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The Publishers Association has released its latest Yearbook statistics, showing growth in both the industry's print and digital revenues, making 2019 in its estimation “the biggest year ever for UK publishing”.
However, although the trade started 2020 in the best shape it has ever been in, PA chief executive Stephen Lotinga has cautioned the industry faces challenges in the midst of Covid-19, and he is calling on the government to take action now to secure its recovery.
The PA’s 2019 figures showed publishing sales by invoiced value totalled £6.3bn last year, an increase of 3.5% on 2018’s total and 19.8% higher than in 2015. Sales rises took place across virtually every area, although notably fiction slipped 1.1% to £0.6bn and sales of consumer e-books contracted slightly by 4.1% to £240m. The challenges of the transition to digital for academic publishing also showed in the bottom line of its print books business, down 4.6%.
Breaking it down, digital sales income for the industry as a whole rose 4.4% to £2.8bn—comprising a 19% share in both home and export markets—and print refused to be left behind, up 2.8% to £3.5bn.
Meanwhile 59% of total invoiced sales—a sizable £3.7bn—came from exports in 2019, up 3.3%, next to £2.4bn in home sales, a figure improved 3.7% on the year before. (Exports made up 32% of consumer sales income in 2019 and it is particularly important in academic and education publishing where in 2019 it accounted for 72% of sales).
On the consumer side—worth £2bn in 2019, up 3.5%—non-fiction and reference has become a powerhouse, up 5.6% in 2019 to a momentous £1bn for the first time. Children’s books saw a rise of 5.5% to £387m. But in growth terms, the real music to our ears is the audiobook, continuing its indomitable rise with a 39.3% boost in downloads to £97m.
The academic market nudged its total sales up 1.3% to £3.3bn. Although it had fewer print book sales, its journals businesses managed to reap 3.5% more income in 2019, up to £2.2bn in 2019.
In education sales rose 12.7% to £657m, with sales of English Language Teaching books increasing 19.8% to £322m, a trend the PA believes is only going to continue, partly due to the internet, as people wanting to access content on a global basis need to understand, read and speak English.
New to the Yearbook is export data by country, revealing Australia to be the largest export country across fiction, non-fiction and children’s, North America the biggest export market for journals, and Spain the largest export market for ELT, while Europe overall accounted for over a third (36%) of the invoiced value of exports in total.
The PA has said this underscores just how important it is that the government gets right the free trade agreements it is currently negotiating on, with Free Trade Agreements with three of those important markets—Europe, America and Australia—all being negotiated this year. In particular it has said the government must not compromise on the UK's gold-standard copyright regime, which it says is "fundamental" to enabling the industry to thrive.
It has also called on the government to "properly support" the industry's recovery from the impact of the coronavirus to help it to become a £10bn industry by 2030—a goal it was on track for prior to the pandemic.
Chief among the PA’s priorities is for the government to make sure there is a "fair market" that the industry can operate in; to make sure we get Brexit right by not undermining key markets and avoiding a "no deal" scenario; and to make sure education and higher education institutions get the money they need to buy the industry's products and support pupils.
“Before the coronavirus pandemic the UK’s publishing industry was flourishing with 2019 being the strongest year in the history of publishing. These robust figures reflect people’s ongoing need and desire for books," said Stephen Lotinga, chief executive for the Publishers Association.
“The UK publishing industry was on course to be worth £10bn by 2030 before coronavirus, but that will only happen now if the government properly supports our recovery. This means ensuring there is a fair market for books—particularly support for bookshops, avoiding a no-deal Brexit and providing vital funding for schools and universities so they can buy the education resources that students need to learn remotely.
“Our 2019 Yearbook figures tell a story of pre-Covid success, but they do not reflect the significant challenges that publishers have faced during this pandemic. Despite those difficulties, we know that many people have continued to look to books for solace, enlightenment and entertainment.”