Children’s & YA eBook Revenues Down Nearly 46%

By Jason Boog 

According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) StatShot report for the first half of 2013, publishers saw total trade sales take a six percent drop.

YA and children’s publishing saw steep declines as sales from 2012’s The Hunger Games blockbuster movie recede. Children’s and YA hardcover sales dipped nearly 32 percent and eBook sales dipped nearly 46 percent in the same category.

The AAP chart embedded above shows how the different young adult and children’s categories were affected from January to June 2013.

This dramatic readjustment in the Children’s/YA category is slowing, however. Compared to the same period last year, children’s and YA declined 22 percent. In June, sales only declined 8.8 percent. Catching Fire comes out in November, so we may see some big sales once again for the sequel.

Below, we’ve collected the overall totals for all trade formats. This Stat Shot report used data collected from 1,196 publishers.