NY Librarians : Bookselling

Showing posts with label Bookselling. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2015

For Books, Print Is Back

Unit sales of print books sold through outlets that
report to Nielsen BookScan rose 2.4% in 2014, with total units topping
635 million. The gain was driven by a 3.4% increase in unit sales
through the retail and club channel relative to 2013, which offset a
1.8% decline in sales through the mass merchandiser channel and others
during the same period. Units through retailers and clubs, which include
Amazon and all types of bookstores, rose to just under 519 million; in
2013, print units through the channel fell 2.5% compared to the previous
year.

BookScan estimates that it captures
approximately 80% of print-unit sales made in the U.S. The company added
Walmart to its mass merchandiser panel in 2013, but was not able to
include historical data, making it difficult to track precise long-term
unit trends. Still, the 2014 figures are further evidence that print
books are selling better than they have since sales of e-books exploded
in 2010 and Borders closed its doors in 2011. Total print-unit sales
bottomed out in 2012, falling to 590 million, but in the two years since
then, units have risen 7.6% (helped to some degree by the addition of
Walmart to BookScan). Read more...

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Laura Hazard Owen, Reporter for paidContent on Barnes & Noble at Digital...

By Juli Monroe

Digital Book World posted an excellent article today about the Barnes & Noble elephant in the room at DBW 2013.

The big takeaway from this article was this statistic:

“According to the most recent Codex survey, online selling accounts for 61 percent of book sales, but only 7 percent of discovery.”

That’s huge. I’m one of those 61 percent. Sure, I buy all my books online, but I find new books and authors by browsing my local Barnes & Noble. And what happens if that local Barnes & Noble goes away? It’s not looking good for them as a business right now. Well, I’m confident readers will figure out a way to find books, but there will be a gap until then.
Another good quote comes from Peter Hildick-Smith, CEO of Codex Group:

“Physical retail works if you protect it … Movie producers do [protect movie theaters]. I would argue publishers are not doing enough to help bookstores.”

I completely agree. B&N and the publishers have a vested interest in keeping the company alive and healthy. Earlier this month, I wrote about this on our sister site, GadgeTell.
So …. why doing as much as they could? (Or, as Hildick-Smith suggested, as much as they should?)