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Understanding Book Publishing

I am pointing to a good post at Walt at Random about the size of the book publishing sector in the US. It deserves wider reach.
Apparently publishing revenues might be larger than previously thought and its size may have been understated for many years as $23.7 billion but may really be $34.6 billion for 2005 and recently may be $51.9 billion! The US Census Bureau offers “the 2007 projection: $55.5 billion for somewhere between 3.1 and 3.2 billion books. With a projection of $53.7 billion for this year.”
That’s a BIG industry. Adn that’s some big undercounting (ignoring non-APA members, alterntive press, eBooks, etc.). It’s pretty basic to the knowledge-based economy. No doubt it’s under stress from new technology but the hype about books and reading being in decline or dead is just that, uninformed hype. Even with restated numbers it’s still a growing sector. The same applies to libraries.
As Walt notes (and I’ve been saying in speeches for quite a while), “People still read and buy print books: That’s a given. (If you disagree, you’re ignoring all available evidence.)”
Stephen

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Posted on: December 17, 2006, 8:19 am Category: Uncategorized

By: stephen

rev="post-710" 1 comment

One Response

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  1. walt crawford said
    on December 17, 2006 1:57 pm

    Thanks for the notce. I’m hoping Book Industry Study Group will release an explanation of the recalculation. The difference between $23.7B and $34.6B was pretty straightforward: The lower figure comes from AAP, and doesn’t include the tens of thousands of smaller publishers–which, among them all, make up about $11B (all figures U.S.). The $20 billion recalculation is a puzzlement until explained, although if you combine religious publishing and professional publishing you get about $22 billion.
    Ebooks aren’t a significant factor no matter how you count them. Non-AAP publishers(including alternative presses and publish-on-demand) are quite a big factor.