A 29.2% sales increase in adult trade titles and a gain of 11.8% in sales in the children’s/young adult segment led to a 10.3% increase in January industry sales over January 2020 for the 1,359 publishers who report results to AAP’s StatShot program.
Sales in the professional publishing category rose 8% in the month, while university press sales increased 4%. K-12 instructional materials sales inched up by 1.6%. Sales of higher educational course materials fell 2.6%, and sales in the religion segment slipped 0.5%.
Within adult trade, all print and digital formats had double-digit sales increases over January 2020. Hardcovers had the largest increase, 51.5%, followed by mass market paperback (41.1%) and trade paperback (20.7%).
The sales growth of digital audio showed no signs of slowing down, jumping 35.1%. E-book sales increased by 16% in the month.
The digital formats did well in the children’s/YA segment, with e-book sales soaring 75.2% and audio rising to 25.9%. Paperback sales rose 15.3% and hardcover sales were up 7.9%. Sales of board books fell 3.4%.
