Despite protests in many metropolitan markets, NPD BookScan—which tracks retail print sales from mostly traditional publishers—reports that the US book market is within 0.1 percent of 2019 sales, or flat. However, not all news has been positive: US bookstore sales are down by 65 percent in April, according to the US Census Bureau. In March, the decline was 33 percent. So how is it possible that NPD numbers look so good while bookstore numbers look so bad? Brick-and-mortar bookstores don’t have that big of a market share in the US, and sales during lockdown have likely migrated to online and mass-market retailers. The New York Times recently estimated that Amazon represents 70 percent of all online book sales.
The Association of American Publishers issued their StatShot for April (an estimate only—not final figures), which indicates the performance of major trade publishers. AAP print book shipments are down 13 percent versus last year. Almost all of the decline came from hardcovers. While returns are lower in April, Sara Grace of Publishers Lunch says this might be due to the delayed processing of returns (subscription required); publishers worry about upcoming returns of unsold inventory as stores reopen. As far as ebook sales, they’re up 11 percent versus last year. Once you roll up the numbers across all publishing categories and formats, traditional publishing is off by 3.5 percent in April 2020 when compared to April 2019.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
