As the U.S. book publishing industry is going through tectonic shifts in how it creates and sells content, the need for precise and complete data that accurately sizes the industry’s footprint from different perspectives is more essential than ever.
BookStats, a joint venture between the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), is a first-of-its-kind data project with the goal of unifying the statistical model used throughout publishing, financial and media industries to track the size and shape of the U.S. publishing industry.
The industry’s response to the BookStats project has been overwhelmingly positive. Nearly 2,000 publishers contribute data to BookStats. The rate of publisher participation is expected to increase for the next Edition, with a window for data submission from January 6, 2014, through February 14, 2014.
See How to Submit for information on becoming a participant in the BookStatsdata collection process.
Accessing Data from the BookStats Project
Volume 4 of BookStats, available in June 2014, is set to provide annual publisher net revenue and unit sales across three dimensions:
- Formats: including physical (hardcover, paperback, audio and mass market), non-physical (e-book, enhanced e-books, downloadable audio, paid mobile apps, Internet-based products and services) and bundles
- Categories: including trade fiction and nonfiction, juvenile (early readers, middle grade and young adult), religious, higher education, K-12, professional and scholarly books
- Channels: including physical retail (chains, independents, mass retailers and specialty), online retail, institutional sales (libraries and schools), direct-to-consumer, jobbers & wholesalers, book fairs and export sales
In order to give users of BookStats the most flexibility possible, the BookStatsproject has followed an innovative Data Model philosophy committed to a modern approach in delivering data and analysis to the industry. Beyond the traditional static PDF reports, data from BookStats is made available online via an interactive web-based portal called the Online Data Dashboard (ODD). Using ODD, users can explore BookStats data in many interesting ways through custom queries by format, category, and channel. For example, BookStats users can determine the digital revenues for e-book trade fiction titles sold online or the number of hardcover nonfiction titles sold in independent bookstores.
All in, the BookStats project makes data available in the following packages:
- Summary Report
High-level 10-15 page PDF report - Annual Report
In-depth 60-70 page PDF report - Online Data Dashboard (ODD)
Interactive online data portal - Benchmarking
Easy toggle in ODD that allows you to benchmark your company’s data against the full data set - Category Deep-Dive
Granular view in ODD featuring deeper category breakdowns within Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, etc.