New Report Sees Dip in 2009 Book Sales
-- Publishers Weekly, 4/27/2009 7:27:00 AM
Total book sales are projected to dip 0.5% in 2009, to $35.04 billion, according to the PW/IPR Book Sales Index, a new report from Publishers Weekly and the Institute for Publishing Research. Sales will be down or flat in all the trade segments, but will increase in the professional, higher education and standardized testing segments.
Al Greco, cofounder of IPR, said the decline in discretionary spending among consumers will mean a tough year for all trade book segments, noting that all the economic data reports, such as retail spending and personal income, that are used to build the forecast continue to be weak. Children’s paperback is expected to be the strongest trade segment this year, albeit with sales inching up only 0.1%. Trade paperback sales are forecast to decline 3.0% in 2009 compared to 6.8% for adult hardcovers.
The elhi segment is also projected to have a sales decline this year due to a drop in state budgets because of lower tax revenue. Sales in the higher education category are projected to increase 2.8%. The index projects that sales of digital books in the higher education market will rise 3.5% in 2009, to an estimated $110.2 million. Greco said that demand for digital books at colleges will accelerate when CourseSmart, the online joint venture created by five publishers to sell digital course material, begins to gain traction. A 17% growth in digital sales is expected to drive a 6.5% increase in the professional segment.
The 2009 forecast is just one aspect of the new PW/IPR Book Sales Index. The report, available online only at www.booksalesindex.com, includes a five-year forecast for all publishing segments as well as providing sales breakdowns by channel. The index also includes economic data from the federal government as well as a history and analysis of PW’s bestsellers data going back to 1994. IPR will update all economic information on a monthly basis and will revise sales projections, when necessary, on a quarterly basis. All updates will be available via paid subscription. Greco has been analyzing the publishing industry for more than 20 years and had prepared the “BISG Trends” report for several years before stopping this year. An individual subscription to the index is $695, and corporate site licenses are available; subscriptions can be made directly from the site.
