BISG's Trends Predicts $44 Billion Book Market in 2008

According to the Book Industry Study Group's (BISG) recently released Book Industry Trends 2004, annual consumer expenditures for books will reach $44 billion by 2008. Trade, mass market, and professional publishing revenues will increase by roughly 10 percent by 2008, with revenue growth higher for university press and college publishers, but the most significant growth will be in the el-hi and standardized-test segments of the industry, with respective increases of more than 20 and 45 percent.

In a presentation given last week in New York City, BISG projected that publishers' net dollar sales for trade books would increase by 4.2 percent, from an estimated $6.70 billion in 2003 to $6.98 billion in 2004.

Total adult trade net sales are expected to increase from an estimated $4.79 billion in 2003 to $4.87 billion in 2004, or by 1.7 percent, while net sales for juvenile trade books are expected to increase 10.6 percent from an estimated $1.90 billion in 2003 to $2.11 billion in 2004. Total juvenile paperbound trade sales are expected to increase by 12 percent, Trends reported, to $9.81 billion in 2004 from an estimated $8.77 billion in 2003.

The biggest expected jump will be in standardized tests, the net sales of which are expected to increase by 17 percent to $2.1 billion in 2004, up from $1.8 billion, according to BISG's report. Meanwhile, el-hi nets sales will increase from an estimated $4.05 billion to $4.17 billion in 2004.

Overall, net sales for all books are expected to grow to $28.9 billion in 2004 from $27.8 billion in 2003. Excluding standardized tests, Trends predicted that all books would increase 2.8 percent from an estimated $26 billion in 2003 to $26.7 billion in 2004, and would reach $30.4 billion by 2008.

In terms of domestic consumer expenditures, Trends estimated that expenditures on all books, excluding standardized tests, would rise 2.9 percent, from $37.91 billion to $39 billion in 2004, and to $44 billion in 2008. In addition, expenditures on adult trade books would increase from an estimated $8.4 billion in 2003 to $8.5 billion in 2004, while consumer expenditures on juvenile trade books would increase from $3.4 billion to $3.7 billion in 2004, a 10.6 percent increase.