As announced today on Publisher’s Lunch, a new industry-wide set of statistics are now out by BookStats. It’s a study that is going to be done jointly by the AAP and BISG who had been releasing their own flawed statistics over the last few years. This new study, as Publisher’s Lunch says, is modeled better and seems to be much cleaner and closer to the truth.
And I agree with it. Nothing strikes me as off. That said, this modeling is still flawed from the perspective of a perfect world, but it is better than we have had. If you want the full study and clear breakdowns, go to http://publishers.org/bookstats/highlights/ It is very clear with nifty bar graphs and everything.
So let me dig through some of the data to just give a few highlights. Remember, folks, I’ve been saying how really huge this business is and how minor indie publishers are in the big flow of things. And remember I have been saying that traditional publishing is not going away. It’s just in for a rough patch where certain companies will make it and others will not.
Well, if you didn’t believe me before, wrap your mind around a few of these numbers.
The data came from Trade Publishers of a certain size and up (meaning about 2,000 publishers…yeah, I know most of you have bought into the myth of the “big six” but alas, this data came from the major top 2,000 publishers. Fiction, nonfiction, everything. But no indie publishers at all.)
Total Net Sales for 2010 was 12.59 Billion. (That’s Billion with a B.)
Number Net books sold were 2.57 Billion. (That’s Billion with a B.)
As far as e-books, here is how Publisher’s Lunch read the data: “The ebook data only covers product from traditional publishers, of course, so it does not reflect much of the explosion of self-published ebooks. BookStats estimates a total of $838 million in trade ebook sales for 2010, which comprises 6.7 percent of all trade sales for the year. (By including religion, the press release will tell you ebooks are 6.4 percent, and comprise $878 million.)
And speaking of pricing (Arghhh)…here is what Publisher’s Lunch says about the data: “The new report–which offers average unit price data as well–claims that the average trade ebook was sold by publishers for $6.50 in 2008, $8.09 in 2009, and $7.72 in 2010.”
And a total number of the 2,000 publishers reporting e-book sales…they said: “Across all segments of book publishing, ebooks and apps comprised an estimated market of $1.667 billion…”
(That Billion with a B.)
Again, as Publisher’s Lunch stressed, this is modeled data from around 2,000 publishers and does not take into account the indie publishers yet. Just major trade publishers.
But it is better data than we have seen and is taken and modeled from a very large swath of publishers. (Better than trying to get some idea from 12 publishers reporting as has been for the last two years.)
My take?
Exactly as I figured things were at after 2010. Sort of flat, with electronic books booming and paper books struggling.
2011 will be another matter, with the huge returns going on at B&N, the discounting of almost 300 Borders store’s inventory, the push of more devices getting more and more readers online. Numbers will really be messed up this year. We shall see in next year’s study how it all levels out for 2011.
At 6.4% in 2010, we are a distance from that nasty tipping point of 25% of all books being electronic. But we are gaining on it. Many trade publishers are moving quickly to adjust and move warehousing, trucking contracts, and printing contracts, others not so fast.
Only time will tell what will happen for each traditional publisher. My suggestion a number of weeks back was: Hold on going after traditional publishing and learn indie publishing for the moment.
I stand by that suggestion. Then in a year or two we’ll have better answers. And we will know which publishing companies are going to follow Borders into history and which will have made the transition. And you will have options and data of your own at that point.
Just my suggestion again.
Read the study yourself and come to your own conclusions.http://publishers.org/bookstats/highlights/
Not to call into question your numbers, which are good, but here are some issues to take into consideration:
The thing about tipping points: they will not happen at 25% of all books across all segments. They will happen at 25% within a segment.
Further confusing the issue is that they aren’t measuring the used book market. (Hear me out on this.) People who buy primarily used and discount books are entering the market for ebooks — at least those priced equivalently to used books. (I.e. $5 and under.) I have no idea how fast or how much, just that everyone I know who was a library/used/discount book reader is getting into ebooks.
So we have an unmeasured audience moving into a segment which is being measured. They will skew the results somewhat, making it look like we’re moving faster to ebooks than before.
Again, don’t know how much this is a factor, but I suspect the situation is shifting in other hidden ways as well. You point out that publishing is way bigger than most people know — the book market is actually way bigger than even publishing knows.
We live in interesting times.
Oh, I agree, Camille, and these are not my numbers. These are just from the major study just released.
Not a clue how all this will end up. No one does, and even with better modeling like this from 2010, there is no certainty. That’s why I suggest writers hold if they don’t already have contracts with traditional publishers and learn indie publishing for a year or so until this normally solid business returns to some sense.
Oh Dean… LOL
Publishers were broken into seven tiers…those earning less than $100,000 to more than $500 million.
total U.S. publishing industry…net sales revenue = $27.9 Billion for 2010
(eBook) Net sales revenue sold directly to online channels is $2.82 Billion in 2010.
They’re saying companies like Telemachus Press might not have been asked if they are indeed a publisher *and* $2.82b is only 6.4% of $27.9b – yep, perfect accounting…
And then the big one, buried in the supplied data “Chain Stores make up the vast majority of publishers’ sales directly to retailers (53.54%)”
The 2011 US numbers will be stunning. Dean’s advice is spot on, and not following it could cause serious heartache. Lawyers are smelling the blood in these waters: http://www.hbsslaw.com/cases-and-investigations/ebooks
Yup, SL, didn’t say this was a perfect study, in fact I said it wasn’t by a ways. But better than what we had. (grin) And 2011 really, really should be interesting.
