According to Publishers Weekly, print book sales for the first three quarters fell from 549,142 in 2022 to 526,831 (4.1%), which is much better than circulation for print magazines and newspapers.
That doesn’t include the data for self-published books:
WordsRated
January 30, 2023
by Nicholas Rizzo
- 30-34% of all ebooks sold are self-published.
- 300 million self-published books are sold each year.
- $1.25 billion worth of self-published books is sold each year.
- Amazon pays $520 million in royalties to self-published authors each year.
- Only 1% of audiobooks on Audible are self-published.
- 67% of top-rated, self-published books are written by women, compared to just 39% of traditionally published books.
- The global publishing market is expected to grow at 1% CAGR per year, whereas the self-publishing market is expected to grow at 17%.
- The number of self-published books has increased by 264% in the last five years.
- As one who has self-published two books, I would not recommend it.
According to the Poynter Institute, 2023 was the worst year for the news business since the pandemic. According to Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, “there were 20,324 job cuts in media through November 2023. The layoffs included radio stations, trade publications, TV networks, and cable networks. That’s the biggest cutback since 2020 with 30,211 cuts. 2024 has been worse, with Los Angeles Times laying off 20% of the newsroom, CondeNast is currently negotiating layoffs with the writers’ union, Sports Illustrated announced that its entire staff may need to be laid off, and National Geographic laid off its remaining staff of writers.”
According to an industry expert, the newspaper industry has been in a downward spiral for decades. Many are still dependent upon print revenue but dropping circulation and weak online advertising have made that unsustainable. Our local publication, The News & Observer, has spent decades feeding the corporate debt of its holding company, McClatchy Media. They’ve even had to start applying for foundation grants and begging for public donations in addition to huge rate increases for subscribers. Citing Poynter, “The U.S. has lost more than 130 newspapers this year, according to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Since 2005, the country has lost nearly 2,900 newspapers and 43,000 journalists … even as news consumption moves online, digital outlets have struggled to earn revenue because Google and Facebook have dominated the digital advertising market.”
Digital enterprises also have lost revenue as well as streaming media models. News consumption is so heavily oriented to the social media market, which refuses to pay the sources of its news, sometimes even refusing to cite the source.
Newspaper unions have become more active, and the lengthy Screen Writers’ Guild strike also created public notice of the power of unions. They may counter some of the power of the media corporations, but it will be a struggle.
In addition to the many problems related to the business models of various media organizations, the lack of trust in the media is compounded by the broad attack of misinformation promulgated by the GOP. Donald Trump gets huge media play, but he personally has created a lot of that mistrust simply to feed his ego and political strategy.
Much of the content of this blog is taken from an article by Angela Fu published January 24th on the Poynter Institute website.
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