BookScanis adataprovider for thebookpublishingindustry that compilespoint of saledata for book sales, owned byCircanain the United States andNIQin the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Poland.[1][2][3][4]
| Industry | Book Publishing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | , United Kingdom |
| Services | Publishing |
| Parent | |
| Website | Nielsen Book homepage;Circana BookScan homepage |
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
editFollowing the success ofNielsen SoundScanwhich trackedpoint of salefigures for music, theNielsen Companydecided 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 theNew York Times Best Seller list,was done without raw numbers.The New York Timeswould 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 byThe NPD Groupfrom 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 byNIQ.[8]NIQ was formed from the divestiture of consumer intelligence business of the Nielsen Holdings (known as NielsenIQ) to private equity firmAdvent Internationalin March 2021.[9]
Methodology
editBookScan 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
editBookScan 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 GrossofSlatehas 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 thepublic domainwhich 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.Slatenoted thatJane Austen'sPride and Prejudicewas 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 Prejudicewas 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 asAmazon Kindle,Barnes & NobleNook,Kobo,Apple,andGoogle 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]
References
edit- ^abcDaniel Gross."Why writers never reveal how many books their buddies have sold."Slate,June 2, 2006. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
- ^abJim Milliot and Steven Zeitchik. "Bookscan: Acceptance, And Questions, Grow."Publishers Weekly,January 12, 2004. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
- ^abAdelle Waldman."Cents and Sensibility; The surprising truth about sales of classic novels."Slate,April 2, 2003. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
- ^Anna Weinberg. "Nielsen BookScan Releases Potter Sales FiguresArchived2007-10-15 at theWayback Machine."The Book Standard,July 21, 2005. Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
- ^"NPD Buys Nielsen's Book Services".PublishersWeekly.Retrieved2019-07-30.
- ^"The hit makers | The Bookseller".thebookseller.Retrieved2019-07-26.
- ^"Nielsen Sells BookScan, Other U.S. Book Industry Services to NPD Group".American Booksellers Association.2017-01-20.Retrieved2018-07-04.
- ^ab"Measure".Nielsen Book UK.Retrieved2019-07-23.
- ^"Nielsen Announces Completion of Sale Of Global Connect Business to Advent International".Nielsen Holdings.2021-03-05.Retrieved2024-08-29.
- ^"Everything You Wanted to Know about Book Sales (But Were Afraid to Ask)".30 June 2016.
- ^Marktdaten in den USA,Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel,January 20, 2017
- ^Gupta, Kanishka (11 November 2017)."Decoding a bestseller: How Nielsen BookScan is changing some aspects of Indian publishing".Scroll.in.Retrieved21 April2020.
Further reading
edit- Andrews, Kurt; Napoli, Philip (2006), "Changing Market Information Regimes: A Case Study of the Transition to the BookScan Audience Measurement System in the U.S. Book Publishing Industry",Journal of Media Economics,19(1): 33–54,doi:10.1207/s15327736me1901_3,S2CID154342742.
External links
edit- Nielsen BookScan,year 2017
- Nielsen BookScan