The total revenue for 2009 came to R1,569,006,660 through the sale of 12,628,234 units across 276,860 unique titles, compared to the R1,491,140,307 and 12,578,151 units across 272,897 titles sold in 2008. The average selling price increased by 4.79% from R118.56 in 2008 to R124.25 in 2009.

Adult Non-fiction made up 44.92% of the total sales, down from the 47.43% of 2008, with the Stephenie Meyer titles helping the Children’s Fiction share increase from 7.75% to 9.25% in 2009.

Neilsen BookScan's General Retail Market (GCM) survey, which measures high street sales, showed a drop of almost seven per cent in 2009, to £968 million.

It is the first time the value of high street sales has dropped below the one billion pound mark since 2003 - when average book prices were significantly lower.

read the full article at www.telegraph.co.uk

Barnes & Noble Inc. says it's launching a textbook rental program for college students.

The new program will be available though campus bookstores or the stores' Web sites. It's designed to allow students to cut their textbook costs by as much as 50 percent for some titles.

read the full article at www.businessweek.com

-- Publishers Weekly, 1/11/2010

Sales at Barnes & Noble's retail stores fell 5% in the nine-week holiday period ended January 2, falling to $1.1 billion. Same-store sales declined 5.4% in the period, and the nation's largest book retailer acknowledged that results were below expectations. For the full third quarter that ends at the end of January, B&N had expected same-store sales to decline 1%–3%. Slow customer traffic was cited as the main reason for the shortfall.

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