Today, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) released the StatShot Annual for calendar year 2023, estimating that the U.S. publishing industry generated $29.9 billion in total sales for books and course materials in print and digital formats. The result is a slight decrease of 0.8% compared to the final 2022 figures. It is a 6.1% increase from the pre-pandemic total of $28.2 billion in 2019.
“This year’s report captures an industry that is both resilient and forward-thinking in the way people read, enjoy, and learn from authors’ works,” commented Syreeta Swann, chief operating officer of the Association of American Publishers. “In addition to strong 2023 numbers, the report shows positive trends over a five-year period across multiple categories, formats, and channels.”
Highlights of the StatShot Annual Report 2023:
Estimated industry turnover
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- Trade (public books), the industry’s largest category, declined 1.4% to an estimated $18.7 billion.
- Higher education revenue increased 1.5% to $3.9 billion.
- The share of PreK-12 education increased 0.3% to $5.2 billion.
- The non-fiction book segment grew by 1.5% to $1.7 billion.
- Religious printing, a subcategory of trade, increased 6.7% to $1.5 billion.
- For university presses, the amount fell by 9.8% to $0.6 billion.
Press
Industry-wide, print formats (paperback, hardback, mass market and specialty binding) accounted for 55% of total revenue in 2023, a 2% decline from the previous year.
In the retail segment, print formats accounted for 72% of total sales in 2023, a decrease of 0.8% compared to the previous year.
Digital
Industry-wide, digital formats (digital audio and eBooks) accounted for 16% of total revenue in 2023, an increase of 6.3% over the previous year.
In the retail sector, digital formats accounted for 23% of total sales in 2023, an increase of 9.4% over the previous year.
Channels
Various channels are used within the industry, with publishers’ sales via online retail representing the largest category. In online retail, 54% of total sales in the reporting year came from print formats and 14% from digital formats.
methodology
StatShot annual report for calendar year 2023 is the independent work of Industry Insights, Inc., an expert research and data analytics firm. The report offers a valuable financial overview of the Book Publishing industry by providing estimated and aggregated revenue as well as reported unit sales.
During the project, Industry Insights analyzed a wide range of data sources, including U.S. Census data, direct survey responses, historical AAP StatShot survey data and reports, Bowker’s Books In Print dataset, Circana’s BookScan tools, self-publishing and digital publishing trends, government economic data, and various publicly available articles and information sources related to the U.S. publishing industry and individual publishers.
Based on this analysis, Industry Insights calculated that previous industry estimates were too low. Consequently, Industry Insights recalculated the industry estimates, resulting in higher numbers for each year except 2021. The industry estimate results are accurate at a 95% confidence level, with a margin of error ranging from plus or minus 6 to 10 percentage points.
