Bowker

September 13, 2012 (NEW PROVIDENCE, NJ) -- More than half the consumers of books classified for young adults aren’t all that young. Fully 55% of buyers of works that publishers designate for kids aged 12 to 17 – nicknamed YA books -- are 18 or older, with the largest segment aged 30 to 44.

Earlier this summer, Penguin Group, long a distinguished major publisher of books, paid $116 million to acquire Author Solutions Inc. A leading provider of self-publishing services, Author Solutions said that since it was formed in 2007, "it has enabled 150,000 authors to publish, market and distribute more than 190,000 books in print and electronic formats." The transaction is a significant breakthrough in what has become a vital factor in the publishing landscape of the digital age.

“Awesome,” should be the headline to describe the features and analytical power of the new AAP/BISG sponsored Bookstats report on industry sales and trends, for which the analytical work is managed by Bowker. It is especially so when one looks back on the decades during which BISG struggled with data gathering and data analysis tools that were short of the task—resting on a lot of intuitive extrapolation; and the AAP contented itself with industry reporting that used actual returns from participating publishers and no extrapolations; and neither included most of the emerging vast universe of independent publishers. And publishers had two sets of figures to work with.

TODD RUTHERFORD was 7 years old when he first understood the nature of supply and demand. He was with a bunch of other boys, one of whom showed off a copy of Playboy to giggles and intense interest. Todd bought the magazine for $5, tore out the racy pictures and resold them to his chums for a buck apiece. He made $20 before his father shut him down a few hours later. A few years ago, Mr. Rutherford, then in his mid-30s, had another flash of illumination

Twenty-four percent of Indian adults with Internet access have bought an ebook. Now that group could get a lot bigger: Amazon has launched a standalone Kindle Store in India and is selling Kindle exclusively through Indian electronics chain Croma.

Amazon does not yet operate a general e-commerce site in India, but it is now selling ebooks there. On Wednesday the company launched the India Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestoreindia), which sells over a million titles priced in Indian Rupees.

In the weeks that I’ve been putting together my ebook bestsellers breakdown, which examines the titles that are doing better in digital formats than in print and investigates how titles hit the bestseller list, one common key to success pops up over and over again: The power of a sale. A one-day Kindle Daily Deal can drive enough sales to propel a title onto the New York Times ebook bestseller list for just one week. And self-published authors’ low-priced titles are taking up more and more spots.

I'll admit that it still thrills me to walk past and gaze up, wide-eyed, at the Empire State Building. Nonetheless, no tourist am I (proven by the fact that three people so far have asked me for directions). I am here to do business.

We Book Business and Publishing Executive editors are a peripatetic lot. Earlier this week you heard from Jim Sturdivant reporting from New Bern, N.C. (Yes, he’s on vacation—what dedication!) Now I am in New York to meet with some of the speakers for our forthcoming Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo.

It looks like all those avowed Kindle fanatics might be going through ink withdrawal -- or so says a new report funded by a few titans of old media. The report, published last week by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), found that fewer consumers are purchasing books exclusively in electronic formats, while the number of booklovers who have "no preference" for e-books over print books is increasing. The percentage of e-book consumers who purchased books "exclusively or mostly" in e-book formats has decreased from 70 percent in August 2011 to 60 percent in May 2012.

E-book consumers are becoming more diverse in their format preferences, says the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)'s closely-watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading report. The third installment in Volume Three of this Bowker-powered study shows that the percentage of e-book consumers who exclusively or mostly purchase book content in e-book format has decreased from nearly 70 percent in August 2011 to 60 percent in May 2012. Over the same period, the percentage of survey respondents who have no preference for either e-book or print formats, or who buy some genres in e-book format and others in print, rose from 25 percent to 34 percent. The study also tracks changes in device ownership, showing that Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet has overtaken Apple's iPad among e-book consumers for the first time. Ownership of the Kindle Fire has grown from seven percent of respondents in December 2011 to 20 percent just six months later. Apple's iPad has remained static at 17 percent over the same time period.

July 24, 2012 (New Providence, NJ) – The 2012 London Olympics has prompted record levels of publishing activity focused on the Games, according to Bowker Books In Print®, a leading and reliable source of information on books and publishing metrics.  One hundred twenty books – in print and e-versions --have been brought to market in 2012, eclipsing the previous record 109 titles released in 2008 in time for the Beijing Summer Games. Bowker is an affiliate of global information company ProQuest.