Sales of adult e-books rose 13.6% in the first quarter of 2013 helping to offset sluggish sales of print books in the period, resulting in a 3.3% increase in adult trade sales at companies that report to AAP’s StatShot program. Sales in the children’s/YA segment fell 24.6% in the quarter with declines of 35.6% in hardcover and 30.1% in e-books due to extremely strong sales in those formats last year of The Hunger Games trilogy.
In the adult segment, e-book sales for the three-month period totaled $328.2 million, making it the biggest-selling format for publishers who report to StatShot. Sales of adult hardcovers fell 0.4% in the quarter, to $226.5 million, while trade paperback sales rose 1.7%, to $306.6 million. Mass market paperback sales dropped 14.6%, to $89.9 million. Downloaded audio had a good quarter with sales up 14.4% to $28.3 million, more than double the $13 million in physical audio sales in the quarter, which fell 7.5%.
In the other major categories, sales of religious presses fell 2.2%, while sales of professional books declined 10.9% in the quarter. Sales of K-12 instructional materials dropped 4.3%, but sales of higher education materials rose 9.7%. Sales of university presses rose 1.5%.
Results are based on sales from 1,192 reporting publishers.
