New Report Projects Small Decline in Book Sales in ’09

Total book sales are projected to dip 0.5% in 2009, to $35.04 billion, according to the PW/IPR Book Sales Index, a new report from Publishers Weekly and the Institute for Publishing Research. Sales will be down or flat in all the trade segments, but will increase in the professional, higher education and standardized testing segments.

Al Greco, cofounder of IPR, said the decline in discretionary spending among consumers will mean a tough year for all trade book segments, noting that all the economic data reports, such as retail spending and personal income, that are used to build the forecast continue to be weak. Because of paperbacks’ lower prices, those segments should fare better than hardcover categories, and the forecast calls for children’s paperback to be the strongest trade segment this year, albeit with sales inching up only 0.1%. Trade paperback sales are forecast to decline 3.0% in 2009 compared to 6.8% for adult hardcovers.

The elhi segment is also projected to have a sales decline this year due to a drop in state budgets because of lower tax revenue. The poor economy and uncertainty over when the federal stimulus money will arrive at the states and how the funds will be used will result “in a rugged 2009 and 2010 for elhi,” Greco said. One segment of the school market that will continue to do well this year is standardized tests, with sales forecast to rise 7.8% as both the state and federal governments continue to press for accountability at schools.

Sales in the higher education category are projected to increase 2.8%. Greco said an increase in enrollments ranging from junior colleges through graduate schools should result in sales gains for traditional college texts in 2009 even as momentum for more use of digital books slowly builds. The index projects that sales of digital books in the higher education market will rise 3.5% in 2009, to an estimated $110.2 million. Greco said that demand for digital books at colleges will accelerate when CourseSmart, the online joint venture created by five publishers to sell digital course material, begins to gain traction. More than 6,000 titles are in the system as e-textbooks, and as that number grows, digital sales in higher education “could explode,” Greco said.

One area where digital book sales are already very significant is in the professional segment, where digital revenue is expected to jump 17% in 2009, to $1.33 billion, helping to drive a 6.5% increase in sales for the entire professional segment. Greco noted that professional publishers long ago learned how to successfully move their print products into the digital space. With must-have information that is often paid for by corporations and law firms, professional publishers “are in the best defensive position of all publishing segments,” Greco said.

He is less bullish on the growth of e-books in the trade market. Although some trade publishers have reported that e-book sales continue to grow at a fast pace, Greco believes that the recession will slow sales of the expensive Kindle and Sony Readers and as sales for the device decrease, sales for e-books will slow.

The 2009 forecast is just one aspect of the new PW/IPR Book Sales Index. The report, available online only at www.booksalesindex.com, includes a five-year forecast for all publishing segments as well as providing sales breakdowns by channel. The index also includes economic data from the federal government as well as a history and analysis of PW’s bestsellers data going back to 1994. IPR will update all economic information on a monthly basis and will revise sales projections, when necessary, on a quarterly basis. All updates will be available via paid subscription. Greco has been analyzing the publishing industry for more than 20 years and had prepared the “BISG Trends” report for several years before stopping this year. An individual subscription to the index is $695, and corporate site licenses are available; subscriptions can be made directly from the site.

PW/IPR Sales Projections 2008—2009
($ in millions)

Digital Book Forecast (in millions)