So far, US print book sales have declined about 3 percent this year versus 2022. The decline this year is mostly affecting juvenile nonfiction (-7.8%), juvenile fiction (-5.3%), and adult nonfiction (-4.8%). Adult fiction continues to grow versus 2022, up 4.1 percent, with romance leading the way. Other fiction categories performing well: horror and fantasy.
The latest nonfiction bestsellers include The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a guide to the newest installment in the video game series, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed. Colleen Hoover continues to dominate the top-10 fiction bestseller list, with three titles in BookScan’s June 2023 list.
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.
