March 9, 2016
- Number of Barnes & Noble stores in 2010: 720
- In 2016: 640
- Number of stores Barnes & Noble expects to close in fiscal 2016: 8
- Number of stores Barnes & Noble expects to close in fiscal 2017: 14
- Number of new stores Barnes & Noble expects to open in fiscal 2017: 4
- Nook’s reported digital content sales in 2012: $317 million
- In 2013: $259 million
- In 2014: $200 million
- In 2015: $140 million
- Compensation to be distributed to consumers (from Apple) now that the antitrust ebook case is over: $400 million
- Of the $400 million settlement, how much Nook customers will receive: $105 million
- Value of the entire US ebook market in 2015 (estimated): $1.33 billion
- Number of publishers Ingram distributes today: ~125
- Number of publishers Ingram will distribute after Perseus deal: ~725
Sources: Barnes & Noble Earnings Gain on Lower eBook Losses; Nook Drops UK, Apps and Video; Quantifying Nook’s Decline, and More; Why Barnes & Noble Isn’t Going Away Yet; Second Time’s a Charm: Perseus Sells Publishing Lines to Hachette; Game Over: Supreme Court Denies Apple’s Request for Appeal
February 24, 2016
- Number of Kobo users: 26 million
- Number of Amazon.com users: 244 million
- Number of ebooks available on Kobo: 4.7 million
- Estimated number of ebooks available on Amazon: 4 million
- Average number of ebooks purchased by the most dedicated Kobo customers: 1 per month
- Average number of print books purchased by the most dedicated Kobo customers: 16 per year
- US bookstore sales increase in 2015 (over 2014): 2.5%
- Last year when US bookstores reported a sales increase: 2007
- US bookstore sales in 2015: $11.17 billion
- US bookstore sales in 2007: $17 billion
- Percentage of book-publishing market represented by ebooks in the U.S.: 13%
- In the UK: 11.5%
- In Germany: 5%
- In the EU: 1.5%
Sources: By the Numbers: 110+ Amazing Amazon Statistics (January 2016); Amazon Kindle Wikipedia entry; Kobo CEO Faces Uphill E-Book Battle against Apple, Amazon; E-Books: Evolving Markets and New Challenges
February 10, 2016
- Number of Facebook users at the end of 2015: 1.6 billion
- Average revenue per US and Canada Facebook user: $13.54
- Average revenue for European Facebook user: $4.50
- Average revenue for Asia-Pacific Facebook user: $1.59
- Number of WhatsApp (instant message app) users: 1 billion
- Top country for WhatsApp usage: South Africa
- Percentage of WhatsApp users using an Android device: 73%
- Owner of WhatsApp: Facebook
- Number of ebooks currently available from Amazon Kindle store: 4 million
- Number of ebooks available for Kindle six years ago: 600,000
- Number of bestselling Kindle ebooks in 2015 that were self-published: one-third
Sources: 8 (Plus One) Revealing Media Numbers from January 2016; Facebook Q4 2015 Results; By the Numbers: 50 Amazing WhatsApp Statistics; Meredith Wild, a Self-Publisher Making an Imprint
January 27, 2016
- Increase in US print sales of adult nonfiction books in 2015: 7%
- Increase in US print sales of art/design/photography category in 2015: 60%
- Decrease in US print sales of computer category in 2015: 9%
- Decrease in US print sales of humor category in 2015: 5%
- Increase in US print sales of adult fiction books in 2015: 2%
- Increase in US print sales of the classics in 2015: 32%
- Decrease in US print sales of psychology/horror in 2015: 33%
- Decrease in US print sales of mystery/detective in 2015: 12%
- Pottermore revenue in 2014: £31.8 million
- Pottermore revenue in 2015: £7 million
- Pottermore profit in 2014: £14.9 million
- Pottermore profit in 2015: -£6 million (loss)
- Average pageviews per month at Wikipedia: 18 billion
- Number of new articles added every month to Wikipedia: 20,000
- Number of registered Wikipedia users: 23 million
- Number-one Wikipedia article (English language): List of deaths by year
Sources: The Hot and Cold Book Categories of 2015; Harry Potter Digital Arm Loses £$6m and Sheds Jobs; Wikipedia at 15
January 13, 2016
- Number of readers who receive BookBub ebook discount deals via email: 7 million
- Number of BookBub Facebook followers: 2.7 million
- Number of ebook discount deals offered by BookBub in 2015: 12,308
- Number of ebooks submitted to be a BookBub discount offer in 2015: 55,000+
- Number of books that hit the NYT bestseller list after a BookBub promotion: 200+
- Number of ebooks sold through BookBub discount offers: 20+ million
- Amount of funding BookBub raised in 2015: $7 million
- Increase in library circulation of ebooks from 2014 to 2015: 19%
- In circulation of audiobooks: 36%
- In circulation of streaming video: 83%
- Number of years ago that Amazon Prime launched in the United States: 10
- Annual cost of Amazon Prime for U.S. customers in 2006: $79
- Annual cost of Amazon Prime for U.S. customers in 2016: $99
- Number of other countries where Amazon Prime is offered: 8
- Most expensive country for Amazon Prime: U.K. ($115)
- Least expensive countries for Amazon Prime: Italy and Spain ($22)
Sources: BookBub by the Numbers in 2015; Libraries Lend Record Numbers of Ebooks and Audiobooks in 2015; What Amazon Prime Is Like around the World
December 30, 2015
- Number of (debut) fiction and poetry translations published in 2014: 600
- In 2015: 549
- Number of publishers who brought out at least one new fiction or poetry translation in 2014: 202
- In 2015: 151
- Publisher with highest number of new translations in 2014 and 2015: AmazonCrossing
- Percentage of translations released in 2015 that came from AmazonCrossing: 14
