Top 10 US trade publishers based on units sold in 2016:
- Penguin Random House
- HarperCollins
- Simon & Schuster
- Hachette Book Group
- Macmillan
- Scholastic
- Disney
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Workman
- Sourcebooks
- Top-selling US print book of 2016: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Scholastic)
- Number of US print units sold in 2016 of Cursed Child: 4.4 million
- US sales of comics and graphic novels in 2015: $1.03 billion
- US sales of comics and graphic novels in 2000: $265 million
- US sales of comics in 2015: $405 million
- US sales of graphic novels in 2015: $535 million
Sources: Ranking America’s Largest Publishers; Boom! Pow! Ka-Ching! Sales of Digital Comics and Graphic Novels
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.
