Sales of printed books fell by almost £74m in the UK
last year, according to data from Nielsen BookScan.
In total,
readers spent £1.514bn on physical books in 2012, down 4.6% from 2011.
The rate of
decline slowed slightly, principally because of EL James' Fifty Shades trilogy,
which accounted for one in every 20 books bought last year.
E-books
continued to be popular, accounting for 13-14% of book sales.
That marked an
increase of about 5% from 2011, but the value of the entire book market shrank
because of heavy discounting of digital titles - with many bestsellers
retailing for less than a pound.
Data collected
on the sales of physical books records around 90-95% of all consumer sales in
the UK, but is less robust for the e-book market.
However, Philip
Stone from Bookseller said figures from Nielsen/Kantar show: "In essence,
people are buying more books but they are paying less for them."
The second half
of 2012 was stronger for physical book sales, as blockbuster titles from
authors including JK Rowling and Jamie Oliver hit the shelves for Christmas.
In the 26 weeks
to 30 June, sales were down by £51m year-on-year to £624m. Between July and
December, sales were down £23m to £889m.
It was only in
July and December that print sales were up compared with 2011, in part due to
the success of James' erotic series and the Christmas trade.
The Fifty
Shades trilogy is about a steamy romance between entrepreneur Christian Grey
and literature student Anastasia Steele. It sold a combined 10.6m copies in
print in the UK last year, making £47.3m.
The tally beat
JK Rowling's record of £42.6m from 2007, the year when the final Harry Potter
novel was released.
The first book
in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey, is now the best-selling novel of all time
in the UK.
Source: BBC
Thinking of buying something on Amazon?
Kindly use the link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.