People of Paper: Summer Book Sales Soar on Soft-Backs and 'Potter'

The Association of American Publishers last week released book sales figures for August 2007, which showed 9.8% growth as compared to the same month in 2006, on par with an 11.2% year-to-date (YTD) increase in total sales. At $144.6 million in net sales for the month of August, trade paperbacks outsold the hardcover category by more than $50 million, as one can expect with last-ditch summer reading efforts in full swing. However, mass-market paperbacks were down, showing a trend toward front-listed titles and best-sellers, which are customarily trade-paper-style books of higher quality (both in construct and content). Book clubs (like Oprah’s) more frequently endorse trade paper titles over mass market ones, which are the low-quality books of choice for genre novels (mystery, sci-fi, romance) and disposable thrillers.

To no surprise, Children’s/YA Hardcover book sales soared year-to-year on the wings of the last Harry Potter installment, which almost singled-handedly increased the category’s YTD sales 85.3% over the same period in 2006. The importance of Potter is even more evident when matched against the control group of Children’s/YA Paperback, which had no new Potter in 2007 and grew a mere 3.7% YTD.

For those of you watching the rise of the e-book as eagerly as this nerdtastic writer, sales were up 18% for the month of August, bringing in a whopping $2.3 million (compared to Adult Hardcover and Paperback sales of roughly one-hundred times that). Good news, though: e-books are up 22.2% for the year, more than doubling the increase of overall book sales, which have topped off at 11.2% YTD.

For good measure, here are the top-selling Adult Fiction titles of the year, as of September 30, 2007, complements everyone’s favorite research monopoly, Nielsen BookScan.

1. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini (Penguin, June 2007)
2. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards (Penguin, June 2007)
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (Penguin, January 2003)
4. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Random House, March 2007)
5. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, May 2007)
6. The 6^th Target, by James Patterson (Hachette, May 2007)
7. Lean Mean Thirteen, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s, June 2007)
8. The Quickie, by James Patterson (Hachette, July 2007)
9. Step on a Crack, by James Patterson (Hachette, February 2007)
10. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (St. Martin’s, June 2007)

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