Association of American Publishers Reports Revenues Up for Childrens/YA, Down For Professional Publishers in February 2016

New statistics released today by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
From the News Release:

NOTE: Publisher net revenue is tracked monthly by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and includes sales data from more than 1,200 publishers (#AAPStats). Figures represent publishers’ net revenue for the U.S. (i.e. what publishers sell to bookstores, direct to consumer, online venues, etc.), and are not retailer/consumer sales figures.
Publishers’ revenues were up Feb. 2016, compared to Feb. 2015. Despite gains in Childrens/YA Books and Religious Presses, a decline in Adult Books meant an overall decline for Trade books of 0.9% Feb. 2016 vs. Feb. 2015 and 8.2% year-to-date vs. 2015.  Also within trade, downloaded audio and print formats continued to grow as eBooks declined.
Big Picture Data

• Publishers’ book sales for Feb. 2016 were $662.2 million, up 4.2% from $597.4 million in Feb. 2015. These numbers include sales for all tracked categories (Trade – fiction/non-fiction/religious, PreK-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses.)
  • Year-to-date, sales were down 3.0% to $1.68 billion vs. the same two months in 2015.

• Trade (consumer) books sales were $418.1 million in Feb. 2016, down 0.9% from $422.1 million in Feb. 2015. This includes Childrens/YA Books, Adult Books and Religious Books.
  • Adult Books had $281.5 million in sales in Feb. 2016, down 6.6% from $301.2 million in Feb. 2015.
  • Childrens/YA Books had $101.2 million in sales in Feb. 2016, up 17.0% from $86.5 million in Feb 2015.
  • Religious Presses had $35.4 million in sales, up by 3.2% from $34.3 million in Feb. 2015.
  • Year-to-date, trade sales are down 8.2% to $907.2 million vs. the same two months in 2015.

Format Trends for Trade

• Trends appeared to continue from 2015. In Feb. 2016 vs. Feb. 2015:
  • Paperback books grew 9.8%
  • Downloaded audio grew 42.9%
  • Hardback books grew 4.6%
  • eBooks were down 18.7%

Educational Materials and Professional Books

• Educational Materials had gains of 5.5% for K-12 Instructional Materials and 58.5% for Higher Education Course Materials, in Feb. 2016 vs. Feb. 2015. Importantly, education sales in Feb. are typically low, relative to the rest of the year.

• Professional Publishing was down 19.0% in Feb. 2016 vs. Feb. 2015 which includes business, medical, law, scientific and technical books and journals.

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, News, Publishing, Reports