Most Segments Show Gains Despite Soft December
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 2/10/2003
The Association of American Publishers' preliminary sales estimates for December reflect, at least in part, the weak sales of book retailers over the holidays. Sales of adult hardcovers were 6.4% lower than in December 2001, but sales in the trade paperback segment rose 19.7%, resulting in an overall gain of 4.3% for the adult category. Sales in both children's hardcover and paperback dropped in the month, with hardcover down 7.9% and paperback plunging 51.8%.
Despite the poor December, the AAP figures show that sales in the adult hardcover segment rose 12.8% in the year, with trade paperback sales up 12.9%. Children's hardcover sales increased 2.7% in the year, while sales in the paperback segment fell 0.6%.
The early figures also show that the mass market paperback segment had a strong finish to an outstanding year, with sales up 21.5% in the month and 18.6% for 2002. The university press segments closed out a difficult year with sales declines of 8.6% in hardcover and 1.4% in trade paperback. Spoken-word audio sales had a bad December with sales down 20.9%, contributing to a 0.3% gain for the year.
The professional and education markets had a good December, led by a 23.4% gain in elhi sales, which helped limit the sales decline in the year to 5%. Sales in the professional segment increased 8.9% for the year and were up 12.9% for the college textbook segment.
The association is expected to release more comprehensive sales figures later this month.
