Book Industry News

Here are some recent notable stories about what is happening in adjacent industries to the library sector – publishing and book retailing.

1. Publishing industry sales rose 3.1% in 2010 with trade ebooks up 1,274%

“So says Publishers Weekly:

Total book publishing revenue rose 3.1% in 2010 to $27.9 billion and posted two-year growth of 5.6%, according to figures released Tuesday by BookStats, the joint AAP, BISG program developed to create a comprehensive analysis of industrywide sales. As expected, the gain was due almost entirely to increases in digital products which offset declines in all print formats. Among the major formats, e-book sales across all categories rose 38.9% in 2010, to $1.62 billion.

An 18-month project, BookStats draws on responses from 1,963 publishers with sales of $15.3 billion to project sales for the overall market. The publisher response is the largest ever for a publishing sales initiative and shows an industry that has performed better than many expected in rebounding from the depths of the recession while undergoing fundamental change to longstanding business models. …

Within trade, e-book sales soared 1,274.1%, to $878 million in the 2008-2010 period (203% 2010 compared to 2009), 6.4% of trade revenue.”

2. Ebook sales are 11% of HarperCollins revenue

“HarperCollins e-book sales now comprise 11% of its total revenue, the company has said following parent NewsCorp’s latest results.

As has now become customary, figures for HarperCollins were not stripped out. There was no mention of the publisher either in NewsCorp’s results for the year to 30th June 2011. …

Children’s had its second best ever year and e-books comprise 12% of total sales in the US across the last 12 months. However, it added for its most recent quarter, e-books comprised 19% of US sales and 11% of worldwide.”

3. BARCLAYS: Barnes & Noble Will Be Dead In The Water After The Acquisition Deal Falls Through (BKS)

“Yesterday the NYPost reported that talks for Liberty Media to buy Barnes & Noble had hit a snag. Conversely the Journal reported that Liberty was moving from due diligence toward making a final offer.

Ongoing uncertainty since the deal was announced in May suggest major obstacles to a deal, according to Barclays’s analyst Alan Rifkin:

“In our view, this continued uncertainty supports our belief that significant challenges remain in completing a deal and that Barnes & Noble is unlikely to be successfully acquired. We believe investors should focus their attention on the company’s fundamentals, which are being negatively impacted by an increasingly competitive E-commerce environment coupled with a push toward lower margin E-readers. We believe that in the event a deal with Liberty Media is not reached, Barnes & Noble shares could potentially revert to a fundamental value of $14 per share, implying a multiple of 0.1x our 2012 sales estimate.”

Meanwhile those fundamentals are deteriorating. The bookstore is losing money on its online services and faces tough competition on its E-reader — and those were two of the advantages it held over recently bankrupt Borders. Of course the primary business model, big box book sales, is even more vulnerable.”

4. eBook Sales Increased 1,274% in Three Years

“According to new statistics from the American Association of Publishers, trade eBook sales have grown from 0.6 percent of the total trade market share in 2008 to 6.4 percent in 2010.

While eBooks are still only a small portion of book sales, the report points out, “it translates to 1274.1% in publisher net sales revenue year-over-year with total net revenue for 2010 at $878 Million. Net unit sales growth for e-books was equally impressive, increasing 1039.6% for the same three-year period. In 2010, e-book net units were 114M.”

As eBooks grew, trade mass market paperback sales dropped. Total net sales revenue for mass market paperbacks in 2010 was $1.28 billion, a 13.8 percent change since 2008.”

Some of this is surprising given the doom and gloom in the mainstream and library press.

Stephen