BookScan

Last updated
BookScan
IndustryBook Publishing
Founded2001
Headquarters
Woking
,
United Kingdom
ServicesPublishing
Parent
Website Nielsen Book homepage; Circana BookScan homepage

BookScan is a data provider for the book publishing industry that compiles point of sale data for book sales, owned by Circana in the United States and NIQ in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Poland. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

In the United States, Nielsen sold BookScan to NPD in 2017, and the service was renamed NPD BookScan (now Circana BookScan) in that territory. [5] Elsewhere in the world, Nielsen BookScan continues to operate as an independent service.

History

Following the success of Nielsen SoundScan which tracked point of sale figures for music, the Nielsen Company decided to launch a similar service for book sales which had been established and was owned by UK based Whitaker & Sons Ltd. [6] Nielsen BookScan was launched in January 2001. [1] Previously, tracking of book sales, such as by the New York Times Best Seller list, was done without raw numbers. The New York Times would survey hundreds of outlets to estimate which books were selling the most copies, and would publish rankings but not figures. Only the publisher of a book tracked how many copies had been sold, but rarely shared this data.

BookScan operated under Nielsen in the US until 2016 when it was acquired by The NPD Group from Nielsen's U.S. market information and research services for the book industry. In the U.S. the service has been a part of NPD Book since January, 2017. [7] In the rest of the world the BookScan service is owned by NIQ. [8] NIQ was formed from the divestiture of consumer intelligence business of the Nielsen Holdings (known as NielsenIQ) to private equity firm Advent International in March 2021. [9]

Methodology

BookScan relies on point of sale data from a number of major book sellers. In 2009, BookScan's US Consumer Market Panel covered 75% of retail sales.

Use of BookScan

BookScan was initially greeted with scepticism, but is now widely used by both the publishing industry and the media. [2] Publishers use the numbers to track the success of their rivals. The media uses the figures as a reference to gauge a title's success. Daniel Gross of Slate has noted the increase of pundits using the figures to disparage each other. [1]

BookScan also provided previously unavailable metrics on books published by multiple publishers, such as classic novels in the public domain which may be published by many different houses. Previously, no single entity had figures for the sales of these books; publishers and bookstores only knew their own sales. Slate noted that Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was available from Amazon in 130 different editions; prior to BookScan there was no way to tabulate total sales. By summing BookScan data, however, Pride and Prejudice was reported to command sales of 110,000 a year, nearly 200 years after being published. [3]

BookScan records cash register sales of books by tracking ISBNs when a clerk scans the barcode. BookScan only tracks print book sales, thus excluding ebook sales from major e-tailers such as Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Apple, and Google Play. BookScan likewise does not include non-retail sales through channels such as libraries, nor specialty retailers who do not report to the service. [10]

NIQ offers the BookScan service in 10 territories outside the U.S.: the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Mexico, with Poland next to launch. [11] [8] [12]

Related Research Articles

The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. The New York Times Book Review has published the list weekly since October 12, 1931. In the 21st century, it has evolved into multiple lists, grouped by genre and format, including fiction and nonfiction, hardcover, paperback and electronic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NielsenIQ</span> American marketing research firm

NIQ is a global marketing research firm, with worldwide headquarters in Chicago, United States. The company has approximately 30,000 employees and operates in more than 100 countries. NIQ acquired German market research firm GfK in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Out of print</span> Status of a book title at a publishing house

An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book that is no longer being published. The term can apply to specific editions of more popular works, which may then go in and out of print repeatedly, or to the sole printed edition of a work, which is not picked up again by any future publishers for reprint.

Nielsen Holdings plc is an American media audience measurement firm. Nielsen operates in over 100 countries and employs approximately 15,000 people worldwide.

A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties. An author may also be referred to as a bestseller if their work often appears in a list. Well-known bestseller lists in the U.S. are published by Publishers Weekly, USA Today, The New York Times, and IndieBound. The New York Times tracks book sales from national and independent bookstores, as well as sales from major internet retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GfK</span> German market research company

GfK is the largest German market research company. It provides data and intelligence to the consumer goods industry and is headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany. The company is a subsidiary of NIQ.

Circana, Inc., formerly known as IRI Worldwide and The NPD Group, is an American market research and technology company. Its global headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In 2017, NPD ranked as the 8th largest market research company in the world, according to the independent AMA Gold Report Top 50 report. The NPD Group operates in 20 countries, across more than 20 industries. The current name, Circana, was adopted in 2023 after the company's merger with IRI.

