Digital Sales Fall Again
Sales figures from the literary world for the first half of the year have confirmed what everyone had already noticed, and that is that print books are well and truly back in fashion! The revenue of digital trade publishers has fallen by 19% in the first six months of the year, but print sales are holding well according to figures from the Publishing Association.
Overall, when combining digital and physical book sales, figures have remained the sale but while digital sales have fallen year on year and rather steeply this year, physical figures are up year on year.
Another interest increase is in audio book, and these have continued to increase year-on-year to a growth of 24% as many readers choose to listen instead to their favourite stories. Plus with investment in this area, celebrity readers, and much promotion in this medium of reading, it’s seen a real boom.
The EU Referendum dominated the news in the first half of the year and this too had an effect on sales with export sales on print books down 1.5%, which is concerning as the book industry is a strong export, worth around £900m a year.
In 2015 we saw the first big turn around from digital books back to print, with an revival for bookshops and physical books. This was attributed partly to social media, the visual aesthetics of books for photographs and Instagram (something we’d agree with!), investment in cover art, and many other things and now it’s starting to look like a trend that is set to continue proving traditional books never go out of fashion.
Business is booming and books are well and truly ‘this season’.
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