New Study Shows Steady Growth for Publishing Industry

NEW YORK -- A new study by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a book standards, policy and research organization, makes a case with results from its new study that the book publishing industry continues to experience steady growth, predicting that net revenues will top $40.4 billion by 2010. The 2006 edition of “Book Industry Trends” estimates that total publishers’ net revenues in 2005 reached $34.59 billion, up slightly more than 5.9 percent over 2004’s total.

According to the new report, sales for the juvenile trade category rose 9.6 percent in 2005, to $3.34 billion. Religious book sales also continued to grow, increasing 8.1 percent to $2.29 billion.

Efforts made by the BISG in recent years have made it possible to capture and track reliable data about small and midsize publishers with the goal of providing a more comprehensive view of the publishing industry -- marking what the BISG calls “the first truly comprehensive view of U.S. book publishing dollar and unit sales.”