Publishers at the helm

Book publishing will have rarely have had a better two years than during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, all told, it’s rarely had a better decade.

I base this bold, perhaps surprising, analysis on the latest figures from the UK Publishers Association, which show that sales of books, journals and rights grew 5% in 2021, ending the year on a record high of £6.7bn. That 5% figure builds on the 2% growth reported for 2020, and the result means publishing exits the crisis almost half a billion pounds bigger than it was before the first lockdown. For those who require a longer-term perspective, the stats are even better. Back in 2011, the big number was less than £4bn—meaning, if you believe the two figures are collated broadly on a like-for-like basis, that UK publishing has grown by another half in a decade. Along with the growth, change has also been a constant: exports make up more than half that overall number, and it is likely that digital will soon overtake print.

However, it would be wrong to over-sentimentalise print, or the UK. In real terms, the figures show an industry managing an orderly transition in an often turbulent market

In 2021, the PA’s report highlights the continued resilience of the consumer sector, and from print book sales during a period when high street bookshops were not always open. In 2021 print sales grew a further 5% on top of the 4% growth seen a year earlier (with exports up by 10%). Sectorially, fiction book sales (across all formats) rose to £733m in 2021, a figure we would scarcely have imagined a decade ago when they were at £562m and fretful of a digital wipeout; ditto children’s, now at £425m, compared to £314m in 2011. Non-fiction, which was sluggish in 2021 at £1.1bn, has been a juggernaut over the past 10 years, having risen by £300m. It is worth reflecting on the print numbers, with consumer print sales having now reached £1.8bn, compared with £1.6bn in 2011, out of a total of £3.5bn (up from £3bn in 2011). Not bad for a format repeatedly written off over the past decade.

However, it would be wrong to over-sentimentalise print, or the UK. In real terms, the figures show an industry managing an orderly transition in an often turbulent market, with exports providing the real fuel (up from £1.4bn, not then including journals, to £3.8bn now), and digital the spark, having risen ten-fold since 2011.

Digital has been the one hardest to track, with much written about the growth and then decline of consumer e-book sales (not including Amazon or self-publishers), and too little about the ongoing rise in audio downloads. However, the significant pandemic change has been in UK education where a quarter of total UK sales are now in digital format (compared to 10% overseas). In academic, digital is now three times bigger than print, an achievement primarily still driven by journals, of course.

Perhaps the biggest change, however, has been less about format and more about mindset. If publishers were once content to allow others to curate the marketplace and foster their main routes to consumers, it is clear that as their market power has increased so has their willingness to actively intervene. They own the future now—Amazon, notwithstanding.