Association of American Publishers (AAP) Reports”Publishing Industry Down 5.1% Year-To-Date and Down 9.3% for October Trade (Consumer Book) Revenues Down 13.7% in October, and Down 5.1% Year-to-Date”
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released its StatShot report for October 2022 reflecting reported revenue for Trade (Consumer Books), Higher Education Course Materials, and Professional Publishing. The report does not include PreK-12 revenue due to delays in data collection.
Total revenues across all categories, excluding PreK-12, for October 2022 were down 9.3% as compared to October 2021, coming in at $1.2 billion. Year-to-date revenues were down 5.1%, at $10.6 billion for the first ten months of the year.
Trade (Consumer Books) Revenues
Trade (Consumer Books) sales were down 13.7% in October, coming in at $978.3 million.
In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of October, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 16.7%, coming in at $443.8 million; Paperbacks were down 14.2%, with $296.8 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 65.7% to $7.2 million; and Special Bindings was down 8.5%, with $25.0 million in revenue.
eBook revenues were down 2.1% for the month as compared to October 2021 for a total of $82.9 million. The Downloaded Audio format was up 16.4% for October, coming in at $74.9 million in revenue. Physical Audio was up 16.2% coming in at $1.9 million.
Year-to-date Trade revenues were down 5.1%, at $7.5 billion for the first ten months of the year. Hardback revenues were down 12.9%, coming in at $2.6 billion; Paperbacks were up 2.1%, with $2.7 billion in revenue; Mass Market was down 24.8% to $151.4 million; and Special Bindings were down 2.7%, with $165.7 million in revenue.
eBook revenues were down 5.9% as compared to the first ten months of 2021 for a total of $844.8 million. The Downloaded Audio format was up 7.4%, coming in at $693.1 million in revenue. Physical Audio was down 30.0% coming in at $12.8 million.
Religious Presses
Religious press revenues were down 6.1% in October, coming in at $76.4 million. Hardback revenues were down 2.4% to $51.7 million in revenue, Paperback revenues were down 24.6% to $9.1 million, eBook revenues were down 7.6% coming in at $4.3 million, and Downloaded Audio revenues were up 21.0% at $3.3 million.
On a year-to-date basis, religious press revenues were down 6.2%, reaching $626.3 million. Hardback revenues were down 7.3% at $370.3 million in revenue, Paperback revenues were down 8.0% to $105.4 million, eBook revenues were down 10.0% at $46.8 million, and Downloaded Audio revenues were up 6.3% at $35.0 million.
Education
During October 2022 revenues from Higher Education Course Materials were $181.1 million, up 19.4% compared with October 2021. Year-to-date Higher Education Course Materials revenues were $2.6 billion, down 5.3% compared to the first ten months of 2021.
Professional Books
Professional Books, including business, medical, law, technical and scientific, were up 9.6% during the month, coming in at $48.7 million. Year-to-date Professional Books revenues were $367.1 million, down 3.5% as compared to the first ten months of 2021.
Source: AAP
AAP’s StatShot
AAP StatShot reports the monthly and yearly net revenue of publishing houses from U.S. sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, and other channels. StatShot draws revenue data from approximately 1,368 publishers, although participation may fluctuate slightly from report to report.
StatShot reports are designed to give ongoing revenue snapshots across publishing sectors using the best data currently available. The reports reflect participants’ most recent reported revenue for current and previous periods, enabling readers to compare revenue on both a month-to-month and year-to-year basis within a given StatShot report.
Monthly and yearly StatShot reports may not align completely across reporting periods, because: a) The pool of StatShot participants may fluctuate from report to report; and b) Like any business, it is common accounting practice for publishing houses to update and restate their previously reported revenue data. If, for example, a business learns that its revenues were greater in a given year than its reports first indicated, it will restate the revenues in subsequent reports to AAP, permitting AAP in turn to report information that is more accurate than previously reported.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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