Steve's personal blog

Veronis Suhler Stevenson today published a press release discussing consumer book publishing as well as other aspects of the communications/media sector.

For all those involved in the book industry, particularity the (internet based) used book aspect of it should find this interesting reading.

One piece that really interested me was the expected growth of the used books spending projection, which they estimate to be 25% compound annual rate over the next 5 years. So take the time to have a browse through the books you have listed on BookSwap.ws and have a think about when you last read the book and if you should be ticking the "For Sale" box as well so you can get some cash to buy more books…


Below is the Consumer Book Publishing forecast:

Total spending on new, used and online books will increase 2.7 percent in 2006 to $21.88 billion. The rise of used books is expected to alter the spending pattern on consumer books in the years to come. Spending on used books is projected to grow at a 25.0 percent compound annual rate over the next five years, reaching $2.25 billion in 2010. Record-setting demand for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, plus strong spending on titles related to the movie The Chronicles of Narnia, helped to boost total consumer spending on new books by 3.6 percent in 2005 to $20.48 billion. The used book market, limited primarily to small retail outlets, libraries and the neighborhood tag sales in the past, has become a more important factor in the consumer book market due to the Internet, jumping 25.0 percent in 2005 to $736.0 million. Used book spending pushed total spending on consumer books to $21.31 billion, a 4.4 percent increase over the 2004 level. The Consumer Book publishing industry is forecast to have total spending in 2010 of $24.9 billion.

Happy selling!


Steve.