For the week ending June 10, Circana BookScan reports that print unit sales are down 3 percent compared to 2022. That’s still 12 percent ahead of pre-pandemic sales numbers of 2019.
It’s summer reading season, and Circana BookScan’s latest list of top bestsellers is nearly all fiction. Top titles include Happy Place (PRH), a romance by Emily Henry; Cross Down (Hachette), a thriller by James Patterson; three novels by Colleen Hoover; Lore Olympus, Volume 4 (PRH), a fantasy graphic novel by Rachel Smythe; and Unfortunately Yours (HarperCollins), a romance by Tessa Bailey. The one nonfiction title on the top 10: Pageboy (Macmillan), a memoir by Elliot Page.
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.
