PRODUCTS

In 2003-04, book publishers sold 128.8 million books with a total value of $1,353.2m to book retailers and directly to the general public. Some $811.9m (89.2 million books) of these were sales of new Australian titles. Approximately 14% (by value) of all books published were sold overseas, predominantly to the United States and New Zealand.

Educational books accounted for 39% of sales, with general non-fiction accounting for 36%, general fiction 15% and specialised children's books 9%.

11.1 DOMESTIC AND EXPORT SALES OF BOOKS, By category - 2003-04
				Domestic sales	Export sales(a)	Total
				$m	$m	$m
Printed books
	Education
		Primary		124.0	33.5	157.5
		Secondary		98.6	6.3	104.9
		Tertiary		143.9	13.5	157.4
		Professional and reference		85.4	**20.8	106.2
		Total education		452.0	74.1	526.1
	General
		Hardback
			Non-fiction	122.7	18.9	141.6
			Fiction	55.2	4.4	59.6
			Children's	31.8	5.5	37.4
			Total hardback	209.8	28.9	238.6
		Trade paperback(b)
			Non-fiction	np	np	220.0
			Fiction	np	np	49.6
			Children's	33.8	4.0	37.7
			Total trade paperback	235.4	71.9	307.3
		Mass-market paperback(c)
			Non-fiction	117.5	6.2	123.7
			Fiction	94.0	4.4	98.4
			Children's	46.9	4.8	51.6
			Total mass-market paperback	258.3	15.3	273.7
		Total general		703.5	116.1	819.6
	Total printed books			1 155.5	190.2	1 345.7
Electronic books
	Education			np	np	3.2
	General			np	np	4.3
	Total electronic			7.2	0.3	7.5
Total books				1 162.6	190.5	1 353.2
** estimate has a relative standard error greater than 50% and is considered too unreliable for general use
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) Domestic and export sales of books includes all books whether published by the business or not. Export sales includes re-export sales of $7.6m and excludes sales of rights which totalled $7.7m.
(b) An alternative format to hardback with the same dimensions, but with a soft cover.
(c) The conventional form of paperback book.
Source: ABS, Book Publishers, 2003-04 (cat. no. 1363.0).

Book publishers reported selling $305.9m worth of books to final consumers in 2003-04. By comparison, the 2003-04 Book Retailers Survey reported that 80 million new books valued at $1,406.5m were sold via retail outlets. Approximately 78% of these were sold by bookshops, 14% by department stores, 6% by newsagents and 2% by supermarkets and other large retailers. The figures suggest that some readers are by-passing book retailers with approximately 15% of the income from sales to final consumers being earned by book publishers, often selling by subscription or straight to public and private organisations and schools.

See Chapter 3 for information on household expenditure on literature.

Previous Page

Next Page