% Change % Change
(Measured in $ sales against same time periods, 2005)
* Number of reporting companies.
Six new publishers began providing monthly sales estimates to the AAP in July, bringing the total number of participants in the program to 80. Penguin is now providing figures in the adult, children's and mass market segments, while Thomas Nelson is giving the AAP information on not only religious book sales, but sales in the trade, audio and e-book segments. Other new publishers are Tyndale, Herald Press, Multnomah and InterVarsity Press. Even with the new additions, sales in the religious segment—which now has nine reporting companies, up from five—continued to decline in July, off 27.6% for the month and 18.7% for the year to date. And the jump in children hardcover sales (as well as audio), seen last July with the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, turned to a steep drop this year with July sales down 82.9% and off 46.1% in the first seven months of 2006.
Category July YTD
Adult Hard (22)* -30.4% -9.9%
Adult Paper (23) 13.6 13.4
Mass Market (12) 15.2 6.8
Juvenile Hard (16) -82.9 -46.1
Juvenile Paper (18) 18.7 -0.6
Audio (13) -72.3 -28.2
Electronic (12) -5.1 23.8
Religious (9) -27.6 -18.7
Higher Ed. (13) 0.0 2.1
Univ. Pr. Hard (37) -5.4 -3.8
Univ. Pr. Paper (36) 6.9 5.8
Professional (10) 1.4 2.9
Elhi (9) 2.8 0.3