What are consumers reading? Are they buying books in print, or digital format? Are they devouring Fiction, or Non-fiction? Frontlist, or backlist works? What are the best sellers this month across the juvenile and adult book markets?
To help our clients answer these questions and navigate the rapidly changing U.S. publishing market, our Books industry team relies on both retail and consumer tracking to measure sales of physical and digital books, across all channels.
We track purchases at the point-of-sale from all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, independent bookstores, and more. We also hear what Americans are reading, directly from more than 55,000 U.S. book buyers themselves, so we can help you identify buyer demographics, attitudes, behaviors, and purchase factors.
Our books industry experts know the publishing world inside and out, helping our publishers and retailers make better, faster decisions.
Solutions
NPD BookScan™
NPD BookScan™ is the gold standard in POS tracking for the publishing market. It covers approximately 85 percent of trade print books sold in the U.S., through direct reporting from all major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, independent bookstores, and many others. Data is available to subscribing publishers and contributing retailers, just four days after the period ends, via the NPD BookScan dashboard.
NPD PubTrack Digital™
NPD PubTrack Digital™ is the only resource offering a comprehensive view of today’s digital book market. Featuring information from more than 450 participants, including small, medium, and the largest U.S. publishers, this service provides unprecedented access to the top 80 percent of the traditionally published e-book market.
NPD PubTrack Higher Ed™
NPD PubTrack Higher Ed™ is the premier market intelligence source for the college textbook publishing industry. This service compiles textbook sales information from institutions nationwide to provide the college publishing industry with intelligence tools that can be used in sales, editorial, and marketing.
NPD PubTrack Christian™
NPD PubTrack Christian™ is a data warehouse, aggregation, and analysis system that provides access to weekly book sales information from 225 Christian retail stores. Additionally, NPD PubTrack Christian is a collaborative publisher data-sharing program, which provides a complete channel view of the Christian book market.
NPD Books & Consumers
NPD Books & Consumers, the leading consumer tracker for the publishing industry, gathers data annually from more than 55,000 unique U.S. book buyers ages 13-84. The information covers a wide range of attitudes, behaviors, and purchase factors. NPD Books & Consumers data also includes full demographic profiles and ISBN-verified data on more than 100,000 book purchases per year.
Analytic Solutions
NPD’s Analytic Solutions group includes senior leaders with extensive experience developing and delivering analytic solutions that help clients predict areas of risk and growth to improve marketing and product development. By combining NPD’s unique data assets and industry expertise with state-of-the-discipline research techniques and proprietary solutions, our Analytic Solutions team is able to answer clients’ most pressing business questions.
Reports
Press Releases
Year-To-Date Sales of Travel Books on the Rise in U.S., Reports NPD
According to global information provider The NPD Group, through the end of July 2017, print travel books have experienced 2 percent growth in unit sales, and an overall compound annual growth rate of 1 percent from 2014 to 2016 in the U.S. This is a notable turnaround after a steep 44 percent decline from 2010-2014, and proof that readers are returning to print guidebooks even in the digital age.
NPD Reports Growth In U.S. Print Book Sales For The Fourth Consecutive Year
According to Trends and Findings in Children’s Bookselling, the latest report from global information provider, The NPD Group, print book* unit sales in the U.S. increased 3 percent in 2016, selling over 674 million units vs. the 653 million sold in 2015. The growth in print was driven by considerable increases in sales of Non-Fiction and Children’s books, as well as Adult Coloring books.
NPD Acquires Nielsen U.S. Market Information and Research Services for Book Industry
The NPD Group announced that it has acquired Nielsen’s U.S. market information and research services for the book industry. The acquisition includes: U.S.-based BookScan, PubTrack™ Digital, PubTrack™ Higher Education, PubTrack™ Christian, Books & Consumers™, PubEasy®, and PubNet®. These services will be part of NPD Book, a new U.S. practice area that complements NPD offerings for more than 20 industries, expanding NPD’s expertise in tracking and anticipating industry trends and consumer behavior during a period of unprecedented change.