In 2018 750,000 digital book downloads a day went uncounted by Nielsen Bookscan and Data Guy’s BookStat, fuelling the nonsense that people are reading less

Posted onJanuary 10, 2019January 11, 2019Leave a comment

Regulars here at TNPS will not have been surprised that Rakuten OverDrive last year surpassed the quarter billion download mark, serving 274 million digital books to eager consumers through its global library distribution service. While the USA is by far the bigger client country of OverDrive we should remember that the company delivers digital books Read More …

Print Sales Top 700 Million Units for first time since 2010

Posted onJanuary 6, 2019Leave a comment

NPD Bookscan has reported 2018 print sales at 707.4 million, the highest since 2010. Michelle Obama’s Becoming played a big role in that, and of course in previous years it’s been JK Rowling. Nice to know, in this era of diversity in publishing, that women authors are keeping the industry afloat. Over at Publishers Lunch Read More …

Start The Day Global – 5 Not to be Missed Publishing Stories from Around the World

Posted onJanuary 4, 2019Leave a comment

Unusually we Start the Day Global today in Michigan, USA, where this delightful story caught my eye over at Publishers Weekly. Girls of the Crescent: Teen Sisters Promote Stories of Muslim Girls When sisters Mena and Zena Nasiri, both avid teen readers, noticed a dearth of YA books featuring Muslim females like themselves, they took Read More …

So much for video streaming killing publishing and the Box Office. A record year for Hollywood, driven by books and comics

Posted onDecember 24, 2018Leave a comment

There’s still a week to go – and the busiest week of the year at that – and US Box Office takings are on target for $11.8 billion in 2018, compared to 2016’s previous record of $11.4 billion. And it’s not just revenue. Attendance is up too, by between 5%-7% year on year. So much Read More …

In case you missed it – The past week on TNPS

Posted onDecember 23, 2018Leave a comment

The past seven days on TNPS – here’s what you missed. Dubai Audio Library “the largest Arabic audio library in the world” Dubai Audio Library “the largest Arabic audio library in the world” Self-published comic book to become Netflix series – Again Self-published comic book to become Netflix series – Again Saudi Arabia’s 4th Read More …

“The most successful year in Simon & Schuster’s history.”

Posted onDecember 18, 2018Leave a comment

What a turnaround from those heady days of 2010-12 when many believed publishing was doomed, amid very real crises in the book retail and publishing sectors. A time when many predicted (some joyfully) the death of print and that the then Big 6 would follow Borders into oblivion as ebooks became the only format consumers Read More …

Falling Fiction Sales -Why Is It Happening? – The Hot Sheet Reviewed – 14 November edition

Posted onNovember 18, 2018January 6, 2019Leave a comment

The Hot Sheet is a publishing industry news-sheet for authors, produced every two weeks by Porter Anderson and Jane Friedman, and reviewed here every other Sunday (when possible) as one of the best bi-weekly industry overviews available to authors. We’re not interested in delivering breaking news, but perspective on stories that are likely to retain meaning for your Read More …

Amazon’s stock market fall reminds us why self-publishers take a big risk with exclusivity

Posted onOctober 28, 2018Leave a comment

Amazon’s own books are quietly taking over the site – or so runs a headline in Quartz, which tells us, Last year Amazon Publishing put out 1,552 books across its 15 imprints. It’s a telling point that Amazon’s imprints rarely make an impact in the print charts – even on Amazon – but do disproportionately Read More …

Ebook sales doubled in US in 2018 according to Data Guy’s nonsensical BookStat numbers

Posted onOctober 25, 2018October 26, 2018Leave a comment

When Digital Book World announced Data Guy would be delivering the closing keynote speech, during which time he would dazzle us with yet more publishing industry numbers known to nobody else, and incidentally would reveal his true identity and answer his critics, there was a muted response. Data Guy’s true identity is neither here nor Read More …

ALLi 3, VAT on ebooks in EU, Instafreebie rebrands, and the new Bookscan – The Hot Sheet Reviewed

