New - 2008 Catalogue of Maps & Travel Guides
BML are pleased to announce the release of their 2008 Catalogue of Maps & Travel Guides. The catalogue offers a comprehensive listing of travel titles available from a wide range of publishers. It is split into two sections, one listing titles available for regions in Great Britain, and the other listing titles for the rest of the world, and within section by country. Click the image on the right to view the catalogue, and to order your own copy please email Chini Ugboma to request. To give feed back on this catalogue please click here.
2008 Books & the Consumer Conference
The Books & Consumer conference took place on Tuesday, 11th March 2008, at One Birdcage Walk, London SW1.
This year’s Conference reported on the latest figures from the Books and the Consumer survey and provided an overview of the 2007 consumer market for both adult and children’s books. It revealed the key trends in sources used, the growth or decline of genres and formats, the extent of discounting, and also provided an in-depth look at the consumers who make up the book market. The line up of guest speakers (who each explored the implications and potential uses of the latest data from the survey), included: Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Scholastic UK, who gave her views of what the latest figures mean for the children’s book market; Catherine Hunt, Head of Media and Insight at HarperCollins, who revealed some of the ways that the company has used data from Books and the Consumer to inform their publishing and marketing strategies; and Paul Moore, Strategic Insight Director at market research agency TNS, who talked about some of the uses made of similar consumer data in other industries.
Subscribers to Books & the Consumer, are entitled to a free place at the Conference, Retainer clients are given a 50% discount, and all other attendees pay £120 + VAT per person. The booking form allows you to book additional places for colleagues (unlimited, but on a first come first serve basis). Venue directions are available here . Confirmation of registration and a full Conference agenda will be sent to each delegate by e-mail in due course.
In July 2007, BML examined the reading and bed-related activities of 182 general book buyers, and 179 people working in the book trade. The survey of book buyers was undertaken among readers of BML’s monthly BookZone ezine, while book trade employees were interviewed while taking part in the ‘Walkies’ – the industry’s annual charity walk in aid of the Book Trade Benevolent Society. The subject matter for the survey was chosen to coincide with the theme of the joint BML/Publishing News/MBA Literary Agency ‘Walkies’ checkpoint, which celebrated the publication in hardback of MBA author Susan Gee’s novel, Reading in Bed (published by Headline).
The light-hearted survey found that:
Favourite in-bed activity: general book readers vs. book trade General book readers Book Trade Sample size: 182 179 % % 47 10 Sleeping 40 45 ‘Something else’ 8 31 Listening to the radio 2 7 Watching TV 2 4 Other 2 4 TOTAL 100 100 Sources: BML BookZone survey of keen book readers; BML survey of book trade walkers.
Reading in Bed
|
Favourite place for reading: general book readers vs. book trade | ||
|
|
General book readers |
Book trade |
|
Sample size: |
182 |
185 |
|
|
% |
% |
|
In bed |
45 |
18 |
|
In an armchair |
30 |
25 |
|
In the garden |
6 |
11 |
|
In the bath |
6 |
9 |
|
On the beach |
5 |
11 |
|
Traveling to work |
4 |
18 |
|
On the loo |
3 |
4 |
|
Somewhere else |
1 |
4 |
|
|
|
|
|
TOTAL |
100 |
100 |
UK and US markets compared
To mark the collaboration between the book trade magazines, Publishing News and Publishers Weekly on the Frankfurt Dailies at the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair, BML used a variety of information sources to report on differences in the UK and US book markets.
Comparing trade data on publishers’ sales in 2006 vs. 2005, it found that:- US publishers’ net sales were worth some $35.7bn in 2006, an increase of 3.2% on the year before. In volume terms, US publishers invoiced 3.1bn units in 2006, an increase of 0.5% on 2005. Greatest growth in value was shown by the religious category (+5.6% on 2005), followed by adult trade (+3.9%) and professional books (+3.2%)
- In the UK, publishers’ net sales of books were worth £2.8bn in 2006, an increase on the previous year of 1.6%. Volume purchases fell 0.2% to 787m books. Greatest growth in value came from the academic/professional (+7.1%) and non-fiction/reference (+4.7%) sectors.Sources: Book Industry Trends 2007 (BISG, 2007)[1];
Comparing consumer purchases of books in the first quarter of 2007, BML discovered that:
Leading genres: US vs. US 1. Mystery/detection 1. Crime/mystery 2. Romance 2. Popular fiction 3. General fiction 3. Biography 4. Religious 4. Adventure/thriller 5. Biography 5. Children’s general fiction 6. Espionage/thriller 6. Literary fiction 7. Fantasy 7. Maps/atlases 8. Cooking 8. History 9. Sci-fi 9. Cookery 10. Children’s picture books 10. Fantasy 11. History 11. Art/photography 12. Business/economics 12. Travel gui Source: PubTrack Consumer (Bowker) Source: Books & the Consumer ( Finally, the analysis examined the audiobooks market on either side of the Atlantic:
Sources: Audio Publishers Association (2007)[1]; Audiobook Publishers Association (2007)[2]. Dinosaur or Dynamo seminar
BML held its third seminar on exploiting industry change on Friday 21st of September 2007. The topic addressed was entitled Dinosaur or Dynamo: Does the bookseller have a role in the digital era? With books increasingly becoming available in multiple formats, booksellers are having to embrace these digital developments to avoid the financial pressure from online competitors. The seminar explored, among other issues, how and why booksellers should expand their business by moving forward from traditional bricks-and-mortar bookselling to one that is able to maximize the opportunities that digital content offers. The seminar was chaired by Francis Bennett, and speakers on the day were: Peter Bowron, Group Managing Director of Random House Group, Willie Anderson, Deputy Chairman of John Smith & Son, Bill Samuel, Foyle’s, Genevieve Kunst, Head of Business Development for Digital Media at Amazon.co.uk, and Duncan Calow at DLA Piper. For further details about the seminar please click here 2007 Books & the Consumer Conference The Books & Consumer conference took place on Friday, 30th March at One Birdcage Walk . There were also presentations from a variety of speakers on ways in which we can profitably exploit as many routes to market as possible. Sara Lloyd, Head of Digital Publishing at Macmillan, explored how publishers can best market and sell their digital assets. Lisa Milton, Managing Director of Orion, spoke about early results from a current research project looking in depth at the audiobooks market, and Andrew Crawford, ex-Amazon and Bookpages and now MD and founder of The Book Depository, spoke about The Book Depository which aims to make as many books available as possible to the consumer. Francis Bennett was the Conference Chair.
