BookTok is still driving US sales in YA fiction, with backlist titles from Adam Silvera, S.E. Hinton, and Lois Lowry recently topping the print charts. Overall, US children’s print book sales are up 9 percent over 2020, according to NPD BookScan; fiction sales are up by 15 percent, and manga and comics sales are up 17 percent over last year. (Important to note, however: Dav Pilkey’s books account for 30 percent of the graphic and comics sales this year and 50 percent of the growth.) Board book sales are growing at twice the rate of all other categories.
Kristen McLean of NPD BookScan says that independent bookstores are outperforming digital and chain competitors on sales of new children’s titles. “Without indies, and without bricks-and-mortar bookstores, generally, the market would continue to really be difficult for new books to find their audience,” McLean says.
Speaking of independent bookstores: Bookshop’s sales have not seen a downturn in 2021. Founder Andy Hunter says the company is on track to do as many sales this year as in 2020. Moreover, the site is succeeding in attracting traffic from Google search. If you’re not familiar with Bookshop, here’s our coverage from last year.
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.
