Book Publishers Market Size and Share | Industry Size (2023)

FAQs

What is the size of the book publishing industry? ›

Questions Clients Ask About This Industry

The market size, measured by revenue, of the Book Publishing industry is $40.9bn in 2023.

In the changed post COVID-19 business landscape, the global market for Book Publishing estimated at US$99.9 Billion in the year 2022, is projected to reach a revised size of US$108.8 Billion by 2030, growing at aCAGR of 1.1% over the period 2022-2030.

Largest Publishing Companies Research Summary

The largest publishing company in the U.S. is Pearson Education, with a revenue of $4.751 billion and a market share of 40% among all U.S. academic publishers. As of 2023, the global book publishing industry has a market size of $114.9 billion.

Book sales by format

In the trade book segment, physical books are still dominating the market. However, digital sales are on the rise, especially audiobooks, and will be the driving force behind book sales growth over the next several years. In 2021, the total revenue from the trade book segment was $18.79 billion.

The publishing industries (except internet) subsector is part of the information sector.

After two years of surprisingly strong sales during the pandemic, unit sales of print books fell 6.5% in 2022 compared to 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Units sales totaled 788.7 million last year, down from 843.1 million in 2021.

Royalty rates vary slightly, but on average, you can expect the following from traditional publishers: Hardcover sales: 15% Trade paperback sales: 7.5% Mass-market paperback sales: 5%

As mentioned earlier, the publishing industry is generally profitable, consistently bringing in about $28 billion in revenue each year.

College Street, Kolkata

Known locally as Boi Para (Colony of Books), it is regarded as the largest secondhand book market in the world.

Which is the largest book market in the world? ›

College Street is the largest book market in India as well as Asia and the largest secondhand book market in the whole world.

Book Publishing in the US industry outlook (2023-2028)

The increasing growth of textbook rental markets and used book markets will continue to siphon away sales for new books. Per capita disposable income will marginally climb, encouraging more students to cut costs on buying textbooks.

Within the publishing industry, Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster are known as the Big Five. The revenue generated by each company separates them from other publishers, allowing them to preside over the market as a whole.

The company is responsible for over 50% of sales from the Big Five publishers and controls between 50% and 80% of the book distribution in the United States. Amazon sells at least 300 million print books every year. The company reportedly controls at least 40% of the print book sales in the States.

For many publishing royalties that are generated from the usage of your music, 50% gets paid to the songwriter/s and 50% gets paid to the publisher/s. But as I mentioned above, if you've not signed a deal with a publishing company, you are considered both the songwriter AND the publisher.

Audiobook Statistics

In fact, despite making up only 10% of book sales, audiobooks are the fastest-growing book type in the industry.

Because books are the least "mass" of the mass media, they do not have significant cultural impact. In general, papers are divided into three departments: business, production and news-editorial.

The book marketplace has become over-saturated.

By 2020, Bowker had given out 40 million ISBN registrations to US publications (Dean Talbot, “Number of Books Published Per Year,” WordsRated, February 2, 2022).

According to some estimates, over 2.2 billion books are sold each year, with the USA, UK, and China contributing to over 72% of this figure alone. As of 2023, the global trade book sales revenue is estimated at $78.07 billion, which will be a 2.53% increase over 2022.

Is publishing a growing field? ›

The publishing industry continues to grow and evolve, providing a wealth of career opportunities for a range of professionals, from editors to book designers. Global publishing is now a $119 billion market, according to IBISWorld, with over 16,000 businesses operating in the industry.

Publishing Industry has evolved considerably in the last decade to deal with digital disruption, piracy, changing reading habits, the rise of audiobooks, extreme competition, production problems, and excessive promotion.

Publishing goes Moneyball

In the future, according to Glenn, since they'll rely on “complex data points rather than guessing, publishers will attempt to bring Moneyball into publishing.” Digging into the analytics of what makes a book popular is the next level of work for publishers.

Here's what I discovered. Out of 97% of people who begin writing a novel: 30 out of 1000 go on to finish it. Only 6 out of those 30 go on to see their novel published.

Printing and binding is relatively straightforward to calculate, and is generally between 8%–12% of the retail price. So 17%–25% of the net sales revenue; in other words, slightly less than the author share.

They also vary across publishers (if you're on the traditional route) as well as stores (if you're self-publishing to them directly). Generally, the standard royalty rates for authors is under 10% for traditional publishing and up to 70% with self-publishing.

The publishing industry generates around $26 billion in revenue in the United States every year. Even though that number has been flat for the past four years, the industry has been experiencing some sizable shifts. (For example, the emergence of ebooks, audiobooks, and digital technology.)

