According to the latest figures from Circana BookScan, print book sales are down 3 percent versus 2022—a stronger-than-expected performance for this year so far. In fact, books are outperforming the overall US general merchandise market tracked by Circana, where units and dollars are both down by 4 percent.
The sales shortfall is mostly in the juvenile category; BookScan analyst Kristen McLean notes, “It’s from organic drop-off as the kids’ market continues to return to 2019 levels.” Compared to the pre-pandemic sales year of 2019, book sales are up by 11 percent in 2023.
McLean notes that frontlist sales are holding steady this year at 30 percent, the same as 2022. “The forces which were driving increasing backlist share over the last few years seem to have reached stability,” she writes.
Recent bestsellers include three of Suzanne Collins’s titles, related to the Nov. 17 release of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the film adaptation of her Hunger Games prequel. Also driving positive gains in adult fiction: Rebecca Yarros’s Iron Flame and Fourth Wing. In adult nonfiction, top-performing titles include memoirs by Matthew Perry and Britney Spears.
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.
