Freelance writers, book authors, and creators of information products should pay attention to book sales. The data for both print books and e-books tells us what consumers are paying for and gives indications of future trends, trends we can take advantage of.
2010 Sales Figures for Books and E-books
The Association of American Publishers provides monthly statistics on sales figures. The latest report includes information for all of 2010. Here’s the AAP press release:
AAP Publishers Report Strong Growth in Year-to-Year, Year-End Book Sales
$11.67 Billion Sales Mark +3.6 Percent Increase vs Calendar Year 2009,
December Sales Rise +2.4 Percent;
E-book Sales Continue to Break Records with +164.4 Percent Gains for 2010
New York, NY, February 16, 2011— US publishers’ book sales across all platforms increased +2.4 percent in December 2010 vs December 2009 and +3.6 percent for the full year vs 2009, it was reported today by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
Virtually every book publishing category showed growth in one or both comparisons, with the phenomenal popularity of E-books continuing.
“As more formats have evolved and are served by the publishing community, consumers have more choices. These strong sales numbers reflect the efforts of AAP publishers and the response of book audiences,” said Tom Allen, President and CEO, AAP.
Among the highlights*:
• Total sales for December 2010 were strong, showing a +2.4 percent gain vs December 2009 ($1.58 Billion vs $1.54B).
• Total sales for calendar year 2010 also jumped +3.6 percent vs calendar year 2009 ($11.67B vs $11.25B)
• E-books grew a dramatic +164.8 percent in December 2010 vs the previous year ($49.5 Million vs $18.7M). In the AAP’s ninth year of tracking this category, E-books once again increased significantly on an annual basis, up +164.4 percent for 2010 vs 2009 ($441.3M vs $166.9M). E-book sales represented 8.32 percent of the trade book market in 2010 vs 3.20 percent the previous year. A chart tracking nine years of E-book sales is included below.
• Books on other digital platforms also experienced healthy sales growth. For December 2010, Downloaded Audio Books increased +56.7 percent to $8.9M and Physical Audio Books increased +34.5 percent to $15.8M. For the calendar year, Downloaded Audio Books sales rose by +38.8 percent to $81.9M (vs $59.0M in 2009), while Physical Audio Books fell 6.3 percent, at $137.3M for 2010 vs $146.5M for the previous year.
• Children’s book categories saw higher sales in December 2010 vs the year before: Children’s/Young Adults Paperbacks were up +4.5 percent (to $48.9M) and Hardcover Children’s/Young Adults grew +0.2 percent (to $59.7M). Year vs year sales of children’s books fell somewhat; the former decreased 5.7 percent (to $546.6M) and the latter declined 9.5 percent (to $694.3M).
• All three Adult book categories also showed gains vs December 2009: Adult Hardcover was up +23.1 percent (to $148.2M), Adult Paperback grew by +4.5 percent (to $127.6M) and Adult Mass Market rose by +14.6 percent (to $57.1M). The categories fell slightly for 2010 vs calendar year 2009 with Hardbacks sales at $1.57B vs $1.65B in 2009 (-5.1 percent); Paperbacks reaching $1.38B vs $1.41B in 2009 (-2.0 percent) and Mass Market at $673.5M for 2010 vs $718.9M (-6.3 percent).
• Educational book sales saw full year-to-year increases: Higher Education grew +7.8 percent in 2010 (to $4.58B) and K-12 Elementary/High School posted a +3.2 percent gain (to $3.59B). K-12 El/Hi also hit a +1.4 percent increase for December 2010 (to $147.0M) while Higher Education reached $890.2M for December (-3.6 percent).
• Sales of University Press Hardcover books decreased 8.2 percent in December (to $6.0M) with a 0.5 percent decline for 2010 ($57.8M). University Press Paperbacks grew for 2010 by +1.3 percent (to $61.6M) and fell 2.5 percent for December ($8.9M).
• Professional books sales increased +5.0 percent for 2010 over 2009 (to $812.9M); for December, they fell 3.5 percent (to $108.9M).
• Religious Books showed 0.5 percent decline for 2010 vs 2009 (at $585.4M) and -11.8 percent for December ($49.9M).
*All figures cited above are domestic net sales.
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Analyzing the 2010 Book and E-Book Sales Data
The Print Book Isn’t Dead
Note that total sales of print books for 2010 was approximately the same as sales for 2009 when sales of e-books are subtracted. This shows that there is still strong demand for physical books.
E-Books Sales Show Strong Growth
Sales increased 164% to $441.3 million year over year. That’s a lot of money, and it shows that there’s potential for authors to make serious cash from e-book sales. And note that these figures are for sales from mainstream textbook publishers: they don’t take into account all the information product e-books sold by individual entrepreneurs from individual sites. This site and the products I sell are just one example, and there are tens of thousands of other writers selling their own e-books. (Note: see my post on why traditional publishers should pay a 50% royalty on e-books.)
