Print Book Sales Rose 8.2% in 2020 (publishersweekly.com)

Though the publishing industry seems to be in a period of malaise, there are some signs that business is improving. Earlier this week, the Association of American Publishers’ StatShot program reported an 18% increase in April sales over a year ago. That news has been followed up by Circana BookScan’s report that unit sales of print books increased 5% in May over May 2023. According to Brenna Connor, industry analyst for U.S. books at BookScan, the May increase was driven by strong Mother’s Day sales, as well as several retail promotional events. As usual, adult fiction was the biggest driver of the increase, and Kristin Hannah’s The Women was the top-selling adult title in May, pushing just over 139,000 copies.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released its StatShot report for May 2023 reflecting reported revenue for Trade (Consumer Books), Higher Education Course Materials, and Professional Publishing. Total revenues across all categories for May 2023 were flat as compared to May 2022, coming in at $846.8 million. Year-to-date revenues were up 0.7%, at $4.7 billion for the first five months of the year. Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were down 1.6% in May, coming in at $661.3 million. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of May, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 0.3%, coming in at $233.5 million; Paperbacks were down 3.6%, with $239.5 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 41.2% to $6.1 million; and Special Bindings were down 21.5%, with $10.2 million in revenue.

Adobe released its online shopping forecast for the 2023 holiday season, covering the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023. Based on Adobe Analytics data, the analysis provides the most comprehensive view into U.S. e-commerce by analyzing commerce transactions online, covering over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. Adobe Analytics is part of Adobe Experience Cloud, relied upon by over 85% of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S.* to deliver, measure and personalize shopping experiences online. Adobe expects U.S. online holiday sales to hit $221.8 billion this holiday shopping season (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31), representing 4.8% growth year-over-year (YoY). In the 2022 season, shoppers spent $211.7 billion online, and saw 3.5% YoY growth.