2021 Was a Stellar Year for Publishing (publishersweekly.com)

As has been well documented, the pandemic had many unexpected consequences over the past few years, not the least of which was a boom in trade book sales in both 2020 and 2021. But while the trade segment fared well in 2020, the other major publishing segments did not, and total industry sales had only a 0.2% gain that year over 2019. In 2021, trade sales jumped again, but so did sales in the other segments, resulting in a 12.3% increase in total sales, to $29.33 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers’ final statistics for the year.

The final figure marks a major improvement over numbers from the previous four years, when sales ranged between $25 billion and $26 billion. In 2021, sales in all segments except professional books topped their 2019 numbers, which have become a measuring stick many companies use given the volatility of the past two years.

The most notable improvement in 2021 was in the pre-K–12 instructional materials category, where sales jumped 25.3%, to $4.81 billion (the highest they’ve been in five years), as students returned to schools in greater numbers. That increase followed a 12.3% decline in 2020. After a 5.2% drop in sales in 2020, the higher education category also saw a gain last year, with sales rising 2.8% over 2020, to $3.22 billion.
much more at: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/90440-2021-was-a-stellar-year-for-publishing.html