News

Becomes First Publisher to Receive the Award Twice

Today, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) awarded Avesta Publishing House, based in Turkey, the 2026 AAP International Freedom to Publish Award. The award recognizes a publisher outside of the United States who has demonstrated courage and fortitude in defending freedom of expression.

Previously, Avesta was the 2005 Freedom to Publish Award recipient, and in 2019 the house was honored in the “Publisher” category of the Turkish Publishers Association’s “Freedom of Thought and Expression Awards.” In the years since these awards, Avesta has continued to operate under extremely difficult conditions, including threats, lawsuits and harassment. As a result, this award reflects the core values of AAP’s Freedom to Publish Award by recognizing a truly indefatigable dedication to publishing.

“AAP first recognized Avesta’s extraordinary contributions a little over twenty years ago and despite continuous threats and intimidation since that time their commitment to publishing has only grown stronger,” commented Maria A. Pallante, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. “We are moved to celebrate Avesta’s brave, decades-long struggle because it underscores an essential fact: the battle for free expression is central to freedom more generally but is never truly won. It must be fought over and over, day by day, and decade after decade. On behalf of AAP’s Board of Directors, membership, and staff, I thank Avesta’s leadership and entire team for setting the standard for bravery, stamina and determination.”

“On behalf of Avesta, we thank AAP’s President, Board and staff for this extraordinary gesture,” commented Abdullah Keskin, the founder of Avesta. “Receiving AAP’s Freedom to Publish Award for the second time provides an enormous boost to our mission of encouraging Kurdish literature, research and culture, casting a bright light that will illuminate our way forward on the long road ahead.”

About Avesta Publishing House

Founded in Istanbul in 1995 with the motto “In Search of Lost Cultures,” Avesta Publishing House has published more than 900 books in multiple languages, focusing on works of Kurdish literature and research on the history and traditions of the Kurdish people. Between 1997 and 2007, Avesta faced several lawsuits in Turkey’s State Security Courts for roughly twenty of its publications, some of which were banned. In 2016, its warehouse in Sur/Diyarbakır was sabotaged, resulting in over 3,000 books being burned or rendered unusable and the bookstore being closed. In 2023, their website was banned on false claims of “terrorist propaganda.” Between 2017 and 2025, more than 20 of their books were banned by local courts.  

Sample Titles

Burhan's Book: I Left My Soul in That Land by Hüseyin Kalkan whom, after receiving threats for his reporting, was shot in the neck and paralyzed. In 2025, the Diyarbakır 2nd Magistrates' Court (Sulh Ceza Hakimliği) banned Burhan's Book: I Left My Soul in That Land along with four other books, ordering a moratorium on the printing, distribution, and sale of titles, along with the confiscation and seizure of all existing copies.

Martyrs, Traitors and Patriots – Kurdistan from the Gulf War to the Present Day by Sheri Laizer, against which the Mersin 3rd Criminal Court of Peace issued a ban and seizure decision 2017.

The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage and Justice, by American author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published in Turkish translation by Avesta, which has faced multiple ban and seizure orders.

About the AAP International Freedom to Publish Award

Established in 2002, AAP’s International Freedom to Publish Award recognizes a publisher outside the United States who has demonstrated courage and fortitude in defending freedom of expression. In bestowing the award, AAP is guided by the principle that if one of us is denied the right to publish that threat affects us all. Previous recipients of the award include Freedom Letters, a Russian and Ukrainian language publisher in 2025, Januškevič Publishing House, a Belarusian publisher that now operates from Poland in 2024, Venezuela-based Editorial Dahbar in 2022, Guatemala-based F&G Editores in 2021, and Bangladesh-based Jagriti Publishing House in 2020. In 2023, we did not specify one publisher, instead dedicating the award to publishing houses from around the world that face government pressure, harassment, and threats.

About AAP

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) represents the leading book, journal, and education publishers in the United States on matters of law and policy, advocating for outcomes that incentivize the publication of creative and intellectual expression in support of a vibrant, imaginative, and informed democracy. As essential participants in local markets and the global economy, our members invest in and inspire the exchange of ideas, transforming the world we live in one word at a time. AAP members include large, small, independent, educational, and scholarly houses who collectively publish the world’s preeminent authors, including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Newbery Medal, Man Booker Prize, Caldecott Medal, and Nobel Prize. Learn more at publishers.org.

On September 30, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit released its opinion upholding the decision of the district court finding that ROSS Intelligence’s unlicensed use of Thomson Reuters’s copyrighted material to train a competing AI legal research platform was not fair use. Thomson Reuters filed suit in May 2020 when ROSS used Westlaw headnotes to train its AI platform. The district court in Delaware issued the first copyright opinion on the question of AI training, now being litigated along with other questions in approximately 150 cases in the United States.

