Children's fuels 2014 growth in US

YA/children's books are fuelling growth, including e-book growth, in the US, according to new figures from the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

New figures released by the group covering January to July 2014, show that the e-book revenue grew 7.5% compared to the same period in 2013. This was driven largely by a huge growth of e-book revenue in the children's and YA category, with a 59.5% growth compared to the same period last year. Another growth area is religious e-books, which has climbed 25.7%

Children's drove a rise across trade publishing in the US generally throughout the period measured. Overall, the entire trade publishing sector was up 4.1% for the first seven months of the year, boosted by children's and YA which experienced a 25.8% rise. Adult fiction and non-fiction dipped by 2.2% in comparison.

While e-book revenue grew 7.5%, paperback revenue was also up by 5.3%. Hardbacks saw a slight decline though, with revenues shrinking 0.3%. Audiobooks have become a boom area as well, seeing a growth of 26.2%.

Educational revenues are also rising, with school-age titles up by 21.5%, and higher education materials up 10.9%. E-book revenues for university titles follow the general trend, up 8.9% compared to the same period in 2013.

The figures from the AAP represent 1,209 US publishers. The data is based on publishers' net revenue from all distribution channels, rather than consumer sales figures.