The Change Mariner

Study Shows Big Drop in Book Sales

Yahoo! News:

Not even Harry Potter could prevent a big drop in book sales in 2003. With a struggling economy and competition for time from other media, 23 million fewer books were sold last year than in 2002, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Book Industry Study Group, a non-for-profit research organization.

Sales fell to 2.222 billion books, down from 2.245 billion in 2002. The [1%] decline was in both hardcovers and paperbacks, in children's books and general trade releases. Even sales of religious titles, often cited as a growing part of the publishing industry, were flat.

"We believe this is due to a variety of factors, the biggest being the used book market," said Albert N. Greco, an industry consultant and a professor of business at the graduate school of Fordham University.

"People are looking for bargains, especially in college textbooks, where we believe millions of used books are being bought. Also, books are competing with magazines, cable, radio, music and movies."

Posted by Timothy Fredel at May 13, 2004 02:00 PM | TrackBack
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