U.S. e-book revenues have been steadily declining since the pandemic began to abate. In February 2022, this trend continued as the format declined over 6.9% and generated $91.5 million. The digital audiobook falls for the first time in more than 5 years, it fell 3.9% in February, for a turnover of 68.9 million dollars. Physical audio fell 3.8% to $1.2 million.
Year-to-date, e-book revenue was down 8.4% from the first two months of 2021, to a total of $172.9 million. Downloaded Audio grew 0.2% to $131.0 million in revenue. Physical audio fell 25.1% to $2.4 million.
Consumer book sales rose 9.5% in February to $705.2 million. In terms of physical paper revenue during the month of February, hardback revenue increased 8.5% to $247.3 million; Paperbacks grew 28.5%, with revenue of $241.5 million; Mass market fell 26.4% to $16.0 million; and specialty binders grew 21.2%, with revenues of $15.6 million. Year-to-date, consumer books are up 6.8% to $1.4 billion for the first two months of the year. Related revenues increased by 7.7%, reaching $508.8 million; Paperbacks grew 17.6%, with revenue of $492.1 million; Mass market fell 14.8% to $35.1 million; and specialty binders grew 4.5%, with revenues of $30.8 million.
Michael Kozlowski has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for twelve years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and The New York Times. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