Educational Textbook Sales Are Also Strong
I’m a freelance writer who creates supplements and ancillaries for college textbooks, so it’s good news for me and other freelance writers in the same niche. More sales of textbooks means more profits, which means more money to pay us.
Your Take?
What stands out for you in this data? How can you take advantage of these trends? Have you written books? Are you writing a book or an e-book right now? Share!
The ebook stats look good! A 164% growth rate isn’t bad! My current kayaking book CONFESSIONS OF A WAVE WARRIOR will eventually be offered as an ebook. I say go with media that work. Obviously, e-books are going up, up, up!
Ebook sales are way up, but they are still only a small fraction of the total sales of print books. However, as I pointed out, those stats don’t measure people selling print and electronic versions of self-published books.
Eric, I think you would be very smart to offer a digital version of Confessions of a Wave Warrior. Many sea kayakers live in other countries, which makes shipping costs and shipping time a potential factor in deciding whether or not to buy the actual book.
So why the Border’s bankruptcy? I’m sad every time I think that physical books are dying because I just can’t see enjoying them any other way!
Yolanda, there many reasons for the Borders bankruptcy. Here are three:
1. Amazon has taken a huge chunk of the print book market, meaning more pressure on brick-and-mortar stores.
2. Borders was too slow to get on the digital books bandwagon.
3. Borders has too many stores.
Borders will reemerge from bankruptcy with fewer stores, but I still think they are likely doomed in the long run.
Hi John
Thanks for the information. Have a friend who is a newbie with online marketing and blogging. Your site is on the list of those I have recommended for him to visit.
He writes children’s books and I see sales are up with these which is good news. Will send him across to see the stats. Thanks for sharing.
And I hope the Borders store in Perth doesn’t get closed down. One of my favs for visiting and I still prefer reading physical books.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia, writing children’s books is a tough market to crack. I actually wrote a couple of manuscripts and shopped them to publishers and agents in the 1990s. I had a couple of publishers interested, but in the end they didn’t bite.
My sweetie and I house-sat in the Santa Cruz area of northern California for several weeks over Christmas. I really liked the downtown Borders in Santa Cruz, and it’s scheduled to be closed.
Check the list of Borders store closings here.
By any chance do you have a breakdown on fiction vs nonfiction. Someone told me yesterday that nonfiction is outselling fiction. And do you have any breakdown on that by digital and paper. Just curious. Thanks!
Juli, I don’t have the breakdown for that, but I’m sure the numbers are out there. The Association of American Publishers didn’t break it down that far.
John, I second your advice to Eric re getting his wave running book in ebook form asap. I’ve had a self-published book out there for ages (www.powerfullyrecovered.com) available as both paper and ebook. For a variety of reasons I can’t prove it, but I strongly believe the ebook has actually supported the paperback sales.
As always, the trick is marketing, but the long tail potential is enormous.
Thanks for putting these numbers together.
Anne, e-books provide instant access to information. In Eric’s case, easily half his potential audience lives in Europe, Asia, Australia, and other places. Some of these people may not buy the physical book because they don’t want to pay shipping, and they don’t want to wait for one to several weeks for the book to arrive.
I’ll keep working on him. (He’s my brother…)
lol, I did notice the last names in common.
I think I mentioned him in a previous comment here (or maybe just thought about it really hard, lol) but again, Randy Ingermanson has been talking for years about getting on the ebook bandwagon. It’s definitely the wave of the very near future, especially if the Kindle can hold as many books as the reviews say.
And I’m sure we’ll soon see other reading devices come out that are competitive with Kindle. Ebooks are easy to find, convenient to buy, and instantly accessible.
Delena
Delena, I think we’ll see major leaps in e-book reader technology over the next few years. All writers should be thinking about how they can sell electronic versions of their works. I know I am.
I have been dreaming of writing a book. Now with eBooks becoming popularly in demand the desire gets even more intensified. However, the target audience is what I’m concerned now. What kind of topic is trending and I must act fast. Or I must write something that will not get obsolete even after a decade or more. You know what I mean?
Anne, I’d be careful about writing about trending topics. Unless you spot the trend early and already have a large potential market you can reach, you could wind up wasting your time.
You have a point. I believe DIY topics will always be useful. I’ve got to learn how to fix that pipe without calling the plumber. 😀
I keep wanting to write an e-book when I get time =) I’m sure that’s how lots of other professionals feel too. There just isn’t enough time in the day. I guess that’s probably good though, so the e-book publisher market isn’t saturated with more sellers than buyers.
TJ, not everyone should write an e-book. It may not be a good investment of your time, depending on your interests, your market, how much time you have to devote to marketing the e-book, etc.
