Yesterday's webinar "Publishing Now '21: Looking Forward," hosted by Westchester Publishing Services and Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/, attracted more than 500 viewers, as industry insiders discussed the state of the publishing industry, the ways in which it has been changed by the pandemic, and the outlook going forward. The panelists were Tom Chalmers, managing director of Legend Times Group; Cathy Felgar, publishing operations director at Princeton University Press; Dominique Raccah, CEO and publisher of Sourcebooks; and Lorraine Shanley, president of Market Partners International. The webinar was introduced and moderated by Jim Milliot, editorial director of PW.
After noting that unit print sales were surprisingly robust in 2020, up about 8% and that unit sales are up 26% so far this year, according to NPD BookScan, Milliot questioned whether this upward trend would continue, particularly as a sense of normalcy returns and books begin competing again other forms of leisure, such as restaurants and shopping. He added that other challenges persist, including limited printing capacity in the U.S., which has exacerbated supply chain issues, and a glut of titles that were delayed from 2020 -- more than 500 have been tracked by PW -- and pushed into 2021, making frontlist discoverability even more problematic.
