American Association of Publishers Releases December 2020 Statshot Report: Publishing Industry Down 8.5% For Month; Up 0.1% For Calendar 2020

From AAP:

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released its StatShot report for December 2020 reflecting reported revenue for all tracked categories, including Trade (Consumer Books), K-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses.

Total revenues across all categories for December 2020 were down 8.5% as compared to December 2019, coming in at $1.1 billion.

Year-to-date sales were flat, with an increase of 0.1% as compared to calendar 2019, with a total of $14.8 billion.

Trade (Consumer Books) Revenues

Trade (Consumer Books) sales were up 9.5% in December, coming in at $796.1 million. For January-December 2020 Trade sales were up 9.7% as compared to the same period last year, coming in at $8.6 billion.

In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of December, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 14.2%, coming in at $312.5 million; Paperbacks were up 2.4%, with $248.1 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 1.6% to $25.9 million; and Board Books were up 6.2%, with $16.7 million in revenue.

eBook revenues were up 18.4% for the month as compared to December of 2019 for a total of $89.7 million.  The Downloaded Audio format jumped 30.0% for December, coming in at $66.0 million in revenue. Physical Audio declined 6.7% coming in at $1.9 million.

For calendar 2020 Hardback revenues were up 12.9%, to $3.4 billion; Paperbacks were up 5.6% to $2.6 billion; Mass Market declined 2.9% to $228.3 million; and Board Books were up 18.2% to $192.8 million as compared to 2019.eBooks were up 15.6%, coming in at $1.1 billion for calendar 2020.  For calendar 2020 Downloaded Audio was up 16.5% as compared to 2019, with a total of $675.6 million for the year.  Physical Audio was down 26.3%, with $25.8 million in revenue.

Religious Presses

Religious press revenues were up 6.4% in December, coming in at $56.4 million. The category was up 4.2% for the calendar year, with revenues of $667.2 million.

Education

During December 2020 Education revenues were $317.7 million, down 34.8% compared with December of 2019. Year-to-date Education revenues were down 10.9% as compared to calendar 2019, coming in at $6 billion.

Revenues from Higher Education Course Materials were down 47.7% for the month, as compared to December of 2019, coming in at $177.0 million. On calendar-year basis, Higher Education revenues were down 4.3% to $2.9 billion.

PreK-12 Instructional Materials revenues were down 1.5% for December 2020, at $69.9 million. PreK-12 Instructional Materials revenues were down 19.6% at $2.5 billion on a year-to-date basis.

Professional Books, including business, medical, law, technical and scientific, were down 10.1% during the month, coming in at $66.1 million. The category was up 1.0% for the calendar year, with $618.9 million in revenue.

University Presses were up 2.6% as compared to December of 2019, bringing in $4.7 million in revenue. For calendar 2020 University Presses rose 2.2%, bringing in $49.4 million.