UK publishing income up 2% in Covid-hit 2020 despite print decline

Total publishing income hit record levels in 2020, rising 2% to £6.4bn, buoyed by a digital surge that helped offset a 6% decline in print sales, a report by the Publishers Association shows.

The Publishing in 2020 report, a summary version of the PA's forthcoming yearbook, showed home sales income rose 4% to £2.5bn in 2020 while exports remained unchanged year on year at £3.7bn, despite the challenges brought by Covid-19.

While digital sales income rose 12% to £3bn, the print market struggled more with the pandemic-hit year, seeing a 6% decline by value to £3.4bn and a 7% fall by volume to 608 million units. However, consumer book print sales still rose 4%, with the decline seen in the education and academic sectors.

The consumer market saw big increases across the board, with total income rising 7% to £2.1bn. However, the education sector had a difficult year, with a 21% slump in income to £528m. Academic publishers fared better, with a 3% rise to £3.3bn. The report also acknowledged writers faced huge difficulties this year, concluding: "Making sure authors can continue to protect their livelihoods will remain a focus of the industry as we move forward."

Stephen Lotinga, c.e.o. of the Publishers Association, told The Bookseller: “Despite all the challenges, it's been a pretty incredible year in the sense that, whilst being up 2% isn't the highest increase of any industry at any time ever, considering the sheer scale of the problems we were trying to deal with, I think it's an incredible performance.

“Our sales overseas stayed steady overall which, considering the difficulty we had getting books to our markets, was pretty phenomenal. But the real story I think is at home where there's been a huge resurgence of reading, particularly consumer publishing and fiction in particular. People had more time on their hands and what they turned to was great novels.”

On exports, he said: “We've been very fortunate in the sense that there seemed to be very real problems at various points and particular publishers really struggled to get books out there —I think when we were having this conversation halfway through last year the figures were much more depressing. But in the second half of the year clearly there has been a real surge and publishers have obviously adapted and changed. Also, obviously, the growth of digital has meant the barriers to exporting are greatly reduced.”

Consumer publishing enjoyed a stellar year and was the only sector to see a rise in print income, increasing 4% to £1.7bn, while digital rose 24% to £418m. Overall, home sales hit £1.5bn - a rise of 9% — while exports were up 4% to £675m. The top three export countries of Australia, US and Germany all saw rises.

Income from fiction soared 16% to £688m, with non-fiction rising 4% to £1bn and children's up 2% at £396m. Audio downloads rocketed by a whopping 37% to £133m.

Lotinga said the statistics showed audiobooks continued to be the major growth area of UK consumer publishing, rising 241% over five years, albeit from a fairly low base. New people were being brought into the sector, audio sales appeared not to cannibalise those of print, devices have proliferated and “really great books” were helping drive the boom, he said.

He added: “In the past we've thought about the convenience of people driving and commuting, yet last year there were big reductions in that but a lot of people still listened at home. Clearly people like listening to audiobooks regardless of whether its just a point of convenience, it's something they do in their house as well, which is a big learning point.”

In contrast to the consumer sector, education publishing had a 5% decline in the home market, with total income at £176m, while exports plummeted 27% to £351m with the top three export countries of Spain, Mexico and Saudi Arabia all seeing falls. Print was down 24% overall to £461m, although digital rose 8% to hit £67m.

Lotinga said this was a combination of declines in the schools and English language training (ELT) markets. “The largest decrease last year was ELT,” he explained. “That tends to predominantly be in overseas markets, obviously, and the closure of huge numbers of English language schools around the world meant there were very large reductions. They were down 32% overall, school sales were down 15% overall.”

On the academic side, there was no change in the home market's £906m total income. However, exports grew 3% to reach £2.4bn, with sales to the US and Germany rising as exports to China fell. Overall, print was down 13% to £861m, while digital grew 9% to £2.5bn. Book sales declined 5% to £1bn but journals were up 6% to £2.3bn.

Lotinga said the decline in print sales was clearly down to the problems faced by universities during Covid-19 with library closures, and disruption for students and academic booksellers.

He added: "Journal sales were up and, not surprisingly, that's because governments were spending huge amounts of money on research and an enormous amount of research being published tends to lead to an increase in sales.”

The PA does not break down its figures by retailer, but Lotinga recognised a large number of sales went to Amazon last year, with the online retailer playing a huge role in lockdown and having a large proportion of the e-book and audio market.

He said: “I think our relationship with Amazon remains as it always was. It's an incredibly important customer of publishers and was a vital source of us getting books to readers last year but we remain incredibly concerned that we are so reliant on a single retailer, particularly during the pandemic periods which is why we've regularly called for the government and CMA to intervene, to look closely at the market and put appropriate controls in as and when are necessary.”

Looking to the future, Lotinga said he was “very optimistic” and the PA is still predicting that, using projections from previous years' growth, UK publishing is on course to be a £10bn industry by 2030.

He said: “A lot of people have gone back to reading, enjoyed it and we believe there's an opportunity to capitalise on that, not just as an industry but also for wider society. There are clearly enormous benefits from a highly literate society, we're trying to build a knowledge-based economy. Well, clearly reading and publishing are an important part of that."

However, he warned a looming debate over copyright would have a huge impact on exports in particular. He said: “The biggest concern I think facing us as an industry is post-Brexit the government is about to review some of the copyright laws that we've enjoyed that have been the foundation of this industry's success for many, many years and we're obviously adamant that the government doesn't want to undermine the success of this industry.”