Good news: The final week of holiday sales in 2022 outpaced the same week from 2021. That leaves print book sales at roughly 6 percent below last year. While that may seem disappointing, it’s the second-best print sales year in a long time, ahead of 2020 and behind 2021.
Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry was the number-one title during the final week, selling 150,000 hardcovers. Literary novel Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was the highest-ranking debut, selling an impressive 62,000 hardcovers in the final week.
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.
