A Positive Report on Sales of Print Books + Exciting Ken Follett News + An Interview with Randy Morkved of Balcony7

Before I get to the print book report, I just saw some VERY EXCITING NEWS from Ken Follett.  After finishing his fantastic Century Trilogy (book 3, Edge of Eternity, is in my top 25 all-time), Follett is now working on a sequel to...wait for it...Pillars of the Earth and World without End!  Is that great news or what?  Okay, it won't be ready until the 2nd half of 2017. But that's only 1.5 (or so) years from now.  For those of you who are new to my blog, Pillars is in my top 3 books ever (along with Michener's The Source and Clavell's Shogun). And World without End is in my 2nd 12 (now 13).  This is truly outstanding news.

The next item is an interview that Randy Morkved,  who is the founder and CEO of Balcony7, gave to the Library Journal.  Who are Randy and Balcony7?  Well Balcony7 is the company that publishes Ann Bridges (Private Offerings), Tyler Draa (Mastering the Mechanics of Civil Jury Trials), and Josh Russell (Little Boy Soup), along with a bunch of others.  Read what he has to say about his company and authors, as well as the publishing industry - http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2015/12/in-the-bookroom/authors/qa-randy-l-morkved/.

Finally, here is the report, with a graph, that shows how the print book is making a comeback.  But don't worry ereader fans.  You're down a bit but still strong.
 

For the last half decade, ever since digital books and e-readers first came on the scene, news headlines have been at war. “The physical book is dead,” some reports declared, while others vehemently argued for the eternality of the printed word.

Data, actually, supports the latter sentiment. At least in the US, sales of physical books have experienced a renewed surge of interest, according to Nielsen BookScan, a data provider that collects data on roughly 85% of the print market.

As of early December 2015, Nielsen says, around 571 million paper books have been sold in the country—a modest but noticeable increase over the 559 million sold in 2014.

Publishers told the Associated Press this week that the rise of coloring books and books authored by YouTube stars this year seems to have contributed to Americans’ re-investment in physical books. The release of Harper Lee’s much-buzzed-about (albeit bizarre) second novel Go Set A Watchman also may have played a part; Lee’s book sold four times as many copies in hardcover as in e-book format, suggesting that most readers wanted to own a physical copy of the historic book, HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham told the AP.

While it’d be a stretch to say that the physical book is thriving, it’s at least staying strong. The same can’t be said of the e-book, which is seeing a decline in popularity. A Pew Research Center study in October found that fewer Americans are buying and using e-reading devices like Kindles and Nooks than they did in past years.

Assuming these trends continue, 2016 might just be the year that the physical book makes—fingers crossed—a real comeback.