As of July 2, print book sales have fallen 7 percent versus last year in the US market, according to NPD Books. Purchasing patterns are in line with 2020 and 2021; this year’s book sales are 14 percent better than pre-pandemic performance in 2019. Keeping sales strong: adult fiction, responsible for two-thirds of unit gains in June.
Other notable stats from NPD Books:
- Adult nonfiction in the US is down 13 percent versus last year. Travel is the only category posting year-over-year gains (not least because travel book sales really fell into the toilet during the pandemic).
- Frontlist sales (new titles) were down nearly 12 percent in the first half of 2022, while backlist sales (older titles) were off about 4 percent.
- BookTok author sales grew six times faster than the rest of the adult fiction market, and their sales climbed more than 50 percent over the same time last year.
- In the children’s market, fiction titles about emotion and prejudice are popular as well as nonfiction in the categories of biography and diversity. Learn more.
Meanwhile, Europe is also experiencing a decline in print book sales. Germany has seen an 11 percent decline in 2022, a level of performance that’s lower than even 2019. France’s unit sales are down nearly 6 percent; Italy is down by about 4 percent. 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.
