A Storm Brewing in Big Cities?
Why Book Sales Growth Is So Slow…

The global pandemic led to unprecedented changes in key areas of the publishing sector. One of the largest segments impacted was in-store book sales.

While smaller cities are “getting back to normal” with sales started to stabilize and increase, larger cities appear to still be impacted with little to no growth overall.

For example, sales in the largest book market in the US, the New York metropolitan region, only increased about 1%, a growth rate that is staggeringly lower than the average 15% increase in the country. Conversely, smaller markets such as Portland, Maine, saw sales increase 37%, which is 22 percentage points above the market average.

So, why is this occurring? Major reasons include stricter lockdowns in larger cities, universities switching from in-person to remote learning and migration away from big cities because people were allowed or required to work from home.

To read full article, please visit: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/89517-why-aren-t-city-dwellers-buying-books.html