Led by sales of trade paperbacks--the format for adult coloring books--sales of adult books rose 9.5% last November over November 2014 at trade houses that report to AAP’s StatShot program. Sales of trade paperbacks rose 31.4% in November, helping to offset a 14.9% drop in e-book sales at reporting companies.
In the children’s/young adult category, November sales rose 7.9%, driven by a 55.4% jump in sales of board books. E-book sales were down 28.0% in the month.
For the first 11 months of 2015, sales in the adult trade segment were up 3.1%, compared to the January-November period in 2014. Trade paperback sales increased 16.1% in the period, while sales of downloadable audio had the strongest gain, up 40.3%. E-book sales were off 7.3% at publishers that report to the AAP.
Eleven-month sales in the children’s/young adult segment were down 3.8% compared to 2014, as e-book sales declined 43.7%, offsetting a 19.4% increase in board book sales.
Sales for all 1,205 publishers that reported results to the AAP were up 1.8% in November, but were down 2.6% in the January-November period. Aside from the 3.1% sales increase in the adult trade segment, the only other category in which sales were up in the first 11 months of 2015 was religious presses, which had a 0.9% gain from reporting publishers.
