Tuesday's Shelf Awareness reported on the bookstore sales for June, 2007.
Bookstore sales were $1.13 billion in June, down 6.6% from $1.21 billion in sales for the same period in 2006, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Year-to-date for the first half of 2007, bookstore sales were $7.33 billion, down 4.5% from $7.68 billion for the same period in 2006.
Shelf Awareness compares those figures to total retail sales in June, which rose 4.6% to $343.9 billion and 3.7% for the year to date.
Of course, this information comes with the usual disclaimer from the Census Bureau. These figures are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.
Read on. This is a two-post day.
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3 comments:
Great.
Thanks for making a gloomy day gloomier.
Mitzi: Sorry. I try to take comfort from the idea that the sales aren't going away; they're migrating to the Internet.
At least I hope that's where they're going.
And women buy more books anyway.
I just don't understand - I cannot be without books - could not imagine not be in the middle of reading a book. My daughter (thank Goddess) is the same way.
I wonder if library borrowing is up - if people are making the financial decision not ot buy books but to go the library instead.
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