Publisher Revenues Declined in First Half of 2015

By Dianna Dilworth 

Publishers book sales were $5.58 billion during the first half of 2015, down 4.1 percent as compared to the prior year in which publishers brought in $5.82 billion, according to data from the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

These figures include sales from Trade – fiction/non-fiction/religious, K-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses. The AAP tracks the net revenues of more than 1,200 publishers to track the data. During the first half of the year, e-book sales were down 10.3 percent as compared to 2014, most of which came from the Childrens/YA category, which was down 45.5 percent. The AAP attributed the sharp decline to the huge growth of the category in 2014 with blockbusters like Frozen and Divergent.

On a positive note, while trade books were down from the first half of 2014, sales began to show improvement in June. In addition, trade paperbacks and downloaded audiobooks within the trade category grew in double digits during the period.