I came across this on the UK Trade & Investment website...makes you proud!

Publishing: marketing message 1

The UK publishing industry has one of the most productive outputs of any publishing industry in the world and makes a significant commercial contribution to UK plc.

Publishing is the UK’s largest media sector, employing more people and adding more to the country’s bottom line than any other.
The UK publishing sector has a combined turnover of some £19 billion.
Of all the UK's creative industries, publishing makes the largest contribution to the country's Gross Value Added (GVA). In 2009, it generated nearly £11.6 billion in GVA. (1)
The UK publishing industry employs over 243,800 people in 9,700 businesses. (1)
The UK publishing industry is one of the most successful in the world for the breadth, depth and quality of content it creates, as well as the multiple ways in which that content is brought to market.
In terms of turnover, the UK has the second-largest publishing industry in Europe and one of the largest in the world. London is considered one of the world’s leading publishing centres.
The UK book publishing industry is one of the most productive in terms of new title output, producing well over 150,000 new titles a year.
151,969 new book titles were published in the UK in 2010, the highest number in Europe. (2)
The UK accounted for 29 per cent of new European book titles in 2010, compared to 16 per cent in Germany, 8 per cent in Spain and 7.6 per cent in France. (2)
UK publishers sold an estimated 739 million books in 2010.
The UK is a leading publisher of newspaper and periodicals titles.
The UK customer publishing industry is the most developed in the world. It is worth over £904 million and is expected to grow a further 15 per cent by 2012. (3)
More than 7,500 magazine titles are published in the UK. (4)
Consumers spend approximately £2 billion on UK consumer magazines each year. (5)
An estimated 1.4 billion magazine copies are circulated/distributed in the UK each year. (6)
The demise of the UK’s Net Book Agreement in 1997 enabled best-selling books in the UK to be sold at heavily discounted prices and prompted the entry of overseas booksellers into the UK market.

Sources

All facts and figures sourced from The Publishers Association, apart from:

1. Creative Industries Economic Estimates, DCMS, December 2011

2. European Book Publishing Statistics 2011, Federation of European Publishers

3. Association of Publishing Agencies

4. Brad, 2010

5. KPMG, 2010

6. ABC J-D, 2010

and there's more...

Publishing: marketing message 2

The UK publishing industry is the most successful exporter of its kind in the world.

Publishing accounted for the highest proportion of UK exports of creative services in 2009 (£2.63 billion), making up 3.1 per cent of the total. (1)
The UK is the world’s largest exporter and re-exporter of books by value.
UK publishers exported 293 million books in 2010, worth over £1.25 billion.
Almost half of the UK book publishing industry’s revenue is generated by export sales.
The value of book exports from the UK grew by £51 million (4.3 per cent) in 2010.
The value of UK book exports rose every year between 2006-2010, and was 23 per cent higher in 2010 than 2006.
Export sales account for 40 per cent of total UK publisher sales.
Key export markets for UK publishers include the US, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada. Exports are also growing strongly in the Middle East.
UK authors and illustrators - from JK Rowling and Ian McEwan to John le Carré and Quentin Blake - are read and celebrated around the world.
Three of the four highest-grossing movie franchises are based on British books: James Bond, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Between them, they have grossed over US$13 billion to date.
The UK book publishing industry earns substantial revenue from the global licensing of publishing rights, subscriptions to electronically delivered content and the remittance of profits from overseas subsidiaries.
UK publishers have a much more broadly based export business in books than the US, its closest competitor. 57 per cent of their exports go to the top 10 markets, as opposed to 83 per cent for the US.
The UK publishes over 20 per cent of the world's scholarly journals.
Scientific and technical books and journals published in the UK can be found in classrooms, libraries, laboratories and offices on every continent.
UK academic publishers can sell as much as 70 per cent of their output in overseas markets.

Sources

All facts and figures sourced from The Publishers Association, apart from:

1. Creative Industries Economic Estimates, DCMS, December 2011

...and even more...

Publishing: marketing message 3

The success of the UK publishing industry has had a global impact, driven by the dominance of the English language.

The international importance of the English language gives the UK publishing industry a powerful competitive advantage. New opportunities for UK publishers in non-English-speaking countries are being created as English increasingly becomes the preferred second language in many markets across the globe.
UK publishers have well-established networks of partners in overseas markets.
The UK has outstanding educational publishers. UK-based publishers have been very successful in adapting or developing materials for educational systems worldwide.
The UK is home to a world-class academic publishing industry, both in terms of the content it creates and the innovative access models that it has pioneered. The UK is an international leader in the production of Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) research journals and databases, professional data and training and business-to-business information.
The UK is an international leader in children’s fiction, picture books and children’s information publishing. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series is arguably the world’s greatest children’s publishing success story of recent years.
UK publishers have played a leading part in the development of the international market for work in English from other cultures, such as African, Caribbean and Indian literature.
The annual London Book Fair is one of the world’s leading events for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. Some 23,000 publishers, booksellers, literary agents, librarians, and media and industry suppliers from over 100 countries attend the fair every year.