Book Sales up in Australia

Hi all,

As I desperately try to diminish my stack of newspapers, I came across an article by Jason Steger in the Age on June 16th that said book sales have increased modestly in 2006 in both number and value. The article referred to Nelson BookScan statistics that indicated the value of books sold in 2006 increased 3.8% on 2005 sales to $1.05 billion, as the volume rose 2.2% to 53.3 million units. The article said that even if Harry Potter and Dan Brown were excluded the trend is still for growth in book sales. So much for rumours of the demise of the book.

The same article also said, and this really surprised me, that the independent sector's share in value terms increased by 16.1%, as compared to the overall industry's 3.8%. This could have something to do with the big chains concentrating on big name authors at discounted prices. Perhaps they could increase the value of their sales if they stocked more Australian authored speculative fiction.

Graham.