I know that many people spend many weeks writing an e-book that hardly sells at all, although a few will make decent to great money.
Hey – good post. I am thinking about doing an ebook for the content on my recent blog. Easier than a hard cover i would imagine. My GF is a published author and when the book title is the same she sells more ebooks than hardcover.
Eric, please see what I said to TJ just above your comment.
Yes, e-books are much easier to produce than an actual print book. Once you have the book looking good in Word, for example, free software can convert it to a PDF ebook within one minute.
very useful numbers
thanks for collecting them in one post
Thanks for pulling these numbers. What a fascinating time to be an unpublished author. I have plans to publish a non-fiction book this summer and run with it. Thanks for the stats.
Good luck with the book Christy. Do you plan to find a mainstream publisher or do you plan to publish it yourself?
John,
I plan to publish it myself. It is in the same subject area as the novels I am writing-Irish dance. I plan to go traditional with my novels if I can. I figure that a self-published non-fiction e-book (slow down with the hyphens!) will only be a help to my platform and will be a fun experiment in this changing industry.
Having a quality book about your area of expertise will really help your credibility in your field. It will also show potential publishers of your fiction that you know what you’re talking about.
The growth of Ebooks is surely unstoppable. I am a total convert to them and read paper books as second best now. But it remains hard for new authors to get their books seen.
Hey John!
Thanks for compiling this data! It’s awesome and motivating. I’ve always wondered what the real figures were like in this industry. I very much appreciate you publishing this post!
Thanks again!
Glad it helped you out Marlee. It’s always good to have hard data.
John, I’ve been selling hardcover books online for several years. It’s strictly supplemental income. I’m not ready to quit my day job. However, given the ever-growing popularity of e-books, should I soon consider selling something other than books online? Can I expect growing sales or am I merely selling an increasingly obsolete product?
Two thoughts Frank:
1. Are you continuing to sell your hardcover books at the same rate now as in the past?
2. Can you easily convert the hardcover books to digital format and offer customers the option of purchasing them as e-books?
Hello John,
Do you have the figures for the Adult fiction market within the UK and Europe? I am a new author about to self publish my book and run it like a business. Do you have any advice for me if possible?
Thanks,
Aaron Hennessy
P:S- found the blog a very interesting read and will continue to follow
Well, I believe that Ebooks will, with time, take more and more market space, as net and technology are becoming even more accessible in some parts of the world. What once ordinary printing press did to book printing, ebooks will do to ordinary paper distribution. Of course I doubt that hard editions will be completely suppressed like old monastery manuscripts but on a general level book trade will migrate more and more to ebooks.
Debra, that was not the specific focus of this post. However, Amazon.com is the biggest seller of e-books.
Hi John,
do you have any breakdown for self/help or Mind/body/spirit categories?
I was hoping i’d stumble across a world map online with sales represented by country/ by genre/ by population.
I may be a few years ahead of the information cross-referencing that the web is facilitating
Andrew
I can’t read your Web site properly because of the hovering “leftcontainerbox”. It overlaps the left-aligned text by a centimeter or so.
Sorry about that Peter. It’s from one of two causes: either your monitor resolution is too low or you’ve magnified the text on screen.
Dear John,
do you know if there are any numbers for the global publishing industry?
Best regards! Björn
Hello Bjorn. I don’t have that data, please let us know if you do find it.
I’m writing a criticism of Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie, and would like to refer to the popular success (or lack of it) by the number of books sold. Is that information available to the public? Do you know where I might find that information? thank you, Joan
Joan, I don’t think such information is easily available to the public, but perhaps someone else can chime in on this.
I did find this in a Google search: http://www.edrants.com/clowing-around-with-slim-returns/
Hi John, great info thanks.
Do you have stat on how many e-books for children are being sold?
thanks,
Yoram
Quick question. What did you see in teen fiction trends in sales and genres? Were these changes evident? Did young adult fiction sales increase or decrease during 2010?
Great information here. I am currently at the mid point of writing book #3 (fiction thriller) and self publishing from the beginning. When I started writing the POD companies wanted extreme amounts to print a book so I gravitated toward digital, starting with Smashwords. The outlines for two ‘self help/get off your butt’ books sit in my desk drawer awaiting their turn in the spotlight, but I suspect that changing genre might be a fatal mistake. Any input on changing? Thanks!!
I am trying to get actual factual data about my book sales on Amazon, CreateSpace and Kindle. My book is also being sold on Kobo which refuses to give me sales data, Diesel-Ebooks, Barnes & Noble and separately as a publisher, Smashwords. Amazon, CreateSpace and Kindle are saying through representatives that I can only confirm sales through their royalties or their manufacturing data. They claim there are only three manufacturers in the USA, but data on the Internet appears to show more locations and my book is also being sold Internationally. Don’t authors have a right to know how many books of theirs were sold?