Ingram Content Group is an American service provider to the book publishing industry, based in La Vergne, Tennessee. It is a subsidiary of Ingram Industries.

The Bookseller is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Philip Jones is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine and the website. The magazine is home to the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award given annually to the book with the oddest title. The award is organised by The Bookseller's diarist, Horace Bent, and had been administered in recent years by the former deputy editor, Joel Rickett, and former charts editor, Philip Stone. We Love This Book is its quarterly sister consumer website and email newsletter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IRI (company)</span> American data analytics company

IRI was a data analytics and market research company headquartered in the United States. The company provided clients with consumer, shopper, and retail market intelligence as well as analysis on consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail, and healthcare industries. It merged with The NPD Group in 2022 to become Circana.

Sourcebooks LLC is an American book publisher located in Naperville, Illinois. The company publishes books, ebooks, and digital products.

BookNet Canada (BNC) is an industry-led, non-profit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry. It is partially funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage and is accountable to the Government of Canada for servicing and reporting on the Canadian book industry.

Book publishing in India refers to the process of book creation within India, a growing field in recent years, which makes the country the sixth-largest book publishing nation in the world. While there is optimism about the growth of Indian publishing, the sector is also afflicted by a lack of accurate figures about books published, knowledge shared and revenues earned. It is further divided between the local and multinational players, the English language and the local languages publishers. Self-publishing and immense free content, which is an offshoot of the digital revolution in print, further challenge the traditional ways of printing. The major players in Academic Publishing are PHI Learning, Wiley India, Taylor and Francis India, New Age, Viva Books, TMH, Jaico and Manakin Press.

Affirm Press is a Melbourne-based book publisher.

BookBrunch is a British subscription-based website and digital newsletter for the international publishing industry. It is jointly edited by Nicholas Clee and Neill Denny, both former editors of The Bookseller. Nicholas Clee is a former judge of the Booker Prize and author. Neill Denny was previously editor of Retail Week.

David Haddon Whitaker was a British book publisher. A direct descendant of Joseph Whitaker, he joined the family firm, J. Whitaker & Sons, in 1956. Whitaker became involved with the development of Standard Book Numbers, the precursor to the ISBN, in the 1960s. Whitaker's firm was well placed to drive the standard as it published records of all books published in the United Kingdom. The SBN was expanded internationally from 1968 and Whitaker, who is sometimes known as "the father of the ISBN", played a key role in this. He chaired the first International Organization for Standardization (ISO) working group on the ISBN and helped draft ISO standard 2108.

The Bestseller Awards, previously the Nielsen Bestseller Awards and the Whitaker Awards, are given annually for books sold in the United Kingdom on the basis of their total number of sales, both in print and as e-books, as measured by BookScan. In 2024 the awards are hosted by Nielsen BookData and BolognaBookPlus.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Daniel Gross. "Why writers never reveal how many books their buddies have sold." Slate , June 2, 2006. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
  2. 1 2 Jim Milliot and Steven Zeitchik. "Bookscan: Acceptance, And Questions, Grow." Publishers Weekly , January 12, 2004. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
  3. 1 2 Adelle Waldman. "Cents and Sensibility; The surprising truth about sales of classic novels." Slate , April 2, 2003. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
  4. ↑ Anna Weinberg. "Nielsen BookScan Releases Potter Sales Figures Archived 2007-10-15 at the Wayback Machine ." The Book Standard, July 21, 2005. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
  5. ↑ "NPD Buys Nielsen's Book Services". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2019-07-30.
  6. ↑ "The hit makers | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  7. ↑ "Nielsen Sells BookScan, Other U.S. Book Industry Services to NPD Group". American Booksellers Association. 2017-01-20. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  8. 1 2 "Measure". Nielsen Book UK. Retrieved 2019-07-23.
  9. ↑ "Nielsen Announces Completion of Sale Of Global Connect Business to Advent International". Nielsen Holdings. 2021-03-05. Retrieved 2024-08-29.
  10. ↑ "Everything You Wanted to Know about Book Sales (But Were Afraid to Ask)". 30 June 2016.
  11. ↑ Marktdaten in den USA, Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel, January 20, 2017
  12. ↑ Gupta, Kanishka (11 November 2017). "Decoding a bestseller: How Nielsen BookScan is changing some aspects of Indian publishing". Scroll.in . Retrieved 21 April 2020.

Further reading

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