Ebook revenues were up 5.1% in November 2020 as compared to November of 2019 and the format generated $87.9 million. On a year-to-date basis, ebooks were up 15.2%, coming in at $1.0 billion for the first eleven months of 2020. Digital audiobooks broke the long-standing trend of seeing continuous growth every month since 2012, with a decline of 1.6% for the November, coming in at $56.0 million in revenue. Physical Audio, however, jumped 30.0% coming in at $4.1 million. This is likely because people were buying them as gifts. On a year-to-date basis, digital audiobooks was up 15.2% as compared to the same period in 2019, with a total of $609.6 million for the year so far. Physical Audio was down 27.6%, with $23.9 million in revenue.
In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of November, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 58.3%, coming in at $464.2 million; Paperbacks were up 35.6%, with $257.2 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 23.2% to $14.7 million; and Board Books were up 27.8%, with $21.3 million in revenue.
On a year-to-date basis, Hardback revenues were $3.1 billion, up 12.8%; Paperbacks were $2.4 billion, up 6.0%; Mass Market was $202.4 million, a decline of 3.0%; and Board Books were $176.1 million, up 19.5% as compared to the first eleven months of 2019.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
