Compared to last year, print book sales are down about 1 percent overall according to Circana BookScan. Both adult nonfiction and adult fiction saw declines (but nonfiction declined more).
- In nonfiction, biography is the hardest-hit category, while self-help and Bibles remain bright spots.
- Adult fiction is finally slowing down, with fantasy posting the steepest drops. Sarah J. Mass is behind the declines, comping against the breakout success of her series in 2024. Excluding Maas, adult fiction sales are showing growth, up 3 percent versus last year.
- YA sales are flat versus last year. If you exclude Suzanne Collins’s bestselling Hunger Games prequel, YA sales are down by 10 percent.
- Juvenile nonfiction sales are flat; juvenile fiction is down by one percent. Activity books are driving the nonfiction growth. Middle-grade readers remain the most challenged segment.
Other notes:
- Sales of books about Jeffrey Epstein are exploding. Learn more.
- Sales of comics and graphic novels in the US and Canada were up 4 percent in 2024 versus the prior year, driven by sales growth in comic stores. Learn more.
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.