Managing the long tail seminar BML held the second in a series of seminars on exploiting industry change on Monday 19th March. The theme of the seminar was 'Managing the long tail: print-on-demand comes of age'. Print-on-Demand (PoD) is moving into the mainstream of the publishing industry and has the potential to transform much of what we do. The seminar examined how best to manage PoD so that publishers, booksellers and above all book-buyers get the fullest possible benefits. David Taylor, Managing Director, Lightning Source UK and Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Lightning Source Inc. reviewed what the technology can do today, what PoD printers need from publishers, what publishers can expect from PoD printers, how the technology can be exploited to reduce risk and inventory costs and where the technology is leading. Michael Holdsworth spoke of his experience at CUP to demonstrate how a mainstream publisher manages PoD by examining the selection of backlist titles, makes decisions on binding, the business model and the market reaction to PoD titles. David Kohn of Borders discussed what it will take for print-on-demand to succeed in a retail context. He looked at both the customer and the retailer requirements and proposed how these two will come together. Duncan Calow, partner, and Alan Williams, consultant, DLA Piper, continued their discussion of the issues relating to 'the publishing contract in the 21st century' by examining the implications of PoD on the publishing contract, the impact on reversion of rights and who holds the rights in a PoD environment.
Diversity in Publishing Report The Diversity in Publishing Network (DIPNet) commissioned BML to carry out quantitative research into the area of cultural diversity in publishing. The Diversity in Publishing Report released by DIPNet at the 2007 London Book Fair (click here) expands upon the findings of the 2004 report, In Full Colour: Cultural Diversity in Book Publishing Today, published by The Bookseller magazine in association with the Arts Council England diversity initiative, decibel.
BML provided the report’s statistical analysis on the number and composition of ethnic minorities working within the industry revealing that whilst 28.8% of Londoners are Black or Minority Ethnic (BME), only 7.7% of those working in publishing are from a BME background. Other findings reveal that:
On behalf of the Academic, Professional and Specialist Booksellers’ Group of the BA, BML undertook a survey to find the best academic bookseller of the year, an accolade awarded at their Annual Conference in March 2007.
In all, 24 academic publishers were invited to take part, with an online questionnaire sent to sales directors/managers and forwarded onto reps. This asked respondents to rate leading academic and professional booksellers by six criteria. In total, 66 sales people completed the survey from 17 publishing companies. 950 ratings were received covering 94 shops in total.
For the second year running John Smith & Son was voted best chain overall, with 7.9 out of 10, followed by Blackwells with a score of 7.4 out of 10. The best shop overall, however, reversed these placings, with Blackwells in Broad Street in the number 1 slot for the second year running, rated 9.2 out of 10, and John Smith at Stirling University in second place, with 9.1 out of 10. Foyles Charing Cross Road came third, with 8.8 out of 10. The Publishers' Association have published the UK Book Publishing Industry Statistics Yearbook 2006, which provides data on the total UK book market with trend data from 2002 to 2006. The information in the yearbook is based on the monthly PA statistics scheme, managed by BML, and supplemented by information from a huge benchmarking project carried out at the end of 2005 to establish sales of publishers not contributing to the monthly scheme. The benchmarking exercise added data from 370 publishers to the 195 already contributing to the monthly sales data: together these publishers are believed to account for around 85% of UK publishing turnover. The UK book publishing industry statistics yearbook 2006 provides analysis of UK publishers’ sales, both home and export, within the main sectors of fiction, non-fiction/reference, children’s, school/ELT and academic/professional, with sector reviews by leading figures in the trade, and is an essential reference book. Each PA member company will receive a complimentary copy and contributors to the monthly scheme have free online access to the report. Further copies are available direct from the PA, priced at £76.15: contact Mandy Knight on 0207 7691 9191 or mknight@publishers.org.uk.
At the Conference, BML reported the latest figures from the Books & the Consumer survey to provide an overview of the 2006 consumer book market for both adults and children, revealing the key trends in sources used, the growth or decline of genres and formats and the extent of discounting as well as taking an in-depth look at the consumers who make up the book market.
UK book publishing industry statistics yearbook
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