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Hardbacks

US ebook sales decline but audio downloads boom

30 October 2017

Newly released figures show that ebook revenues in the US have declined again. In the first half of 2017, e-book sales declined by 4.6%, according to the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. All other categories, apart from paperback books saw increased revenues in the same time period.  Read more

US ebook unit sales declined 15%, but there's good news on children's publishing

30 January 2017

Nielsen has just reported that ebook sales in the US declined a rather surprising 15% in 2016, as compared with 2015. There seem to have been two reasons for this.  Read more

Hardbacks - still a success story

12 May 2014

Hardbacks, rather than ebooks, are the wild cards of the publishing industry. Who would have thought that they would survive and prosper in the age of the ebook? Wouldn't you assume that hardbacks would simply fade away once they were so radically undercut on price by ebooks, never mind paperbacks.  Read more

Paperbacks - a surprisingly resilient format

5 May 2014

When I first came into publishing, paperbacks seemed the coming thing. Surely it was only a question of time before the power of consumers drove paperbacks to centre stage and ousted those expensive hardbacks?  Read more

Frankfurt trends

8 October 2012

 A report on ebook statistics and trends to be launched at the Publishers Launch Conference which precedes the Frankfurt Book FairWorld's largest trade fair for books; held annually mid-October at Frankfurt Trade Fair, Germany; First three days exclusively for trade visitors; general public can attend last two. next week suggests that some of the wilder predictions about ebook adoption have been off the mark.  Read more

Hardbacks have another chance

21 November 2011

Many of us who have worked in the publishing business have long expected hardbacks to be superseded by paperbacks. But over the years hardbacks have been surprisingly durable in their grip on the book-buyer, with various come-backs affecting how much they are produced.  Read more

The hardback/paperback gap

29 August 2011

The advent of ebooks and consumers' reluctance to accept the high price of hardbacks are having an impact on the traditional relationship between hardback and paperback publication.  Read more

New Brown mega-seller coming this autumn

4 May 2009

The surprise announcement of a new novel from Dan Brown to be published in the autumn has emphasised yet again the importance of big bestsellers to the book world.  Read more

A paperback revolution - at last?

19 November 2007

Picador, the literary imprint of Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books in the UK, has just announced that it will in future launch its new fiction in simultaneous hard and paperback editions, in response to the very poor sales of hardback literary fiction. The majority of its titles will be released in a 1,000 copy hardback edition, with some of these ring-fenced for review purposes.   Read more

Book purchases grow, genre titles strong

2 April 2007

UK book purchases have increased 8% by volume over four years. In view of the general gloom and doom, it's good to find this cheering news coming out of the annual Books and the Consumer study presented by Book Marketing Limited at a conference in London last week. The figures also show evidence of heavy discounting in the value increase over the same period, which is only 6%.  Read more

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