First, a look at new 2022 sales figures:
- UK: Book sales enjoyed a record-breaking year, with sales up 4 percent in 2022, reaching the highest overall level recorded. That was mainly due to a very strong export market, rather than domestic sales.
- Canada: According to a recent presentation by Noah Genner at BookNet Canada, sales in 2022 were comparable to 2021, with fiction up 9 percent and YA up 8 percent. Romance in particular saw sales soar (like in the US), by 55 percent.
Bookouture, a digital publishing imprint run by Hachette UK, is enjoying its fastest-selling title of all time, The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden. (We profiled the author’s first bestselling book earlier this year.) Bookouture tripled its sales over the last five years and is now helping Hachette UK enjoy nearly 10 percent revenue growth in the first quarter of 2023.
According to Circana BookScan, 2023 print sales are down by 2 percent in the US versus last year—but running 15 percent ahead of 2019. New releases hitting the BookScan bestseller list include the romance novel Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez (Hachette), the mystery novel The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster), and crime novel Dark Angel by John Sanford (Penguin Group).
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
