ToTal books MarkeT.......................................................................................................................04
2015 in DigiTal.......................................................................................................................................04
breakDowns by vinTage, ForMaT, anD Channel.......................................................06
BOOK READER INSIGHTS................................................................................................12 DeMographiCs....................................................................................................................................12 book DisCovery.................................................................................................................................14
AUTHOR FEATURES: HARPER LEE (GO SET A WATCHMAN) AND PAULA HAWKINS (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN)..........................................................................16
year in books review 2015
January April
June June July September September September September October October
November November November December
1
2015 YEAR IN REVIEW TIMELINE
Paula Hawkins’ debut psychological thrillerThe Girl on the Trainis published January th 13 and goes on to sell a combined 3.7m print + eBook units in 2015. The film adaptation will be released in October 2016.
Sales increase 16% in the week leading up to Easter with children’s up 31% on the prior week, an additional 1.3m kids’ books sold than the week prior.
th E.L. James’ newFifty ShadestitleGreyand sells 1.4m combined printis published June 18 + eBook units in the month alone.
Penguin Random House signs a deal with Amazon, becoming the last of the Big 5 publishers to sell eBooks in a version of agency pricing. th Harper Lee’sGo Set a Watchmanis released on July 14 and sells 747,000 print copies in its first week.Watchmanis the #1 bestseller of the year. Perseus Books announces plans to sell. Hachette will eventually buy Perseus in Q1 2016. Bestselling women’s fiction author Jackie Collins dies. Her print book sales jump 300% in the week following her death. Oyster, once called the “Netf lix” of book subscriptions, shuts down. As a result, subscriptions fall from 10% of eBooks purchased in 2014 to 5% in 2015. Nielsen Book hosts its second Children’s Book Summit at Convene in NYC. Sales of Johanna Basford’s third book,Lost Ocean, released this month, shows adult coloring books have arrived as an important new genre. Basford’s three coloring books combined sold 2m copies in 2015.
Nielsen Book hosts its first Christian Book Summit in Nashville, where we unveiled 4 key segments of American Christians to help publishers better target their marketing and sales efforts.
th Abrams releases the 10 book in Jeff Kinney’sof a Wimpy KidDiar y Series which sells 315,000 print copies in release week.Old Schoolbecomes the #2 bestseller in 2015 with only 2 months of sales.
TaNehisi Coates wins the nonfiction National Book Award for his moving memoir on race,Between the World and Me. Book sales are up 12% the week of Black Friday November 27 on the prior week, with mass merch sales up 31%. Holiday book purchasing resulted in 115m units sold in December alone, accounting for 18% of total 2015 sales.
YR 2010 YR 2011 YR 2012 Source: BookScan/PubTrack Digital *2015 PTDigital figures are weighted to ref lect panel changes.
27%
234
JUvenile non-FiCTion
aDUlT FiCTion
Millions
11%
89%
635
204
591
620
651
yr 2014
EBook sales tracked by Nielsen PubTrack Digital were down from 27% of the total market in 2014 to 24% of the total market in 2015. Of course, certain categories had a larger representation in digital, such as Romance with 60% eBooks and Thrillers with 51% eBooks in 2015.
yr 2015
prinT
653
ebook
yr 2013
11%
YR 2013
JUvenile FiCTion
69
9%
YR 2015
ebook
prinT
year in books review 2015
Source: BookScan/PubTrack Digital
aDUlT non-FiCTion
BookScan’s total print book sales of 653 million units were up 2.8% in units from 2014. On the f lip side, traditionally published eBooks were down 13% in units according to PubTrack Digital which tracks POS data through publishers for approximately 85% of the traditionally published eBook market.
242
yr 2010 yr 2011 yr 2012 Source: BookScan/PubTrack Digital
EBOOK SHARE
SELF PUBLISHER SHARE
According to Books & Consumers, selfpublished eBooks accounted for 12% of eBook purchases in 2015.
The growth in selfpublisher and small publisher eBook share came at the expense of the Big 5 publishers.
46%
41% 38% 34%
big 5 pUblisher ebook share
2012
5%
7%
8%
12%
selF-pUblisheD ebook share
2013
2014
Source: Books & Consumers Based on manual coding of authors/publishers by Nielsen
24.6% 22.6%
kinDle ereaDer
2015
EREADING DEVICES
14%
30% 26% 23%
sMall pUblishers ebook share
Books & Consumers also shows a notable shift in eBook downloads to smartphones, at the expense of eReaders and Tablets:
The chart below shows that the median price paid for an eBook, as reported by Books & Consumers’ respondents, has increased to nearly $10 during 2015 as the “Big 5” regained more control over their market pricing. Meanwhile, the price paid for selfpublished eBooks dropped in recent quarters to a median price of around $2.50. The rise in prices for traditionally published eBooks has likely propelled the shift toward purchasing selfpublished eBooks.
Trade paperback, hardcover, and board books all saw growth in 2015.Board books saw 19% growth in 2015 on 2014.
350
TRADE PAPERBACK
234
204
EBOOK
171
176
HARDCOVER
Source: BookScan/PubTrack Digital * 2015 PTDigital figures are weighted to ref lect panel changes
64
58
MM PAPERBACK
all ebooks
big 5
selF pUblisheD
2014
27
2015
31
BOARD BOOK
year in books review 2015
inDepenDenTs/ oTher booksTores
9% 6%
Continuing a trend seen in previous years there was a further decline in the unit market share of chains and mass merchandisers while independents and etailers grew theirs.
-3.0%
176.7
7
2015
22% 20%
BACKLIST VS. FRONTLIST
Juvenile Fiction overall, including Young Adult titles, declined 3% in 2015 due to a wildly successful previous year with brands like John Green,Divergentseries, andFrozento name a few.
171.4
48.9
Millions
359
2014
2015
Nonfiction was the highlight of 2015 with 12% growth in children’s nonfiction and 7% growth in adult nonfiction.
Backlist titles (defined as published more than 12 months in the past) represented 57% of all print book sales in 2015.
2015 was the year of Adult Coloring Books: Nielsen BookScan estimates that 12 million copies of coloring books sold in the US in 2015 compared to 1 million in 2014 – and that over 2,000 coloring books were published in 2015 compared to 300 in the previous year. The phenomenon is apparent in the bestseller lists. Two adult coloring books land spots on Nielsen’s 2015 Top 20 bestseller list: Johanna Basford’s Secret GardenandEnchanted Forest(Chronicle), selling 765,000 copies and 675,000 copies respectively.
Some facts about Adult Coloring book buyers:
According to Books and Consumers, 20% of book buyers in December 2015 had purchased an adult coloring book before.
71% of the buyers were women, with the largest representation in the 1829 age band. Millennials were 29% more likely to buy an adult coloring books as compared to all buyers.
71%oF aDUlT Coloring book bUyersare woMen
71%
29%
year in books review 2015
BOOK SALES IN THE CHRISTIAN MARKET
PubTrack Christian – which tracks book sales in Christian retailers exclusively – shows that in that market Christian book sales grew by 9% in value and 10% in volume 2015 from 2014. All categories were up, with the largest value growth in Bibles (+16%) and NonFiction (+8%), driven not by a single title but by organic growth across many genres.