Christmas too close to call for ‘unpredictable’ book trade – Bookseller
Posted on | December 23, 2009 | No Comments
The Bookseller Magazine is reporting that Christmas 2009 is “still impossible to call”. Booksellers have described the trading environment as “unpredictable” and “volatile” with sales of the bestselling titles well-down on last year and the market in general still below last year’s levels.
“Booksellers have reported a slight improvement in this week’s trading, compared with last week. But the Christmas Number One – Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol – has sold just 58,468 copies in the week to Saturday 19th December, a fraction of last year’s top title, J K Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The Harry Potter spin off saw sales of 159,337 in the same week, and seven other titles all sold more than 60,000 copies that week, a feat achieved by none this year.”
“Overall, Nielsen BookScan has reported a book spend of £75.7m—up 9.6% week on week but down 8.2% on the same week last year. According to BookScan, £1.69bn has been spent at UK book retailers thus far in 2009, down just 1.2% year on year. However, on a rolling 12-month basis, sales are down just 0.1% to £1.75bn, meaning that with an extra day’s trading this year the market could yet enter positive territory, with takings at UK book retailers this week expected to be much higher than the comparative week last year.”
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