Paperback and Audiobook Sales Are Up
Oline H. Cogdill


girlonthetrain emilyblunt
I am not a fan of process stories—those statistics-laden stories meant to tell us how things work. Usually, they just make my eyes glaze over.

But when it comes to books and reading habits, I am happy to hear statistics that show good news.

According to The New York Times, paperback book sales are up. Independent bookstores are thriving again, and e-book sales have tumbled.

The Times reports: “Sales of adult books fell by 10.3 percent in the first three months of 2016, and children’s books dropped by 2.1 percent. E-book sales fell by 21.8 percent, and hardcover sales were down 8.5 percent. The strongest categories were digital audiobooks, which rose by 35.3 percent, and paperback sales, which were up by 6.1 percent.”

OK, so it is not all good news.

But any increase of books, no matter the platform, is good news.

The Times acknowledges that several factors might have made book sales at the beginning of this year slightly worse than those in the same period last year.

The Times states that “like the movie business, publishing depends heavily on a few outsize hits each season to drive profits. In the early part of this year, there wasn’t a huge, breakout bestseller, certainly nothing like 2015’s The Girl on the Train, which came out in January and sold two million copies in just over four months.”

But I am sure that we’ll see an increase in the sale of the paperback version of The Girl on the Train when the movie version comes out in a few weeks.

The advance clips of the film version, starring Emily Blunt (pictured), look great.

And I hope that inspires more people to buy Paula Hawkins’ book, as well as other mystery novels.

If you are looking for a list of mysteries written by women that are equal to or even better than The Girl on the Train, let me suggest a few: Laura Lippman, Alison Gaylin, Alex Marwood, Megan Abbott, Julia Keller, Clare Mackintosh, Jennifer McMahon, Val McDermid, Alafair Burke, Allison Brennan, Lisa Unger, Karin Slaughter, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Elizabeth Hand, and a slew of others.

And yes, there are an equal number of wonderful mystery writers who are men, but I am making the comparison to The Girl on the Train, not Boy on the Train.

Bottom line: read, buy books, buy audiobooks, buy paperbacks.

Just read.

Photo: Emily Blunt in The Girl on the Train. Photo courtesy DreamWorks Pictures and Reliance Entertainment

Oline Cogdill
2016-09-28 18:20:00