Nielsen: 2014 Global Publishing Market Report

During the 2014 BIBF, Beijing Kaijuan Information Technology Co., Ltd. invited Mr. Jonathan Nowell, President of Nielsen Books, to give a report on the development trend of the global book market, the development characteristics of the British and American book markets, the development trend of the e-book market, etc., and exchanged views with outstanding domestic publishing units on topics such as the development of the global book industry. The report analyzed that children's books have become the biggest highlight of the publishing industry, and the sales share of children's fictional books in the United States has increased from 25% to 28%.

Books lead the creative industry

According to the 2014 Global Publishing Industry Development Trends report released by Rudiger Wischenbart, a consultant at the International Publishing Consulting Company, among the content creative products such as books, magazines, film and television entertainment, music, and games, the global book market is the largest, with a current overall scale of US$151 billion. The scale of film and entertainment is followed by US$133 billion, magazines are US$107 billion, games are US$63 billion, and music is US$50 billion.

According to the "Global Publishing Industry Development Trends 2014" released by Rudiger Wischenbart, a consultant at an international publishing consulting company, China is the second largest market in the world in terms of book industry size, accounting for 12% of the global book market, second only to the United States.

China's consumer confidence index reaches highest level

The United States is US$39 billion, accounting for 26%; China is US$18.7 billion, accounting for 12%; Germany is US$12.5 billion, accounting for 8%; Japan is US$10.4 billion, accounting for 7%; France is US$5.9 billion, accounting for 4%; and the United Kingdom is US$5.2 billion, accounting for 3%.

At the same time, data from Nielsen's recently released "Global Consumer Confidence Survey for the Second Quarter of 2014" shows that China, India and Indonesia are currently the countries with the highest consumer confidence index. The overall consumption expectations of Chinese consumers are developing in a positive direction.

Among the 10 major English-speaking countries' book markets monitored by Nielsen BookScan, three countries saw growth in paper book sales in the first eight months of 2014: the United States, India and Australia. However, the year-on-year growth rates of paper book sales in these three countries are lower than the current growth rate of China's paper book market.

Jonathan Nowell, President of Nielsen's Book Business, summarized the five major characteristics of the global book publishing industry: (1) The market size is not highly concentrated; (2) The market is relatively mature and the overall growth is not high at present; (3) In some countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the e-book market is growing rapidly; (4) Amazon, as a global giant in the book market, has a significant overall influence; (5) In order to cope with the current market environment, mergers and acquisitions between publishers are frequent.

Children's books lead the market

In the paper book market in major English-speaking countries in Europe, children's books are also the category with the best growth potential, which is obviously similar to the Chinese market.

In the US paper book market, the sales volume of children's fiction exceeded that of adult fiction in 2014, and the bestseller list in the US market was also mainly dominated by children's fiction in 2014.

(Purple is adult nonfiction, red is teen fiction, green is adult fiction, and blue is teen nonfiction.)

In the UK paper book market, a comparison of the bestseller lists from January to August 2014 with the same period in 2013 shows that the themes have changed, with gaming books becoming a highlight, while weight loss topics were the most popular among the best-selling books in the same period in 2013.

The best-selling books in the UK in 2014 were "The Wrong Kind of Things" (introduced by Relay Press), Dan Brown's "Inferno" (introduced by People's Literature Publishing House), and three volumes of "Minecraft" (a book adapted from the game of the same name, Minecraft).

The best-selling books in the UK in 2013 were "Inferno" by Dan Brown, "Gone Girl" (a movie of the same name will be released soon), "The Fast Diet", "The Hairy Dieters" and "A Pilgrimage" (introduced by Beijing United Publishing Company).

In the bestseller category of the US paper book market, children's fiction bestsellers had outstanding sales from January to August 2014, becoming the main force in the overall market bestseller list. The following is a comparison of the top 5 bestsellers from January to August in the past two years:

The 2014 American fiction bestseller list included two volumes of "The Misery of Being Wild" (introduced by Relay Press) and three volumes of "Divergent" (introduced by Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House).

The 2013 American fiction bestseller list includes Dan Brown's "Inferno" (introduced by People's Literature Publishing House), "Evidence of Heaven" (introduced by Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House), "Jesus Calling", "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (introduced by New Century Publishing House), and "Lean In" (introduced by CITIC Press).

In the United States, where the e-book market is developing rapidly, e-books have made a particularly significant contribution to adult fiction, with the current sales contribution ratio of e-books approaching 30%; while in adult non-fiction and children's books, this ratio is only about 20%. Within adult fiction, the most prominent subcategories of e-books are science fiction and romance. The green line is the share of children's books, which has a significantly smaller market share than adult fiction and non-fiction books.

In the United States, people mainly choose e-book readers and tablet computers to read e-books. Before the second quarter of 2013, e-book readers dominated, but with the development of tablet computers, the usage rate of tablet computers has now exceeded that of e-book readers. Less than 10% of American readers use smartphones to read e-books, which seems to be slightly different from the current situation in the Chinese market.

via:Publishing Business