Twilight and Harry Potter sales notwithstanding, there's a growing reality in our fair nation -- people just don't read like they used to. And with the slowdown in reading comes a definite decline in book sales.
The Book Industry Study Group reported that publishers sold fewer books in 2008, down 1.5% from 2007 to 3.08 billion. Of course, all was not lost -- total revenue edged 1% higher thanks to increased prices.
And things aren't looking much better in the first half of 2009 for retailers such as Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP) and Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS). Borders recently announced that first-quarter sales were down 12% on a year-over-year basis.
This drop in book sales was a prime topic of discussion at the BookExpo America, hosted in New York over the weekend. Librarians and booksellers rubbed elbows with authors and celebrities including Julie Andrews and Aerosmith's Stephen Tyler to discuss, among other things, how digital innovations will impact the publishing business.
Hey, I'm among the guilty parties. I used to devour at least one book a week; now, with work commitments, commute time, travel ... I'm lucky to get through one a month. It doesn't help that I have 100-plus channels of television, two-at-a-time unlimited discs from Netflix, and the infernal, ever-present Internet to distract me from my shelves, dusty with dozens of books I've purchased and never read.
On the upside, sales of juvenile books rose nearly 6% in 2008 to 154.9 million (thanks, Stephenie Meyer!). So perhaps there is hope for our future, after all.
Beth works for The Options News Network (www.ONN.tv), which provides daily options commentary. The above comments are not intended as trading advice.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-02-2009 @ 6:55AM
Bernice Green said...
This article is about a real fact, book sales are down for some time now and the expectation is that this trend will continue
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6-02-2009 @ 10:11AM
Mike O said...
I wonder what percentage of that decline includes electronic sales?
As a software engineer, I have recently switched from buying technical reference books to their digital (PDF) equivalent.