Computer, technology book sales down [except for the Mac]
Unsurprisingly, as Mac unit volume has held up and even returned to growth in the first half of 2009, the market for books about coding for the fairer platform have done well, too. Of course, although still tops in terms of volume, sales of Windows related titles have plummeted.
O’Reilly, quoting Nielsen Bookscan US Retail Point-of-Sale data, reports that the first half of 2009 has been marked by a general technology book buying slump, which has seen nearly 600,000 fewer tomes sold. But, as with the wider economy, there are bright spots for those who know where to look.
No matter how we look at the data, it’s not great news. Of our top 121 established categories, only 8 of them showed an increase in units sold for the first half of 2009. In descending order those categories are: Mac Programming, Objective C (i.e. the coding language of the Mac), Online Video, Global Positioning Device, Computerized Home, Mobile Programming, Coordinated Systems and Open Source Topics.
The book publisher also lists the top eight categories taking a fall this year with Office Suites, Web Programming, Mac OS, Web Page Creation, Spreadsheats, Rich Web Interface, Digital Photography and Windows Consumer topping their list.
Smallish fish in the larger pond
However, O’Reilly notes that most of the top eight growth categories didn’t managed large enough volume numbers to be reckoned in the company’s top 20 categories overall. So, whereas things Mac and mobile were among the top engines of growth, and Windows catalog sales fell off a cliff, titles related to Microsoft’s various properties were still volume leaders overall.
Nevertheless, a big bright spot for fairer platform is that Objective-C, the default coding language of Apple’s BSD-based OS X, is that it has grown into a volume seller for O’Reilly, which coincides with a trebling of the Mac’s market share to nearly 10 percent and user base from 25 to 75 million.
Further, O’Reilly expects that Windows 7, Snow Leopard and HTML 5 will help drive sales in the second half, though overall volume will still trend in negative territory.
Have you cut your technology book buying this year? What topics are you still buying?
Personally, I’ve purchase few if any tech books since learning to code in HTML on an LC 575 all those years ago…
What’s your take?
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