BOOK SALES CONTINUE TO FALL           

New York, NY.  December 5, 2011.  Continued substantial growth of e-book sales was not enough to hold off a decline in total book sales.  The combined sales of e-books and print books showed a decline in year-over-year reductions year-to-date through September of 5.7%.  These are the figures as reported by the Association of American Publishers.  The print book segment most hurt by the growth of e-books is the mass market paperback.  This segment saw sales drop 54.3% when compared to September of 2010.  Religious publishers saw a drop of 6.3% for September compared to the previous year.  However, the religious book segment has seen growth of 6.6% for the first nine months of the year as a result of good growth earlier in the year.