BEA 2016: E-book Sales Fell 13% in 2015, Nielsen Reports
May 12, 2016
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Unit sales of e-books published by traditional
publishers fell 13% in 2015 compared to 2014, said Kempton Mooney of
Nielsen during a Thursday panel aimed at examining different publishing
markets.
Units fell to 204 million from 234
million in 2014. The high point of e-book sales was 2013 when units
totaled 242 million units. While e-book sales fell in the year, print
units rose 2.8%, to 653 million. As a result, e-books’s market share of
units dipped to 24% in 2015, down from 27% in 2014. Mooney observed that
some of the gain in print sales was due to the extraordinary popularity
of adult coloring books last year. The e-book sales figures came from
about 400 traditional publishers, Mooney said.
In another look at e-book sales, Mooney reported that
the Big 5 publishers’ share of e-book sales fell to 34% in 2015, down
from 38% in 2014. In 2012, the Big 5 held a 46% of e-book unit sales.
The loss of share of the Big 5 was made up by self-publishers and small
publishers. Self-publishers’ share of the e-book market rose to 12% last
year from 8% in 2014, while small presses accounted for 30% of e-book
unit sales in 2015, up from 26% in 2014.
In some
other trends taken from Nielsen’s BookScan database of print sales,
Mooney said sales of children’s board books posted solid gains in 2015.
He attributed the increase to adults desire to read physical books to
their children rather than using digital devices. He said no one title
was responsible for the increase in the year and that sales were good
for both new and backlist board books.
Sticking to
the children’s category, Mooney pointed to a recent survey that found
51% of children under age 9 are non-white. He said publishers that
aren’t publishing books that can appeal to children from diverse
backgrounds are losing “huge chunks of sales.”
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