In the United States, digital book sales have been fell in Spring and this trend continued in the past Summer. In July, 2021, ebook sales fell 16% month as compared to July of 2020 and generated $86.2 million. Meanwhile, digital audiobooks continue to soar. The format was up 5.5% for July, coming in at $61.8 million in revenue. Physical Audio was down 17.6% coming in at $1.8 million.
Ebook revenues were down 2.8% as compared to the first seven months of 2020 for a total of $629.1 million. The digital audiobooks was up 16.4%, coming in at $440.3 million in revenue. Physical Audio was up 3.3% coming in at $12.5 million.
In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of July, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 1.8%, coming in at $250.5 million; Paperbacks were up 30.0%, with $274.3 million in revenue; Mass Market was up 9.8% to $25.8 million; and Board Books were up 3.9%, with $17.6 million in revenue.
Year to date, Hardback revenues were up 21.5%, coming in at $1.75 billion; Paperbacks were up 18.3%, with $1.6 billion in revenue; Mass Market was up 8.3% to $143.1 million; and Board Books were up 9.0%, with $98.0 million in revenue.
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.