- There are four main sources of publishing income. First, you have mechanical royalties, performance royalties, synchronization royalties, and print and sheet music royalties. So let's talk about them in more detail.

Publishing is a notoriously hard business to get into, so you'll need to be at your very best to get a job, but it's most definitely worth it.

Who is the largest book distributor in USA? ›

Ingram. Generally regarded as the largest book distributor in the world, Ingram specializes in print books and reaches more than 39,000 stores. Ingram is also one of the largest and best-known wholesalers in the world.

The biggest bookstore in the United States is Barnes & Noble with 627 locations across the country. The bookstore chain currently sits at a revenue of $3.6B annually. Barnes & Noble has 15,557 employees, with a revenue of $228,369 per employee.

Amazon is the largest book retailer in the world with a catalog that includes more than 33 million titles, and they will ship them just about anywhere.

The Big Five publishers revenue statistics

As of 2021, the Big Five publishing companies generate over $12 billion in book sales revenue. The biggest publisher, Penguin Random House, controls over 39% of the group's revenue, followed by Hachette, which controls over 25.4% of the Big Five's revenue.

As of 2019, white/caucasian industry respondents represented 76%. This is a drop of 3% since 2015. 7% was made up by asian/native hawaiian/pacific islander/south asian/southeast indian respondents. 6% was made up by latinx/latino/mexican respondents.

In the book's lifetime

By comparison, the average traditionally published book sells 3,000 copies, but as I mentioned above, only about 250-300 of those sales happen in the first year. For a traditional publisher to think of a nonfiction book as a success, it has to sell more like 10,000 copies over its lifetime.

The Big Six is a term commonly used to collectively designate the behemoths of US trade publishing: Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.

Is it Big 4 or Big 5 publishing? ›

The term “Big 5” is the publishing industry insider term for the largest book publishers in the US. The logo of HarperCollins, a publisher known for its imprints Amistad, Ecco, Harper Business, Dey Street Books, Thomas Nelson, Harlequin books, and more.

A composition has two sets of rights: the writer's share and the publisher's share. The writer's share is the right attributed to the songwriter/composer and the publisher's share refers to the share of revenue for which admin rights can be attributed to a music publishing administrator such as TuneCore Publishing.

Amazon print book sales in the USA

U.S. publishers sold 825.7 million print books in 2021. Amazon's share of the print book market in the USA is at least 40%. This means Amazon sells more than 300 million print books each year.

Amazon controls up to 80% of all book distribution in the US, and many worry that the company has engaged in anti-competitive and even predatory practices that has left publishers "racing to the bottom."

All music publishing income is split 50/50 between the songwriter and the publisher. This is typically referred to as the “writer share” and “publisher share” of income.

Depending on the number of new books published each year, the Big Five publishers are responsible for publishing between 10% and 20% of all new titles in a year published through conventional publishers.

Smaller presses have little to no money to spend and are generally less equipped to market your book. The large publisher's logo on your book. This gives you and your book clout because you have made it to the major leagues in the industry. It can also positively affect sales of your book.

Composed of Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Simon & Schuster, this handful of companies wields a great deal of influence over the written word.

Is the Big 4 now the Big 3? ›

The Big 3 is one of the names given to the three largest strategy consulting firms by revenue: McKinsey, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). They are also referred to as MBB. The Big Four consists of the four largest accounting firms by revenue: PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG.

After two years of surprisingly strong sales during the pandemic, unit sales of print books fell 6.5% in 2022 compared to 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Units sales totaled 788.7 million last year, down from 843.1 million in 2021.

In the U.S., approximately 1,700 independent bookselling companies are operating 4,100 stores. Total U.S. book sales hit 788.7 million units in 2022 across all print sales — a 4.5% decrease from 2021.

In 1960, Jerome E. Mc Carthy (1978) in the first edition of Basic marketing: a managerial approach shows an innovative structure, using the marketing mix classification called the four Ps, that popularized product, place, promotion and price as its four elements.

The publisher and songwriter typically co-own the publisher's share of publishing equally (i.e. 50/50). This really means that the publisher owns and retains 50 percent of half of the total revenue from songs created or assigned during the term of your agreement. In other words, 25 percent of the total revenue.

In the typical 50/50 co-publishing deal, since half of all income is writer's share and half is considered publisher's share, you are entitled to 75 cents of every dollar earned (i.e. your full 50 cents as the writer and 25 cents as the publisher, since you assigned half of the publishing away).