Paperbacks

Newly released figures show that ebook revenues in the US have declined again. In the first half of 2017, e-book sales declined by 4.6%, according to the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. All other categories, apart from paperback books saw increased revenues in the same time period.  Read more

Hardbacks, rather than ebooks, are the wild cards of the publishing industry. Who would have thought that they would survive and prosper in the age of the ebook? Wouldn't you assume that hardbacks would simply fade away once they were so radically undercut on price by ebooks, never mind paperbacks.  Read more

The Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon seems unstoppable. The paperback and ebook editions have sold in excess of 2.75m copies, breaking all previous records, in the UK alone and the ebook is reckoned to have sold 4m copies worldwide. US sales are over 10m.   Read more

Amazon has just announced that ebooks for its Kindle are now outselling paperbacks.  Read more

Picador, the literary imprint of Pan MacmillanOne of largest fiction and non-fiction book publishers in UK; includes imprints of Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children’s Books in the UK, has just announced that it will in future launch its new fiction in simultaneous hard and paperback editions, in response to the very poor sales of hardback literary fiction. The majority of its titles will be released in a 1,000 copy hardback edition, with some of these ring-fenced for review purposes.   Read more