According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report for December (chart embedded above), adult mass market paperback sales dropped 40.9 percent compared to the same period the year before. Overall trade sales declined almost three percent, dipping from $561.3 million to $545.1 million.
As you can see by the year-to-date chart embedded below, overall trade book sales saw a four percent drop and mass market paperback sales declined nearly 36 percent for the year. While eBook sales increased 117 percent last year, they still have not closed the gap with declining print sales.
Here’s more from the release: “The December report represents data provided by 77 publishers and only sales of the participants are reported. NOTE: All numbers have been rounded to one decimal point and may not add up to 100%.”
