December 2011 e-book sales were $85M

December 2011 book sales figures are in, and e-book sales clocked in at $85.0M, up 72% from last December. That figure shows some rebound from the lower-than-expected October and November sales, although it lags behind the months of February, May, and August. In fact, the monthly sales for 2011 are remarkably flat overall, with ups and downs but no clear upward trend for the first time in recent memory. In fact, sales for each of the last 3 months failed to double from the same months in 2010 for the first time all year (in other words, sales in each of the first 9 months were more than double their year-ago figures). The recap:

• Dec 2010: $49.5M
• Jan 2011: $69.9M
• Feb 2011: $90.3M
• Mar 2011: $69.0M
• Apr 2011: $72.8M
• May 2011: $87.7M
• June 2011: $80.2M
• July 2011: $82.6M
• Aug 2011: $88.8M
• Sep 2011: $80.3M
• Oct 2011: $72.8M
• Nov 2011: $77.3M
• Dec 2011: $85.0M

Total 2011 e-book sales came in just under $1 billion

With December’s figures, the total sales for 2011 are in the books, and e-book sales increased 117% (more than double) from 2010, totaling $969.9M for the year. (As usual, note that the total figure is slightly higher than adding up the previous 12 months above, as the numbers usually are adjusted slightly upward for late-reporting sales.) This came in pretty close to, but just under, my prediction of $1 billion in e-book sales for the year (I was off by 3%). As you can see from the chart above, Q4 2011 took a surprising dip from the previous two quarters for the first time in several years.

2011 was not a great year for print book sales, with all 5 categories of print book sales down from the year before, with mass-market paperbacks predictably getting hammered the hardest, as they are the most likely to be replaced by e-book sales.

• Adult hardcover: $1,293.2M (down 17.5%)
• Adult trade paperback: $1,165.6M (down 15.6%)
• Adult mass-market paper: $431.5M (down 35.9%)
• Young adult hardcover: $661.9M (down 4.7%)
• Young adult paperback: $477.9M (down 12.7%)

E-book sales as a percentage of total book sales

Of course, overall print book sales ($4,030.1M) were still more than 4 times the dollar value of e-book sales. And the increase in e-book sales was not enough to offset the overall decline, with combined book (print + e-book) sales for 2011 ($4,986.9M) falling slightly from 2010 ($5,293.3M). E-book sales as a percentage of total book sales more than doubled (up almost 135%) from the previous year, from 8.17% in 2010 to 19.18% of all sales in 2011. (Also keep in mind that print books are tracked more thoroughly by the AAP; e-book sales are reported only by the larger publishers, and there are millions of dollars of e-book sales that go uncounted in these figures.)

So, overall, another year of e-book sales more than doubling. However, the slowdown in the last quarter and overall leveling off of sales in 2011 might hint that we’re heading for a plateau, or at least a tapering of e-book sales growth. Of course, nothing can double forever, and my early prediction is that 2012 e-book sales will fail to double from this year’s numbers — maybe up 50% or so to about $1,500M (one and a half billion). I think we’ll see a continued decline in print books, leading to e-books garnering roughly one-third of the overall book market this year. But I think we might be a couple years away from breaching 50% — which might require a technological advance like color e-Ink or foldable screens, or a game-changing event in the publishing world, such as superstar authors going independent and straight to e-books, big publishers embracing e-books, or lowering of e-book pricing (perhaps as a result of the agency model going away). In any case, I’m sure 2012 will be another interesting year for the publishing industry in general, and for e-books in particular.

While up 81.2% over October 2010, e-book sales came in at a slightly disappointing $72.8M in October 2011. Publisher’s Weekly reports the total for the first 10 months of 2011 at $807.7M, up 131.1% from the same months in 2010. However, they do point out that October is the first month in 2011 that e-book sales (up only 81.2%) did not double from the previous year.

October 2011 E-Book Sales are $72.8M

This is the second month in a row that e-books have slowed their pace. In fact, the entire year of 2011 has been fairly steady (compare January 2011’s $69.9M with October’s $72.8M). In fact, the average monthly sales so far in 2010 were $79.4M ($80.8M if you use PW’s updated totals), so October is a below-average month for the year. We’ll see if the holiday shopping season (which has traditionally caused a nice surge as people get e-readers for Xmas) bumps those figures up in December 2011 and January 2012.

The last 13 months of sales figures:

On a personal note, I apologize for the lack of regular posts — my job has been taking up all of my time, and I just haven’t had the time I’d like to devote to blogging (let alone novel-writing!).

September 2011 e-book sales: $80.3M

E-Book sales dipped a bit in September 2011, to $80.3M, but were more than double last year’s results, and were strong enough to carry e-books to a new record quarter of $251.7M in Q3, 2011. For the past 13 months:

• Sep 2010: $39.9 M
• Oct 2010: $40.7 M
• Nov 2010: $46.6 M
• Dec 2010: $49.5 M
• Jan 2011: $69.9 M
• Feb 2011: $90.3 M
• Mar 2011: $69.0 M
• Apr 2011: $72.8 M
• May 2011: $87.7 M
• June 2011: $80.2 M
• July 2011: $82.6M
• Aug 2011: $88.8M
• Sep 2011: $80.3M

Q3 2011 e-book sales: $251.7M

The quarterly sales of just over a quarter of a billion dollars help push e-books to $727.7M for the first 9 months of the year, an increase of 137.9% over last year, and close enough that a strong holiday push could put e-book sales at a billion dollars for the year, as I predicted after February’s sales.

While the AAP frustratingly has become more stingy with its print book sales figures, they did provide percentages that I used to estimate print book sales for the month (fortunately, I keep a spreadsheet with each month’s figures going back to last year). The percentage changes for print books, and my estimates for Sep 2011 sales:

• Adult hardcover: down 18.1%, est. $147.7M
• Adult trade paperback: flat, est. $111.5M
• Adult mass-market paper: down 54.3%, est. $31.0M
• Young adult hardcover: up 2.1%, est. $78.2M
• Young adult paperback: down 14.6%, est. $41.5M

Fairly brutal numbers across the board, with only a slight (2.1%) increase in young adult hardcover, flat adult trade paper sales, and decreases in the other categories, including a dramatic 54.3% decrease in mass-market paperback sales. People have said that mass-market paperback sales are the most susceptible to being replaced by e-book sales, since they are generally fiction novels that people read once and then discard or donate — as opposed to hardcovers that people like to display on their bookshelves. The numbers are bearing that out, as e-book sales, which just last year were below mass-market paperback, are now nearly triple. The AAP also pointed out that sales in all print trade segments were down for the 9-month period so far this year.

Based on those estimations, e-book sales accounted for 16.25% of combined print/e-book sales for the month, roughly double the 8.17% overall figure from 2010.