“Rightsholders are entitled to equitable participation in the AI market, and we are pleased to see this milestone decision by the Third Circuit uphold the basic principles of fairness that will be central to a future in which innovation and creativity work together for all stakeholders and the public,” says AAP President and CEO Maria A. Pallante. “As the court indicates, AI is not the first technology to exploit expressive works of authorship, and ROSS usurped Thomson Reuters’s right to enter a derivative market for licensing headnotes for AI training.”

“As we explained in our amicus brief filed in November 2025, fair use cannot ‘ignore markets to which rightsholders are fundamentally entitled and are both exploiting and preparing to exploit.’ Here, on the fourth fair use factor, market effect of the use, the Third Circuit correctly noted that the licensing market for AI training not only exists but is ‘rapidly developing.’ Critically, the court noted that ROSS’s use harmed the value of works that draw users to the rightsholder’s platform and rejected the argument that a rightsholder’s decision not to license ‘does not disprove that a market exists to do so.’ 

We applaud the court for this powerful precedent, which supports the premise that a robust licensing market among developers and rightsholders is essential to achieving sustainable and ethical progress in AI technology.”

The opinion of the Third Circuit can be found here.

Trade (Consumer Book) Revenues Up 16.4% for Month of July, and Up 5.5% Year-to-Date

Today, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its StatShot report covering July 2026, reflecting reported revenue for Trade (Consumer Books), Education (combines PreK-12 Instructional Materials and Higher Education Course Materials), and Professional & Scholarly Publishing.

Total revenue across all categories for July 2026 was up 14.0%, coming in at $1.0 billion as compared to July 2025. Year-to-date, compared with 2025, revenues were up 5.4%, at $6.7 billion in 2026.

The full report is available for purchase on AAP’s website.

Trade (Consumer Books) Revenues

July

Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were up 16.4% in July at $804.1 million. In terms of physical formats during the month of July, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 18.5%, coming in at $242.5 million; Paperbacks were up 25.2%, with $311.6 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 43.7% to $5.8 million; and Special Bindings were down 1.0%, with $20.6 million in revenue. 

eBook revenues were down 3.4% to $85.3 million for the month, and revenues from the Digital Audio format were up 12.4% for July, coming in at $103.1 million. Physical Audio revenues were up 36.7%, coming in at $400 thousand.

Year-to-date

Year-to-date Trade revenues were up 5.5% to $5.4 billion. Hardback revenues were up 1.4% year-to-date, coming in at $1.8 billion; Paperbacks were up 10.8%, with $2.0 billion in revenue; Mass Market was down 62.7% to $20.7 million; and Special Bindings were up 16.3%, with $132.1 million in revenue.

eBook revenues were down 3.1% compared to 2025, totaling $601.4 million. Digital Audio revenue was up 12.6% to $700.9 million, while Physical Audio revenue was down 8.0% to $3.1 million.

Religious Presses Down 4.3% in July

Religious Presses revenue was down 4.3% compared to the same month in 2025, coming in at $59.5 million. Hardback revenues were down 6.8% at $32.4 million; Paperback revenues were up 1.4% to $13.2 million; eBook revenues were down 11.6%, coming in at $3.3 million; and Digital Audio revenues were down 14.4%, at $3.3 million.

On a year-to-date basis, Religious Presses revenue was up 0.8% during the first seven months of 2026 when compared with the same period in 2025, coming in at $473.1 million. Hardback revenues were down 2.8% to $275.1 million; Paperback revenue was up 8.4% to $92.9 million; eBook revenue was down 0.5% to $28.7 million; and Digital Audio revenue was flat at $27.4 million.

Professional & Scholarly Publishing Down 2.9% for July 2026

Professional & Scholarly Publishing, including business, medical, law, technical, scientific, and other books and excluding journals, was down 2.9% for July 2026, coming in at $32.8 million. The category was up 1.0% for the first seven months of the year when compared to the same period in 2025, coming in at $231.9 million.

Education Materials (including PreK-12 Instructional Materials and Higher Education Course Materials) Up 2.3% for July 2026

During July 2026, revenues from Education Materials totaled $168.6 million, up 2.3% compared with July 2025. Year-to-date Education Materials revenues totaled $964.9 million, up 3.2% compared to the first seven months of 2025.

AAP’s StatShot

AAP StatShot reports the monthly and yearly net revenue of publishing houses from U.S. sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, and other channels. StatShot draws revenue data from more than 1,416 publishers, although participation may fluctuate slightly from report to report.

StatShot reports are designed to give ongoing revenue snapshots across publishing sectors using the best data currently available. The reports reflect participants’ most recent reported revenue for current and previous periods, enabling readers to compare revenue on both a month-to-month and year-to-year basis within a given StatShot report.

Monthly and yearly StatShot reports may not align completely across reporting periods, because: a) The pool of StatShot participants may fluctuate from report to report; and b) Like any business, it is common accounting practice for publishing houses to update and restate their previously reported revenue data. If, for example, a business learns that its revenues were greater in a given year than its reports first indicated, it will restate the revenues in subsequent reports to AAP, permitting AAP in turn to report information that is more accurate than previously reported.