In 2011 we have a massive slowdown of buying of books at B&N brick and mortar stores and a huge return starting now where even more of every store is going to games and toys. While at the same time Borders is discounting out almost 300 bookstores full of books that can’t be returned. In other words, who knows how 2011 numbers will stack. Not having Borders for the last quarter of the year should have a solid impact, but the huge store clearances are really going to screw up numbers.
And yeah, that information-gathering class-action case just filed yesterday is very interesting. Those of you who have royalty statements with e-book sales listed that look weirdly low should follow the link that SL gave and click on the tab to fill out some basic information. Doesn’t mean you become part of the suit, but you might be anyway since this is a possible class action against publishers. A lot of us have been talking about how traditional publishers just can’t be reporting numbers correctly for e-books. It just isn’t possible. This should get the traditional publishers to start changing that problem and authors at least getting the sales they are making, even though the 25% of net is so low. At least they will get that much.
Now we wait for the first suit against an agent turned publisher to be filed. Or maybe the first criminal action. Agency law in this country is very, very clear body of law. Publishing a client crosses way, way over many of those restrictions of an agent and a client. Even if it is called “another company” as some agents do. Head-shaking in the stupidity.
Notice that every agency who has started this publishing practice is small and does not have a staff of lawyers on board like the larger agencies do. Hmmm…wonder why.
All kinds of fun stuff happening.
This isn’t exactly what you’re talking about (yet), but clearly prey has always had its predators:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153939&page=5
Cripes. It’s all kind of scary and exciting at the same time.
When I started putting my stuff up online I was thinking “Why didn’t I do this ages ago?”. I thought I was so behind and missed the boat on the ebook boom, when in reality, it’s the opposite. It’s barely even started.
I do wonder what indie publishing will be like in a couple of years, when a bunch of traditional publishers start to push through the problems and dominate once more (if that happens).
Hope you are right about traditional publishing and paper books not going away any time soon though. I hate hearing about shops shutting and the Borders thing was a disaster. All of those people’s jobs lost
Glynn,
Yup, this isn’t a gold rush, this is just part of the new normal. And yup, it is just starting. There was no such thing as “ages ago.” (grin)
Actually, a long time ago I knocked Grisham off the very first electronic book bestseller list in 2000, which I suppose was ages ago. The novel was one called Belly of the Beast. Pocket Books. And it stayed in the top 25 bestsellers for the year and I got this nifty award from Peanut Press for it. It might have sold 200 copies. (grin) But Pocket Books paid me an ugly amount of money for the short book, I wrote it in only three or four days because it was only about 40,000 words long, and then they paid me another ugly amount of money to put it with a few other short electronic novels in a larger paper book because in the first contract they had forgotten to buy paper rights. Now that was a long time ago. (grin)
2000 was ages ago! I was still wearing jeans two waist sizes smaller and jumping around on stage in a heavy metal band back then. Now the only jumping around is courtesy of the small people that have appeared in my house over the last few years.
Do you have the rights back to that book that won the award? (Grin) – If so, link to it?
Glynn, you’re telling me 2000 was ages ago. Heck 2008 was ages ago now as fast as things are changing. (grin) The novel was Star Trek: SCE: Belly of the Beast. So I don’t have any rights and not a clue if the thing is around or not. It was the very first SCE book.
On Mozart, I sort of figured it wasn’t thousands, but I do remember it was a lot. A lot more than we remember, and he had his church if I remember right where everything was performed every week. Thanks for the information.
With the lawsuit that’s pending, they may need those billions.
From Publisher’s Lunch:
Class-action law specialists Hagens Berman filed suit in a San Francisco Federal Court against Apple, along with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, over the agency model of ebook pricing. On behalf of two people who bought ebooks, the firm alleges that Apple and the publishers are “in violation of a variety of federal and state antitrust laws, the Sherman Act, the Cartwright Act and the Unfair Competition Act.”
At 6.4% in 2010, it does seem a long way from 25%.
Except…
The May 2011 AAP ebook sales number was about 17% of total trade book revenue. Which only included the top 16(?) or so ebook publishers, but compared their gross sales revenue vs the gross sales revenue of print books from the top 300 or so print publishers.
Right now, indie books seem to represent a third or more of gross unit (not revenue, since most big indie sellers are cheaper than most big trade pub sellers) sales.
So that 17% is really the floor – we know the real number for May was bigger. We know it was probably no more than 50% larger (so no higher than 25%), but we don’t know precisely where it was.
For revenue. Of course, unit sales are another matter – we know that the unit sales number is off by at *least* 33% – probably quite a bit more.
More complicated yet, we know that the overwhelming majority of ebook sales are of fiction, whereas nonfiction has a slight majority in print trade books. So again – we know that ebooks have a larger impact on fiction sales than on nonfiction sales – but no one knows how much larger.
My own hunch is that fiction will pass 50% of unit sales as ebooks early next year, during the post-holiday sales rush, if it hasn’t already by that time.