Study predicts book sales to remain flat

As publishers pray for a new children’s series to equal Harry Potter and await the next novel by “Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, a new report predicts a tight market for at least the next few years.

The Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit organization supported by the publishing industry, projects a 3 percent to 4 percent growth in revenues through 2011 but expects little change in the actual number of books sold.

The biggest losers likely will be mass market paperbacks – which continue to plunge as baby boomers seek formats with larger print – while religious books should keep growing, by more than 5 percent annually.

Another new survey, by Zogby International, shows that American readers buy books most frequently online and in chain stores, with considerably fewer seeking out independent stores as their first choice.

Asked about their overall buying habits, 77 percent said they shop online, 76 percent buy at chains and 49 percent shop at independent stores, the survey found.

The great majority of readers, 82 percent, said they preferred to read traditional, printed books and only 11 percent indicated that they were comfortable reading books in other formats, such as an e-book reader on a hand-held device.