One of the industries that was influenced by Coronavirus was the American book publishing companies.
COVID-19 is an infectious disease which caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In addition to people’s health, this disease has affected goals, jobs and economic stability.
Coronavirus affected all industries. This virus was a nightmare for most industries, so many companies and factories went bankrupt, but some found a solution and took advantages of this challenge and made it a positive impact.
American book publishing companies were winners of pandemic situation
Contrary to popular belief, the Coronavirus was not harmful to all businesses. COVID-19 even made huge profits for some large international companies. American book publishing companies were one of the winners.
Following the outbreak of Coronavirus and its aftermath, 2020 was expected to be a catastrophic year for the publishing and book industry, but the good news is that quarantine have led people to study, and bring prosperity back to the market.
During this time, many people were in home quarantine or some businesses were forced to close, and were deprived of entertainment such as concerts and going to the movies, many people in the United States turned to reading or at least buying books this year.
Physical books vs. audio-book/e-book market during pandemic
According to the American Publishers Guild, although the number of physical customers fell sharply in 2020, but audio-book sales revenue increased by more than 17% compared to 2019, and e-book sales which declined over the past few years grew by more than 16%.
While the corona outbreak in the United States has caused serious problems for the US economy, the country’s publishing market grew by 2.8% compared to the first six months of 2019.
Official statistics show that in the first 6 months of 2020, book sales amounted to 322 million dollars, which is an increase compared to the same period in 2019, which was 313 million dollars.
According to the NPD BookScan, Paper book sales rose nearly 8% last year, also Sales of e-books and audio-books, which make up a smaller portion of the market had a slight grew.
Book sales fell sharply with the start of USA quarantines and closures in March, but the slump did not last long. Although some parts of this industry, such as bookstores and educational publishers are still struggling, but publishers say demand has returned to market around June.
Most of these books were sold by Amazon online retailers, but big stores, especially Target Stores had good markets. These stores were essential businesses, and they selling things like groceries, but during the global quarantine they were also allowed to provide services and sell books to customers.
Reader Link CEO Dennis Abbott, who distributes books to chain store such as Target, Walmart and Costco, says his company’s online sales have nearly quadrupled since last year. According to him, the sales rate was good and bad at the same time, the market had no definition at the beginning of the year, but it came to life at the end of the year.
The effect of quarantine on book reading habits
The US Department of Labor recently published a report on the state of book reading in the country, which justifies the theory of increasing book sales during the quarantine in this country.
According to publishers weekly (PW), the study times has increased by 21 percent in the middle of 2020, which is said to be mainly due to the presence of people in houses and quarantine.
Statistics show that Americans spent more time reading books in the first half of last year than in 2019, compared to an average of 17 minutes a day in 2019. According to this report, the rate of reading between the ages of 20 and 34 has been more than other sections of society.
In conclusion,
we realized that American book publishing companies did not losses but also made a very good profit during the Coronavirus pandemic and quarantine. This effect was also positive for the people who were in quarantine, because they did not waste their time, also their information was added.
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