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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
Gee. And I thought that the only sales that were down last year were hardback sales, with pback etc. picking up most of the volume. Must be the millions of people who have started reading books on their iPhones since then, as eInk sales aren't that good yet.
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http://www.publishersweekly.com/arti...dustryid=47152
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Total book sales fell 2.8% in 2008, to $24.3 billion, according to estimates released last week by the Association of American Publishers. Sales were down in nine of the 14 categories measured by the association.
The totals are based on the monthly reports supplied by 81 publishers, supplemented by Census Bureau data. The AAP applies the percentage change reported in each category by the reporting companies to the previous year's totals.
[...]
The largest increase in 2008 was in the e-book segment, where sales rose 68.4%, to $113.2 million. The figure is based on reports from 13 e-book publishers. The trade segment had a difficult year, particularly in hardcover, with sales down in both adult and juvenile.
The AAP estimates that industry sales grew at a 1.6% compound annual growth rate in the 2002–2008 period. During that span, the mass market paperback and the book club/mail order segments were the only ones to have a drop in sales. Excluding e-books, the religion book segment, with a 4.5% compound annual growth rate, had the strongest gain in the period.
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That's dollar volume, though; unit sales are declining more. And of course that's not inflation-adjusted.