The PA Statistics Yearbook 2015

The PA Statistics Yearbook 2015, now in its eleventh year, is considered by publishers, the government and media to be the definitive guide for statistics and analysis of the UK publishing industry. The figures in this Yearbook should be put into the context of a booming creative economy. The latest government statistics show that the gross value added of the UK creative industries is £84.1bn, that these industries provide 1.8m jobs and that they have outstripped most other sectors in terms of growth over the last five years.

Highlights:

• Total physical and digital book sales and income from journals up 1% to £4.4bn
• Total digital books and electronic journal subscriptions up 3% to £1.3bn
• Total physical and digital books sales remained at £3.3bn
• Total income from learned journals up 5% to £1.1bn
• Total physical book sales remained at £2.8bn
• Total digital book sales down 2% to £554m
• Digital share of physical and digital book sales remained at 17%
• Home physical and digital book sales up 3% to £1.9bn
• Total exports of physical and digital books down 3% to £1.4bn
• Gross receipts from rights and coeditions up 7% to £173m
• Share of output on paper from known sources up to 97%

Beneath the headline figures is the eye‑catching fact that for the first time since the invention of the ebook, print sales are seeing a resurgence. Those who made predictions about the death of the book may have underestimated just how much people love paper.

Stephen Lotinga, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association

Our thanks to Nielsen Book Research, which has been responsible for the compilation and analysis of sales data on books and digital products, and Roger Watson, for the data on publishers’ income from rights and coeditions in this yearbook. Many thanks too for the individual contributions of those who have written the annual and sector reviews and the exchange rate appendix, to Nielsen BookScan for providing assistance and data to help in the yearbook’s compilation, and the participants of our various statistics schemes. Finally, thanks for all the help with this project to our Yearbook Production Committee, chaired by Mark Gardiner (Penguin Random House), and to Nicholas Clee, the publication’s consultant editor.