Posted onOctober 7, 2018Leave a comment

Start the Day Global – 30 September 2018

Posted onSeptember 30, 2018September 30, 2018Leave a comment

South Africa, Canada , the USA, the UK and Nigeria are on the travel map today as we start the day global today in what you may or may not consider the USA: Puerto Rico. If we outside the US and Caribbean think of Puerto Rico at all it is probably in relation to the Read More …

Start The Day Global – 29 September 2018

Posted onSeptember 29, 2018Leave a comment

We start the day global today in the USA, where Ron Charles in the Washington Post asked, Do we still need Banned Books Week? Charles, according to Joni Di Placido, writing for the Kobo Writing Life blog, argued that book banning is largely confined to our repressive past. Charles here presumably (the OP is behind Read More …

UK’s Bradford Lit Fest and USA’s Washington National Book Fest see record attendance

Posted onSeptember 4, 2018Leave a comment

The UK’s Bradford Literature Festival launched in 2014 with a two-day event that attracted 968 people. As we all know, no-one reads books anymore because they are all too busy bingeing on Netflix or wasting their time on social media or (insert latest fashionable nonsense). So one can only guess at why the Bradford Literature Read More …

The Week in Review

Posted onAugust 26, 2018Leave a comment

Here’s a summary of TNPS posts from the past seven days. UK small publishers find new ways to survive as chain bookstores turn them away HarperCollins’ Harlequin launches romance book website in Australia The Mogadishu Book Fair: an oasis of tranquility in a troubled land Small presses and self-publishers left stranded by collapse of Read More …

San Diego comic convention wins court battle to be the only “Comic Con” in the US

Posted onAugust 24, 2018Leave a comment

It may not be the biggest, despite what Statista tells you, but the San Diego comic convention was the first to sue for the right to the branding “Comic Con,” and news just emerging is that the Salt Lake Comic Con, has been landed a $4 million bill as part of a legal decision that Read More …

Kobo Walmart ebook / audiobook partnership now live in the US. Here’s what each had to say

Posted onAugust 22, 2018Leave a comment

I tend to shy away from US-only news as it is so amply covered elsewhere, but for the benefit of readers outside the US who may have missed this big story but will be eager to get a share of the action, I copy below the official statements from both Kobo and Walmart stating their Read More …

Data Guy rewrites the historical Author Earnings US ebook statistics. 2016 US unit ebook sales of 487 million now 525 million. What are we to believe?

Posted onJuly 17, 2018Leave a comment

I had occasion to revisit Data Guy’s January 2018 Author Earnings Report this week. And I found Data Guy has quietly slipped in new numbers for 2015 and 2016 US ebook market. Said Data Guy on May 31 this year, slipped into the comments thread, four months after the main report went live, US ebook sales totaled Read More …

OverDrive clocks 220,000 audiobook downloads a day. On target for 80 million audio downloads this year that won’t be counted by Data Guy’s BookStat

Posted onJuly 1, 2018July 1, 20181 Comment

OverDrive launched its new quarterly Perspectives on Reading e-magazine this week, and among its “unique insights” was an article on audiobook growth from OverDrive’s own data. Back in 2013 OverDrive crossed the 100 million downloads benchmark, reporting 79 million ebook checkouts and 22.9 million for audiobooks. For 2017 OverDrive clocked 225 million downloads, comprising 155 Read More …

Shortlist of 5 announced for World’s Best New Library

Posted onJune 30, 2018Leave a comment

35 libraries from 19 countries were in the running, but just five have been shortlisted for the annual prize to be acclaimed 2018 Public Library of the Year, awarded to a public library that is either newly built or set up in premises not previously used for library purposes. The jury consists of members of Read More …

OverDrive’s Libby app use growing at 30% per month but digital library downloads continue to be ignored by the data gurus

Posted onJune 23, 2018Leave a comment

Given Libby was Google Play’s ‘Best New App of the Year’ in 2017 and won #1 Apple App Store rating for books and library in May of 2018, it should come as no surprise that the OverDrive app for digital library access is doing well. In 2017 OverDrive clocked some 225 million ebook and audiobook Read More …

The New Publishing Standard

Category: USA