- Percentage of adults under the age of 32 who don’t pay for TV: 35
- Percentage of adults under the age of 32 who have never paid for TV: 7
- Percentage of adults who do not subscribe to cable/satellite TV: 24
- Percentage of millennials who get political news from Facebook: 61
- Percentage of baby boomers: 39
- Percentage of millennials who get political news from local TV: 37
- Percentage of baby boomers: 60
- Percentage of time on mobile devices spent on news: 10
- Average time per day currently spent on mobile devices by Americans: 3 hours
- Average time per day spent on mobile devices in 2010: 24 minutes
Sources: Translation Database Updates: AmazonCrossing Is the Story; By 2025, 50% of Adults Under Age 32 Will Not Pay for TV; Cord Cutting Survey: 19% of Young Adults Have Dropped Cable or Satellite TV Service; 2015 Numbers, 2016 Outlook for Advertising, Mobile and Emerging Markets; 15 Striking Findings from 2015
December 16, 2015
- Percentage of bestselling ebooks sold in May 2015 that came from major publishers: 27
- Percentage of bestselling ebooks sold in Nov. 2015 that came from major publishers: 18
- Average price point of bestselling ebooks sold in May 2015 from major publishers: $8.22
- Average price point of bestselling ebooks sold in Nov. 2015 from major publishers: $9.47
- Average price point of bestselling ebooks sold in May 2015 from everyone else: $4.58
- Average price point of bestselling ebooks sold in Nov. 2015 from everyone else: $4.57
- Percentage of patrons who have read an ebook in the past year: 44
- Percentage of patrons who borrowed an ebook in the past year: 25
- Percentage of patrons happy with the ebook selection at their library: 51
- Percentage of patrons who listened to an audiobook in the past year: 12
- Percentage of patrons who borrowed an audiobook in the past year: 9
- Percentage of the global ad market spend devoted to TV in 2015: 38.4
- Percentage devoted to digital media in 2015: 31.8
- When digital media ad spend is anticipated to overtake TV ad spend: 2017
Sources: “Huge, Untracked Shadow Industry” in E-Books; New Study Finds Low Levels of Digital Library Borrowing; Digital Ad Spending Expected to Soon Surpass TV
December 2, 2015
- Random House’s share of the New York Times bestseller list in mid-November: 28.9%
- Penguin’s share: 20%
- Hachette’s share: 12.8%
- Simon & Schuster’s share: 11.1%
- HarperCollins’s share: 7.2%
- Macmillan’s share: 5.6%
- The share of all other publishers combined: 14.4%
- Number of new books self-published (with ISBNs) in the US in 2012: 391,000
- Increase in self-published titles between 2007 and 2012: 422%
- Number of new non-self-published books in the US in 2012: 300,000
- Number of reissues and reprints (e.g., public domain works) since 2007: 10 million
- Percentage of new titles published each year that will be stocked in an average bookstore: 1
- Percentage of Americans using social media who have used it to look for a job: 35
- Who have used social media to inform friends of an available job: 34
- Who have applied for a job discovered through social media contacts: 21
- Percentage of whites who use social media to let friends know about a job: 31
- Percentage of blacks who use social media to let friends know about a job: 53
Sources: New Stats: A Glimpse at “Bestseller Shares”, Self-Publishing Movement Continues Strong Growth in U.S., Says Bowker, Job Seeking in the Era of Smartphones and Social Media
November 18, 2015
- Decline of Facebook traffic to top 30 publisher websites since January: 32%
- Decline of Facebook traffic to top 10 publisher websites since January: 42.7%
- Decline to Huffington Post: 60.1%
- Decline to Fox News: 48.2%
- Decline to Buzzfeed: 40.8%
- Change in publishers’ trade book sales from January to July 2015: +0.3%
- Change in publishers’ trade book sales when compared to 2014: -2%
- Change in publishers’ ebook sales when compared to 2014: -11.2%
- Change in publishers’ digital audio sales when compared to 2014: +37%
- Market share of Big Five publishers in 2014: 28%
- Market share of Big Five publishers in 2015: 37%
- Market share of self-published books in 2014: 14%
- Market share of self-published books in 2015: 18%
- Market share of all other publishers in 2014: 58%
- Market share of all other publishers in 2015: 45%
Sources: Facebook’s Traffic to Top Publishers Fell 32 Percent Since January, Publishers’ Net Revenue and Growth for First Half of 2015, Self-Publishing & Big Five Dominate Book Market, According to Nielsen
November 4, 2015
- Percentage of US libraries offering ebooks in 2015: 94
- Percentage of US libraries offering digital audiobooks in 2015: 94
- Median number of ebooks offered by US libraries in 2010: 813
- In 2015: 14,397
- Ebook spending as a percentage of all US libraries’ budgets: 6.3
- Ebook spending as a percentage of largest US libraries’ budgets: 9
- Percentage of US libraries’ collections represented by ebooks: 11
- Percentage of US libraries’ ebook collections that are fiction: 74
- Percentage of US libraries’ print book collections that are fiction: 58
- Percentage of US libraries that carry self-published ebooks: 20
- Percentage of US adults who own a smartphone in 2015: 68
- In 2014: 64
- Percentage of US adults who own a tablet in 2015: 45
- In 2014: 42
- Percentage of US adults who own an e-reading device in 2015: 19
- In 2014: 32
Sources: 2015 Survey of Ebook Usage in U.S. Public Libraries, Pew Research Technology Device Ownership 2015
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.
