According to NPD BookScan, US print book sales are down about 4 percent versus last year. The biggest decline is in the category of juvenile nonfiction (down 10 percent); the most stable area is adult fiction, which is running more or less flat against 2022 sales.
The biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson was the number-one title for the week ending Sept. 16, selling 92,000 print copies. The second-best-selling title was Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks, selling 62,000 copies.
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.
