Canadian book sales fell in the second quarter of 2010 compared to the same quarter last year, both in the number of books sold and the value of the sales, according to new figures from BookNet Canada. Overall, the market was down 4.1% in unit volume and 4.3% in sales in the quarter. The fiction category fared best, up 5.1% in sales, but it dipped 0.6% in units. Nonfiction was down 6% in volume and 7.1% in value. Juvenile was down 8.6% in units and 12.9% in dollars.
First quarter figures were also down compared with the same quarter in 2009.
BookNet CEO Noah Genner attributed the drop in part to the lack of a blockbuster hit. Even though the Stieg Larsson titles are outperforming the market significantly, he said, the volume is still significantly less than the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series, which was still helping sales last year
Genner added that although e-books might be cannibalizing some of the sales, he couldn’t say how much because BookNet does not yet track e-book sales. The market for e-books in Canada is much less developed than in the U.S. and is just starting to grow.
Another factor affecting the value of sales somewhat is the fluctuation of the Canadian dollar, said Genner. Reacting to the high Canadian dollar, “We started to see list prices get more in parallel with the U.S. prices again over the last few months.”
Genner did hold out hope for a better third quarter. “We’ve actually seen it bounce back in the summer already,” he said. “We see a significant amount of fiction and juvenile title buying in July and August every year. This year, we’ve been up a little bit over the year before.”
BookNet tracks year-over-year figures in a fixed panel of 665 stores, a subset of its 1,600 reporting stores.
