July was a strong month for both adult trade books and children’s/young adult titles.
According to figures from the AAP’s StatShot program, sales of adult books rose 11.1% in July over a year ago, while sales in the children’s/YA segment increased 10.3%.
Within the adult category, downloadable audio continued its rapid growth, with sales in July up 42.0% over July 2017. Mass market paperback sales jumped 32.6% in the month, although sales of the format were down 2.1% in the year-to-date. Hardcover sales also posted double digit gains in the month, with revenue up 19.9%. The only format that had a sales decline was e-books, where sales from reporting publishers fell 6.9%.
With the strong July, sales of adult books in the first seven months of 2018 were up 5.2% over a year ago.
In the children’s/YA segment, the July increase was led by a 17.1% increase in hardcover sales. The July jump for the category brought sales for the January-July period 1.7% above the same period a year ago.
Among all segments, religion presses had the highest sales gain for both July (up 16.6%) and the year to date (up 11.0%). The professional books, higher educational materials, and university press segments all had double-digit sales declines in the month.
Sales for all 1,079 publishers that report figures to AAP fell 2.2% in July and 1.5% in the first seven months of the year, compared to the same periods in 2017.
