Nielsen book industry statistics: foreshadowing change

Ka Meechan’s presentations of book industry data are always thought provoking, but seldom more so than the statistics and trends revealed at her recent Booksellers Conference presentation.

The good news from Nielsen’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific was that more than two million New Zealanders aged 10 plus read a book in the last seven days; 4.1 million went to a public library in the last three months.

But then the digital inroads: 85,000 have an iPad or bookreader, 192,000 more intend to buy one within the coming year and 130,000 have already downloaded book apps onto their mobiles.

So it is a yes, we’re reading and a strong indication we want to be able to do it digitally right now. This ties in with increased numbers of computers, mobiles and other electronics in the home and a big increase in the use of social media online.

Hard copy book sales numbers in New Zealand for the first 24 weeks of 2011 increased a minuscule 1.4 percent over the same period in 2010. Alarmingly, the value of the books sold decreased by minus 4.5 percent (Australia’s figures were much the same: 1.8 percent volume growth, value minus 3.7 percent. In the UK sales were down minus 5.1 percent, and in the US, minus 10 percent.)

Note: The full presentations with detail diagrams are attached to this story as PDF documents.

One bright spot for New Zealand: our local publishing in 2011 to date was up 12.5 percent in volume and up 7 percent in value on the same period the previous year.

Jonathan Nowell (pictured right), UK based President of Nielsen Book, presented as part of an earlier session his own look at the international status of our industry based on Nielsen data: The Changing World of books, ebooks and devices.

He might usefully have exchanged the word changing for “challenging”, as he added Ireland’s minus 6.9% drop in hard copy sales volume to those previously noted for UK and USA.

Switch to e-books, and the sales picture is much sunnier: year on year growth ending March 2011 saw sales rise 146% in value over the previous year.

E-books are currently cheaply priced – 83 percent sell for under $10 US.

Other findings: proportionally more science fiction, crime and romance books are sold as e-books. Older age groups are not missing out on the e-reader experience, as 49 percent of e-readers are owned by those 45 and above including 29 percent aged 55 plus.

Facing the future, Jonathan sees five reasons to be cheerful:

1. Consumer confidence will recover
2. An ageing population will mean more heavy book buyers
3. Technology gives us larger markets to play in – for instance 600 million first speakers of English and 1.4 billion as English second language speakers
4. The next big, global phenomenon author will be… (Jonathan doesn’t know – says he’d be an agent if he did, but does know there will be one!)
5. e-books

As for e-books, Jonathan reasons that discovery of books is very much the domain of the bookseller, but asks: How do you monetise this critical function? Which puts decisions right back to booksellers… and with no longer any excuse for ignorance.

Jonathan Nowell’s key messages to booksellers:
Print book sales are declining in many countries globally

e-book sales are showing rapid growth and in March 2011 take a 12 percent share of the adult book market in the US. Other countries are well behind the US

Decline in print book sales can be attributed to weak consumer confidence, a loss of retail space and the growth of the digital format

There is a challenge around the commercial models for e-books. The consumer attaches a greater value to the physical product while the majority of purchasers pay between $5 and $9.99 for an e-book.

Some genres transfer more readily to digital format – fiction, travel, reference and personal development –are showing significant drops in print form

eReaders tend to skew to older and more female readers than other connected devices… OUR HEAVY BOOKBUYERS