Jonathan Stolper, becoming NPD Book president, gives a keynote at DBW 2017 on Tuesday (January 17) in New York City. Image: IPG
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Jonathan Stolper Becomes President of NPD Book
In an announcement released late Thursday (January 19), the NPD Group has announced that it has acquired Nielsen’s US book-industry information and research services.
Jonathan Stolper
The key word here is “services.” Nielsen senior vice president and global managing director Jonathan Stolper tells Publishing Perspectives, “NPD has acquired the US Nielsen Book services, not the business.”
He goes on to say, “Nielsen will continue to provide full operational support for all newly branded NPD US book services during a transition period in which there will be no change of service.”
And in fact, it’s Stolper who will lead the new NPD Book practice, becoming its president. The face of the services remains familiar to the book industry, then—Stolper gave a keynote address on the opening day of Digital Book World‘s eighth annual conference this week in New York City.
What’s more, NPD has offered all employees of the US-based commercial Nielsen Book a chance to join the NPD Book team, Stolper tells us.
The acquired group of products includes US BookScan, PubTrack Digital, PubTrack Higher Education, PubTrack Christian, Books & Consumers, PubEasy, and PubNet.
These services are being rolled into NPD Book, forming a new US “practice area,” as it’s called in the industry, which complements NPD’s research and data offerings in more than 20 industries.
Nielsen is to continue providing operational support for NPD Book products during a transitional stage. And Nielsen’s international portfolio remains intact: the company continues to own and operate Nielsen Book outside of the States, in nine countries as well as in any international expansion markets.
In a prepared statement, NPD president and COO Karyn Schoenbart is quoted, saying, “Industry expertise is a hallmark of NPD, and we are excited to add services for the book industry.
“Like many of our industries, publishing is experiencing rapid and dramatic change.
“By combining data and industry expertise, we’ll be able to give the industry a winning advantage in understanding and anticipating trends.”
The new berth for the book services places them into a large cluster of sister practices in consumer research at NPD, which is based in Port Washington, New York, and has offices in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, California, and Mexico.
Practice areas at NPD include apparel, appliances, automotive and beauty products, consumer electronics, diamonds, e-commerce, entertainment, fashion accessories, food consumption, food service, footwear, home, mobile, office supplies, retail, sports, technology, toys, video games, and watches and jewelry.
As it has done as Nielsen Book, NPD Book will track some 85 percent of US retail sales of physical books, with PubTrack Digital drawing its digital data from some 30 publishers.
Nielsen, on the international stage, which remains Publishing Perspectives’ main focus, has operations in more than 100 countries, giving it what the company says is coverage of more than 90 percent of the world population.