The Bookseller - Editor's Letter - Book publishing will have rarely have had a better two years than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

I base this bold, perhaps surprising, analysis on the latest figures from the UK Publishers Association, which show that sales of books, journals and rights grew 5% in 2021, ending the year on a record high of £6.7bn. That 5% figure builds on the 2% growth reported for 2020, and the result means publishing exits the crisis almost half a billion pounds bigger than it was before the first lockdown. For those who require a longer-term perspective, the stats are even better. Back in 2011, the big number was less than £4bn-meaning, if you believe the two figures are collated broadly on a like-for-like basis, that UK publishing has grown by another half in a decade. Along with the growth, change has also been a constant: exports make up more than half that overall number, and it is likely that digital will soon overtake print.