News & Trends: Fast Stats

26 million

Number of women that BlogHer.com reaches each month, according to the website. In late March, Penguin announced plans to launch a book club on BlogHer.com, featuring an average of two Penguin titles each month. Penguin and BlogHer also plan to host a New York-based conference this fall for women writers.

$2 million

The reported worth of the contract that self-published author Amanda Hocking signed with St. Martin's Press. Hocking made international headlines as the biggest e-book seller in the world—since April 2010, she had sold more than 900,000 copies of her nine books about trolls, vampires and zombies. Her deal with St. Martin's is for a four-book series entitled "Watersong," with the first installment scheduled for a fall 2012 release.

Source: "Tales of trolls and vampires are making publishing phenomenon Amanda Hocking, 26, a millionaire," Star Tribune, March 30, 2011

$16.5 billion

2010 gross revenue generated by the brick-and-mortar bookstore industry, a 1.4-percent decrease from 2009. Store sales have been declining since 2007 when they hit a peak of $17.4 billion, with a drop of 5.5 percent in the last three years.

Source: PrintCom Consulting Group

51%

Percentage of Americans ages 12 years and older who have profiles on Facebook, up from 8 percent in 2008, according to a recent Arbitron Inc./Edison Research survey entitled, "The Infinite Dial 2011: Navigating Digital Platforms." One in four of those users follow a company or brand through Facebook. Only 8 percent of those surveyed use Twitter.