Question: Book Industry TRENDS 2008, just published by the Book Industry Study Group, reveals that total book sales in 2007 (excluding standardized tests) were $37.26 billion. How was this figure derived?
Expert: Michael Healy, Executive Director of the BISG
Answer: “BISG has been publishing Book Industry TRENDS for more than thirty years. Over that time, the methodology underpinning the numbers has evolved. The team behind the 2008 edition, led by Professors Albert Greco and Robert Wharton of the Institute for Publishing Research and Fordham University, approach the task of compiling the numbers in three main ways.
First, the data compilers review every major published econometric data set. Data is obtained from a very wide range of private and public sources—from trade associations, government departments and agencies, research institutions, individual company reports, financial institutions, and so on. This is a comprehensive review of all the available published data on the book industry, and many of the key sources are listed in the methodology section of the 2008 edition.
Second, the compilers talk extensively to academics, government officials, and individuals in as many corporations as possible.
Third, BISG conducts, with support from InfoTrends, an extensive survey of smaller publishers, defined in this instance as publishers with net revenues of $50 million or less per year. We originally conducted this survey back in 2005 when we published our groundbreaking report, ‘Under the Radar.’ This was the first comprehensive effort by anyone to measure the overall size of the small publisher sector, a part of our industry previously overlooked. Following the success of ‘Under the Radar,’ we made the decision to include the figures in TRENDS for the first time in 2006 and have continued the practice ever since.
Having determined publisher net revenues and units in all the major book categories for publishers with 2007 revenues of $50 million and more, we added revenues for publishers with 2007 sales of less than $50 million and then performed approximately 350,000 calculations to generate the TRENDS 2008 data set in the new edition.”
For more information, or to purchase a copy of TRENDS 2008, visit www.bisg.org.
