Neilson Bookscan Update

Neilson BookScan is the international sales data monitoring and analysis service for the English-language book industry worldwide. BookScan in Australia collects total transactional data at the point of sale directly from tills and despatch systems from more than 1,000 retail outlets nationwide and covers over 90% of the Australian consumer book market. When you read the Best Seller lists in a newspaper, these have been compiled by Neilson and only book sales which are registered with Neilson Bookscan are eligible for Best Seller status.

Palmer Higgs Books OnLine is registered with Neilson Bookscan so that sales of your books through our online bookstore are tracked. Bookscan also provides us with valuable data about what is happening in the industry through their monthly newsletters and statistics. There is also some interesting information about how the 40+ age group is driving sales online.

Summary of the Australian Book Market
(analysis based on 4 week period ending 10th July 2010)

• Total volume sales for the Year to Date (YTD) are flat and total value sales down 4.4%.
• Non fiction is still down on last year and Fiction is a little up.
• Children’s book sales are down 12% in value for the YTD.
• In the four weeks ending 10th July, 4.6m books sold for $82m.
• The average book cost was $17.84 this month, a dollar less than this time last year

Some other interesting information emerged from a survey regarding online book purchasing based on questions to over 22,000 Australians, including whether respondents have purchased a book online in the past month. A quick summary shows:

• This year, 21% of Australians over the age of 14 indicated that they had purchased a book online; about the same number as last year, and up from 14% in 2007
• Broken down by age group:

1. slight increase in 25-39 year olds
2. fairly consistent number of 14-24 year olds buying books online
3. the 40+ age group are really driving the growth. The proportion of 40-54 year olds buying books online has gone from 16% in 2007 to 23% in 2010, and the number of 55+ year olds purchasing books online has more than doubled in that time.
4. It can be wondered if, as the older age groups become comfortable purchasing online, they might become the biggest purchasers. They are certainly the most frequent readers – the same survey indicated that 55+ year olds are the most likely group to have reported reading during the previous week, at 69%, compared to the average for all ages, 56%.