Publishing Industry Market Update; Vol. 3, Issue 2
Industry analysts are expecting a leaner 2022 for book sales, as the publishing industry is expected to cool…but only because 2020 and 2021 were so good! The basis for that prognostication is mostly because it’s hard to say with a straight face that 2022 could possibly follow those two older siblings with similar results. Also, with the supply chain still stressed and inflation driving up the cost of manufacturing—and hence the price being charged to the reader/consumer, a dip seems inevitable.
Another leading indicator—December 2021 holiday sales—slipped 1.8% lower than 2020’s numbers. That dip continued into January 2022, with the first full week of the new year coming in at 13.9% below the prior year’s results. The subsequent two weeks were down 3% and 2.6%, respectively.
2021: Another Big Year in [the] Books (pun intended)
For the first time in the 18-year history of NPD/BookScan, the publishing industry saw large sales gains in back-to-back years. Print books trended up 8.9% above 2020—which if you’ve been here for any amount of time, you’ll recall how happy we all were with those 2020 numbers. And the industry as a whole (adding in ebooks and audiobooks) jumped a whopping 12.2%. The educational segment came back in a big way. After diving nearly 20% in 2020, the K-12 segment shot up 34.6% as schools reverted to more normal buying patterns. Higher education also saw modest gains (2.5%).
Continuing recent trends, the audiobook market kept up its penchant for double-digit growth, with an increase of 15.6% year-over-year, while ebooks shrank 3.7% in 2021 after seeing a pandemic-stoked rebound in 2020 (up 11% from 2019). At this rate, audiobook popularity will eclipse the ebook by 2023. Remember when we all thought that the ebook would kill the print book?
Y&Y’s favorite market segment—religion—did similarly well, seeing 11.2% growth over the prior year, based on the Association of American Publishers report (AAP).
Publishing Stocks Rebound
Publisher’s Weekly has a weekly stock index that it uses to track the value of publicly traded publishing companies—a helpful indicator of the overall health of the industry. After dropping 4% in 2020, the index shot up 32% in 2021 – far eclipsing the Dow Jones Industrial’s growth of 18.7% over the same period.
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