altamont Capital Partners intends to acquire the entire Intermix business, including all store leases, e-commerce and assets. This transaction is another milestone as Gap Inc. continues to execute against its Power Plan 2023, with acute focus on growing its purpose-led, billion-dollar lifestyle brands by leveraging the power of its portfolio and its platform. In April, Gap Inc. completed a transaction to sell Janie and Jack, a leader in premium children’s apparel and accessories, to Go Global Retail.

Following the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s capstone digital markets hearing, “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” three groups representing thousands of authors, publishers, and booksellers in the United States – the Association of American Publishers, Authors Guild, and American Booksellers Association – have sent a joint letter to Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) enumerating a series of anti-competitive tactics that permit Amazon to exercise extraordinary market dominance over the advertising and sale of books in digital markets. Its practices against both book suppliers and book customers have threatened the vitality of the American publishing industry and rendered any meaningful competition from other publishers, booksellers, or emerging platforms impossible. “The Subcommittee’s work has shown that Amazon holds an outsized position of power and control in our country, giving it the ability to interfere with the free flow of information, ideas and literature on a large scale,” the letter tells the Chairman. The full letter can be viewed at: https://publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Joint-Letter-to-Rep-Cicilline-081720.pdf

Unit sales of print books rose a remarkable 29.2% in the first quarter of 2021 over the same period in 2020 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Though some of that gain was due to the slump in sales that occurred in mid-March last year, most of the increase was due to the surge in book buying that began last spring and carried over into 2021. All six major categories tracked by BookScan had double-digit increases, and all four print formats posted gains. Units rose 24.6% in adult nonfiction, the industry’s largest category. Sales in the home and gardening subcategory, which began to take off late last April, remained strong into the first quarter of 2021, up 54.1% in the period. Sales of general nonfiction increased 44.7%, while sales in the self-help and biography/autobiography/memoir areas rose 38.8% and 35.7%, respectively. The long-awaited revival in travel books has not arrived yet, with unit sales down nearly 25%. Print sales of adult fiction increased 34.7% in the quarter. Graphic novels led the way, with sales soaring almost 146%. Big gains were also seen in fantasy (up 48.4%), science fiction (40.6%), and romance (29.9%).