PublishersLunch
The AAP released sales numbers for January 2012, launching a significantly revised and expanded data set under the new name StatShot. The new counts reflect data from 1,149 publishers overall across all the sectors the AAP tracks, and provide a variety of more granular data breakouts. Trade statistics are enhanced by the inclusion of data from multiple major distributors, including all of Perseus's distribution lines, IPG (which accounts for 663 publishers), and clients distributed by Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group. (Previously only 20 to 25 publishers contributed to most of the trade statistical pool.) The University of Chicago Press is reporting data for their clients now, and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is reporting on behalf of 15 publishers.
The new data shows a strong January for trade publishers, driven by lower returns for adult books and much higher shipments of children's books, plus continued growth in adult ebooks and the emergence of a substantive children's ebook market.
Net trade sales for the month were $451.2 million, significantly better than the $348.4 million recorded from the same expanded group of reporting publishers a year ago. (The AAP is providing new "comps" for 2011, showing historical data from the same expanded set of reporting publishers, on a month-by-month basis, so that the monthly 2012 trends have a valid basis for comparison.) Gross shipments of adult trade print books declined, however, down 5 percent, on the significant weakness in mass market books, but net adult print sales rose 5 percent, without the big returns from Borders a year ago. (The AAP methodology remains the same: they report publishers' shipments, and returns.)
Adult ebook sales jumped significantly, at $99.5 million, up from $66.6 million a year ago. The new numbers break out children's ebook sales separately, which registered a robust $22.6 million driven by new color devices on the market, compared to just $3.9 million a year ago.
Total print children's sales of $101.1 million were up 58 percent over a year ago. Unlike with adult books, children's rose primarily on stronger orders rather than a change in returns.
eBooks comprised 31 percent of all adult trade sales of $323 million in January, and 17.6 percent of children's trade sales of $128.2 million. Total ebook sales for the month of $122.1 million accounted for 27 percent of overall trade sales.
We will only see with precision over time just how much the hundreds of new publishers expand the overall numbers that the AAP reports. The new count for January 2011 shows total trade sales of $348.4 million--or about 11.7 percent higher than the $312 million reported under the old method a year ago. Somewhat mysteriously, the ebook number didn't really change--the new trade count for last January is $70.5 million (plus $2.7 million for religious publishers and $.5 million for university presses), and the old count was $69.9 million, which at the time did include religious publishers. This year, they have separate breakouts for religious books. Some distributed publishers still handle their digital titles directly, so those results would not be reflected in the revised counts.
Bertelsmann released its full-year earnings statement for 2011, and for Random House the numbers correspond to the trend at other large houses: Revenue fell €79 million or 4.3 percent to €1.749 billion compared to last year, while EBIT rose 6.9 percent to €185 million, compared to €173 million the previous year. The company also recorded "record triple-digital-percentage" digital revenue growth and a "surging demand" for Random House ebooks helped by the "increasing availability of lower-priced e-reading devices and tablets" that offset declines in print sales. (2011 was also the year Random House switched to agency model pricing in the US.) Without reporting actual percentages of digital revenues, ceo Markus Dohle said in a letter to staff that "physical books...account for approximately 85 percent of our worldwide revenues."
Dohle reassured that employees that Random House is "one of our parent company's most dependable profit centers." He writes, "Random House is in very good shape for the future. We have the financial and creative resources to further develop and invest in our business, as well as the right priorities and the right strategy in place for an increasingly complex publishing environment."
His "top success factors for us going forward" are "ensuring that the physical marketplace is healthy and diversified," "champion[ing] a digital marketplace where multiple retailers sell our books," developing their "expanding author-centric services," and, as he has emphasized before, working "to strengthen our direct-to-consumer connections." Within those efforts, "we're connecting more with readers in person, through the efforts of our field sales reps and the unique programs and promotions they are initiating with booksellers in their local communities."
In a letter to staff obtained by the Bookseller, Random House UK ceo Gail Rebuck said ebook sales accounted for 11 percent of net sales for the division, and that digital sales for the first two months of 2012 were "substantially ahead" of the same point in 2011.
As part of the larger Bertelsmann earnings report, the company announced a "long-term reshaping" plan. Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann AG since the beginning of the year Thomas Rabe says, "Our primary goal is to grow the company faster, and to make it more digital and international. We plan to achieve this with four strategic approaches: First, by further consolidating and strengthening our portfolio. Second, by accelerating the transformation to digital of our core businesses. Third, by establishing new growth platforms. And fourth, by expanding into new geographic growth regions. On this basis, we will reshape Bertelsmann over the next five to ten years."
Bertelsmann plans to change its legal form by the end of June from AG (a joint stock company that is private) to SE & Co. KGaA ("an often used legal form for businesses with a family-style ownership structure.") They say it's designed "to document the international orientation of the Bertelsmann group" and "secure the company’s continuity." Reuters writes the change would allow Bertelsmann's controlling owners, the Mohn family, "to hold sway over strategic decisions and name top managers while taking on new shareholders with little say." But the announcement says that "the group's ownership structure and corporate structure remain unchanged."Bertelsmann release