Overall, compared to 2020, print unit sales are up 25 percent. Adult fiction continues to see gains, with graphic novels experiencing the most growth: print units are up by 188 percent over last year. In nonfiction, travel is rebounding along with business/economics and history/law/political science. One area of softness: juvenile fiction is down by 1.4 percent versus last year.
Bookstore sales are up (unsurprisingly) by almost 35 percent for March 2021 when compared to the same period last year. However, when looking at the entire first quarter of 2021, bookstore sales fell 8.2 percent compared to the first quarter of 2020.
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.
