Publishing Sales Jump 18.1% in First Six Months of 2021

With all segments posting increases in the first six months of 2021, sales for the 1,358 publishers that report their revenue to the AAP StatShot program increased 18.1% over the comparable period in 2020.

The largest gain came in the K-12 instructional materials segment, which had a difficult first six months of 2020, when schools were closed due to the pandemic. For the first half of last year, sales in the K-12 segment fell 30.3% from 2019 levels. Sales for all publishers were down 4.2% in the first six months of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019.

In the January-June period in the first half of 2021, K-12 sales rose 35.2%. The other educational category, higher educational course materials, had a 15.1% increase in the six month period.

The two trade segments, which had small increases in the first half of 2020, posted double-digit increases in the first six months of 2021, with adult book sales rising 18.9% and children’s/young adult sales increasing 14.6%. Sales of religious books increased 10.7%

The professional book segment had the smallest increase, with sales up 5.8% in the first half of 2021. Sales of university presses rose 21.2%.

The increase in the first six months of 2021 came despite flat sales in June. Only the educational publishing segments had gains in June. Sales of adult books fell 9.5% in the month compared to June 2020, and sales in children’s/young adult declined 4.1%.

In the adult segment for the first six months of the year, all formats except e-books rose over 2020, with e-book sales slipping 0.6%. Hardcover sales did the best among all formats, rising 31.6%, while trade paperback sales increased 19.9%. Mass market sales increased 8.1%.

Downloadable audio sales had another strong performance, with sales up 19%. The format represented 12.4% of adult sales in the first six months of 2021, up slightly from 12.1% last year. E-books accounted for 17% of sales down from 20.4% in 2020, according to AAP.

In the children/YA category, all formats had double-digit increases with the exception of physical audio. Hardcovers had the largest increase, with sales up 20.2%.