Some Good Numbers for Book Publishers

industry sales figures show that people are buying more books than three years ago

Just as we were convinced the Internet had killed the publishing industry, it looks like people are still paying for reading. "BookStats, a comprehensive survey conducted by two major trade groups that was released early Tuesday, revealed that in 2010 publishers generated net revenue of $27.9 billion, a 5.6 percent increase over 2008. Publishers sold 2.57 billion books in all formats in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008," reports The New York Times. The survey found that sales of adult hardcover and paperback books were flat, growing only 1 percent over three years. Electronic reading material, on the other hand, is growing. In 2008, e-books only made up 0.6 percent of the total market, that number rose to 6.4 percent in 2010. Another bright spot: "one of the strongest growth areas was adult fiction, which had a revenue increase of 8.8 percent over three years."