About

Nielsen BookData was first established in the UK in 1858 when Joseph Whitaker founded The Bookseller magazine. The early issues included a listing of publications each month compiled from 129 publishers and the data elements listed included price, publisher, author and a brief description of the book. Since then, the number of publishers and elements we gather has grown exponentially but the principle remains the same: to disseminate bibliographic data to the industry to aid the discovery and purchase of books. We launched our Australia and New Zealand metadata services in the late 90s as part of our expansion to gather title information about English-language books from around the world.

As well as our Metadata services, we have a long and established role within the book supply chain measuring book sales around the world. In 2023 we merged with GfK and extended our reach from 12 territories to 17 countries. Our first BookScan panel was launched in the UK in 1998 and we’ve been measuring weekly point of sale book sales ever since. Our BookScan Australia and New Zealand panels were launched in 2002 and 2007 respectively. In 2016 we launched our e-book sales reporting service in the UK which now also includes data from Australia and New Zealand.

We employ around 130 staff and have offices in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the UAE. Nielsen BookData is wholly owned by NielsenIQ.