Association of American Publishers

The Association of Educational Publishers and the Association of American Publishers are pleased to announce an agreement to merge, combining AEP’s quality programming and professional development with AAP’s public policy advocacy to provide the strongest services for the preK-12 education publishing industry in a rapidly changing environment. “We are especially proud of the programs we’ve developed at AEP and are glad that they will be continued and enhanced,” said Lee Wilson, President of the Board of AEP. “Through this partnership, we will be able to support professionals across the industry in deeper, richer ways.”

The US Trade publishing industry – which produces general-interest fiction and non-fiction for adults, children and young adults – experienced significant overall growth in 2012, with eBooks increasing 45% over the past year while hardcovers and paperbacks held steady, according to the just-released BookStats Volume 3, the most comprehensive survey capturing the size and scope of the US book publishing industry.

According to BookStats, total net revenue for the Trade publishing sector was $15.049 Billion in 2012, an increase of +6.9% over 2011.  The overall US publishing industry – including Trade as well as K-12 School, Higher Education and Professional/Scholarly Publishing, - was $27.124 Billion for 2012.

Boston, MA, April 30, 2013 - Publishing Technology plc (LSE: PTO), a leading provider of content solutions for publishers, has appointed Michael Cairns as COO, Online Solutions Division and member of the executive team. Replacing Louise Russell, Michael will assume commercial responsibility for the Online business unit, including product development, implementation and client management for Publishing Technology’s flagship pub2web hosting platform, the ingentaconnect portal and associated product lines including Information Commerce Software and the Heron elearning resource.

BEA officials have today announced that BEA's annual Global Market Forum will focus on Mexico. The Global Market Forum, which honors countries from around the world by providing educational panels and cultural exchange opportunities, has become a cornerstone of BEA’s international outreach.

With all the upheaval in bookselling over the past decade -- the surge in online ordering, the multiple challenges faced by brick and mortar booksellers, and the squabbles over e-book pricing -- you would think the book industry was in crisis. But sales figures suggest otherwise. Increasingly, this churning appears to be an integral feature of a steady process of transformation in the digital age.

The Association of American Publishers released 2012 sales figures, showing a substantial increase in overall totals. Sorting out the numbers (there is additional data on the AAP website), the net gain was 7.4 percent over

US Trade publishers’ net revenue grew by 6.2%  compared to calendar year 2011, according to the Association of American Publishers “StatShot” monthly report for December 2012, released today.
 
The report also showed increases year over year for net revenue in the Trade categories of Adult Fiction/Non-Fiction and Children’s/Young Adults.
 
In formats, Adult Fiction/Non-Fiction saw growth in eBooks, downloaded audiobooks and paperbacks while Children’s/YA eBooks, hardcover and board books saw increases.  The eBook format in the Religious Presses category also grew as compared to 2011.

The AAP General Annual Meeting went really well.  There were roughly 200 people in attendance.  Since the International Publishers Association http://www.internationalpublishers.org/ was holding a global meeting in NY that same week, we also had a number of representatives from other countries’ trade associations in attendance.

US publishers are poised to take their battle to stop books bought abroad being resold in the US to Congress, after the Supreme Court ruled against them in a case that will have broad implications for global commerce.

In the case of Kirtsaeng v Wiley, the court ruled in favour of Supap Kirtsaeng, a California student who asked his family in Thailand to buy textbooks for him at low international prices so he could resell them at a profit on eBay.

We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng and overturned the Second Circuit’s ruling.  It is a loss for the U.S. economy, and students and authors in the U.S. and around the world.
 
Wiley wants to thank the many organizations, companies, and individuals who filed Amicus briefs and spoke publicly and privately in support of our position.
 
American Bar Association
American Intellectual Property Law Association
Association of American Publishers
Business Software Alliance
LicenseLogic, LLC
Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America
Omega S.A.
Professor Hugh C. Hansen
Software and Information Industry Association
Text and Academic Authors Association
 

The Association of American Publishers criticized Amazon’s bid for “closed generic Top-Level Domains” (gTLD), an attempt for “exclusive” control of the new .book domain name.

Click here to read a PDF copy of the letter. Nine different companies have applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for access to the undoubtedly useful Internet domain name extension, including Amazon and R.R. Bowker.

AAP general counsel Allan Adler explained in a letter to ICANN: