The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has released the StatShot Annual report for Calendar Year 2019, estimating that the U.S. book publishing industry generated $25.93 billion in annual revenue, up by 1.1% as compared to 2018. In terms of units the report estimates that 2.76 billion units were sold. All figures represent publishers’ net revenue from tracked categories (trade, higher education course materials, PreK-12 instructional materials, professional books, and university press), in all formats, from all distribution channels.
According to the report, overall the publishing industry revenue was essentially flat, coming in at $25.93 billion for the year, which was a 1.1% increase as compared to $25.63 billion in 2018.
For the third consecutive year, publisher sales to online retail channels exceeded sales to physical retail channels, with the margin continuing to grow wider. Sales to online retail were $8.22 billion. Over the last five years, publisher sales to online retail channels have grown by nearly 20%. Sales to physical retail were $5.86 billion. Over the past five years publisher sales to physical retailers have decreased by 35.9%.
In terms of format, print continued to dominate the industry. eBooks declined while downloaded audio continued to grow. Industry revenue from eBooks declined 4.9% in 2019 to $1.94 billion and is down 30.8% for the five-year period of 2015-2019. eBook units slightly decreased by 2.6% to 335.7 million since 2018. Downloaded audio remains the fastest growing digital revenue segment in the industry, generating $1.31 billion in revenue in 2019, a 15.9% increase over 2018. In the five-year period from 2015-2019, downloaded audio grew a total of 143.8%.
The StatShot Annual Report is based on data prepared by Management Practice Inc. (MPI), AAP’s statistics partner, and offers a valuable, financial overview of the book publishing industry that is more than the sum of AAP’s monthly statistics analyses.
StatShot Annual employs a unique methodology that combines annual data submitted by publishers and distributors, along with market modelling, to estimate the total volume of the US publishing industry. Additionally, StatShot Annual reports estimated revenue and unit sales in the following market segments: trade (consumer books), higher education, PreK-12, professional, and university presses. AAP (or its predecessor) has provided this service in a variety of forms since 1947.
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