The research suggests it rose by 3% to £3.4bn in 2007, with an overall growth of around 14% compared with 2003 results. It goes on to indicate that UK publishers sold an estimated 787 million books in 2006, with an invoiced value of £2.8bn.

Out of the total volume, £1.8bn were for UK sales and £999m were exports. It suggests that throughout the period between 2008 and 2012 the UK market for books is expected to demonstrate steady growth of between 1% and 2%.

The report predicts that the consumer book market will grow to £2.7bn by 2012, the academic and professional book sector will increase by 10% to £738m, and the school book sector will achieve sales of £274m.