Bookstore Sales Up in August

-- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2007 8:41:00 AM

 Bookstore sales, which posted their first increase of 2007 in July, had an even better August with sales up 9.3%, to $2.29 billion, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau. Despite the two-month bounce, sales for the first eight months of the year were still down 0.7%, to $10.80 billion, although the recent gains, sparked by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, reduced the sales shortfall, which had been 6.6% at the end of June. For the entire retail segment, sales were up 4.0% both for August as well as the first eight months of 2007.