Trade (Consumer Book) Revenues Up 12.1% for Month of June, and Up 3.8% Year-to-Date

Today, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its StatShot report covering June 2026, reflecting reported revenue for Trade (Consumer Books), Education (combines PreK-12 Instructional Materials and Higher Education Course Materials), and Professional & Scholarly Publishing.

Total revenue across all categories for June 2026 was up 11.0%, coming in at $936.3 million as compared to June 2025. Year-to-date, compared with 2025, revenues were up 3.9%, at $5.6 billion in 2026.

Trade (Consumer Books) Revenues

June

Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were up 12.1% in June at $765.1 million. In terms of physical formats during the month of June, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 14.5%, coming in at $243.6 million; Paperbacks were up 18.2%, with $292.2 million in revenue; Mass Market was up 20.2% to $4.9 million; and Special Bindings were down 4.6%, with $17.0 million in revenue. 

eBook revenues were down 0.3% to $86.4 million for the month, and revenues from the Digital Audio format were up 3.9% for June, coming in at $97.4 million. Physical Audio revenues were down 30.1%, coming in at $500 thousand.

Year-to-date

Year-to-date Trade revenues were up 3.8% to $4.6 billion. Hardback revenues were down 0.8% year-to-date, coming in at $1.5 billion; Paperbacks were up 8.5%, with $1.7 billion in revenue; Mass Market was down 67.0% to $15.0 million; and Special Bindings were up 20.2%, with $111.6 million in revenue.

eBook revenues were down 3.0% compared to 2025, totaling $516.1 million. Digital Audio revenue was up 12.6% to $597.8 million, while Physical Audio revenue was down 12.3% to $2.7 million.

Religious Presses Up 4.8% in June

Religious Presses revenue was up 4.8% compared to the same month in 2025, coming in at $62.5 million. Hardback revenues were flat at $37.3 million; Paperback revenues were up 21.0% to $11.5 million; eBook revenues were down 11.3%, coming in at $3.8 million; and Digital Audio revenues were down 1.9%, at $3.5 million.

On a year-to-date basis, Religious Presses revenue was up 1.6% during the first six months of 2026 when compared with the same period in 2025, coming in at $413.6 million. Hardback revenues were down 2.2% to $242.7 million; Paperback revenue was up 9.7% to $79.7 million; eBook revenue was up 1.1% to $25.4 million; and Digital Audio revenue was up 2.3% to $24.1 million.

Professional & Scholarly Publishing Down 3.4% for June 2026

Professional & Scholarly Publishing, including business, medical, law, technical, scientific, and other books and excluding journals, was down 3.4% for June 2026, coming in at $32.4 million. The category was up 1.7% for the first six months of the year when compared to the same period in 2025, coming in at $199.1 million.

Education Materials (including PreK-12 Instructional Materials and Higher Education Course Materials) Up 4.4% for June 2026

During June 2026, revenues from Education Materials totaled $123.5 million, up 4.4% compared with June 2025. Year-to-date Education Materials revenues totaled $796.2 million, up 3.4% compared to the first six months of 2025.

AAP’s StatShot

AAP StatShot reports the monthly and yearly net revenue of publishing houses from U.S. sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, and other channels. StatShot draws revenue data from more than 1,416 publishers, although participation may fluctuate slightly from report to report.

StatShot reports are designed to give ongoing revenue snapshots across publishing sectors using the best data currently available. The reports reflect participants’ most recent reported revenue for current and previous periods, enabling readers to compare revenue on both a month-to-month and year-to-year basis within a given StatShot report.

Monthly and yearly StatShot reports may not align completely across reporting periods, because: a) The pool of StatShot participants may fluctuate from report to report; and b) Like any business, it is common accounting practice for publishing houses to update and restate their previously reported revenue data. If, for example, a business learns that its revenues were greater in a given year than its reports first indicated, it will restate the revenues in subsequent reports to AAP, permitting AAP in turn to report information that is more accurate than previously reported.

Submissions Wanted for Outstanding Professional and Scholarly Works Published in 2026

The Association of American Publishers is now inviting entries for its prestigious PROSE Awards for eligible works published in 2026. Submissions will be accepted from September 8^th through midnight ET on November 13^th. 

The PROSE Awards recognize the very best professional and scholarly works across five category areas: Biological and Life Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Reference Works. Publishers are eligible to win a series of excellence awards as well as the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award.  

AAP’s PROSE Awards have recognized scholarly works of authorship since 1976.  Submitting publishers must be a member of either the Association of American Publishers (AAP) or the Association of University Presses (AUPresses). All entries must have a 2026 copyright, and the submission fee is $115 per entry.  

To submit an entry, please click here.

For guidelines, FAQs, and past winners, please see here.