In 2018, U.S. book publishers had net revenue of $25.82 billion and sold 2.71 billion units, according to the Association of American Publishers' StatShot Annual Report for Calendar Year 2018. Unlike measures that rely solely on sales data, the StatShot Annual Report combines annual data submitted by publishers with market modeling to estimate the total volume of the U.S. publishing industry.
Among highlights from the report:
While total book revenue has fallen steadily in the past five years (down 7.7% from $27.96 billion in 2014) mainly because of drops in the higher ed, pre-K-12 and professional categories, trade revenue has increased steadily to $16.19 billion in 2018 from $15.43 billion in 2014, or 5% in the five-year period.
For the second year in a row, publisher sales to online retail channels, which totaled $8.03 billion, exceeded sales to physical retail channels, whose sales were $6.9 billion.
In online retail channels, 45.1% of publisher sales were trade print formats, 24.5% were e-books, 14.5% were instructional materials, 13.7% were downloaded audio, and 2.2% were physical audio or a different format.
Downloaded audio was again the fastest-growing format overall, growing 28.7% in 2018 over 2017, and growing 181.8% in the five years since 2014.
During the past five years, nonfiction books (both adult, up 22.8%, and children's & YA, up 38.5%) had the largest percentage revenue growth for publishers. Unit sales for adult nonfiction and children's & YA nonfiction grew 20.9% and 17.8%, respectively, over the last five years.
Publisher revenue for adult fiction was flat (0.4%) at $4.40 billion in 2018, while children's & YA fiction grew slightly (1.6%) to $3.72 billion.
All participating publishers and distributors receive a complimentary copy of the full StatShot Annual Report. The report is also available for purchase. For more information, e-mail Syreeta Swann.