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The number of new books published in the UK last year was higher than 2007, but remains well below the figure of five years ago, according to the data released from Nielsen Book. However, the number of new publishers decreased in 2008 when compared with the 2007 figure.
The number of new books published in the UK in 2008 was 120,947, an increase of 4.4% on the previous year but still well below the heights of the 2003 figure of 129,762. Publisher output passed the 100,000 mark in 1995, and has not gone below that number since.
Despite the increase in output, BookScan UK reported that 2008 volume sales were down by 0.4% to 236.8m units sold and value sales declined by 1.5% taking the Total Consumer Market in 2008 to £1.77bn.
The total number of English-language books held on the Nielsen Book database now stands at more than 8m globally and 5m for UK & Ireland published titles, this includes in-print, print-on-demand, e-books and out-of-print titles.
Nielsen Book recorded 2,842 new publishers who applied for an ISBN prefix in 2008, down from the 2,876 figure a year earlier.
The book production figure in Ireland also increased in 2008 from 1,807 to 1,902 an increase of 5.25%.