Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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UK publishers’ ebook sales fall

In the UK, sales of ebooks from the ‘Big Six’ publishers fell 8.3% in 2022, reports the Bookseller.

The publishers’ ebook volume to 43.6 million units in 2022, the lowest return since 2017 and the second-lowest total since the Bookseller began collecting annual ebook data from publishers.

Bloomsbury was the only publisher surveyed to register growth with its sales up 26%. HarperCollins ebook sales were flat, while four of the six publishers had double-digit volume drops in 2022. Ebooks comprise an estimated 28.4% of the publishers’ total book sales.

The Big Six publishers sold record numbers of ebooks during the pandemic, peaking at 54.7 million units in 2020.

Hachette was again the UK’s biggest trade digital publisher in 2022, a position it has held for 10 of the past 11 years, followed by Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Bloomsbury.

 

Category: International news