October Bookstore Sales Dropped 5.6%  

-- Publishers Weekly, 12/12/2008 7:27:00 AM

Bookstore sale fell 5.6% in October, to $1.06 billion, according to preliminary estimates released this morning from the U.S. Census Bureau. The October decline follows a 3.6% drop in September, the first month that publishers and booksellers reported seeing a meaningful slowdown in business. Since August, bookstore sales have fallen 4.5%, but are still slightly ahead for the year, up 1.3% to $13.83 billion. Sales for all of retail fell 3.9% in October and were up 1.8% for the first 10 months of the year.