US book sales down 2.7% YTD

In the US, book sales in the first half of the year were down 2.7% compared to the same period last year according to data from Circana BookScan, reports Publishers Weekly.

Sales for the six months to 30 June totalled 353.5 million, down from 363.4 million in 2022. First quarter sales were basically flat, helped by Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, but there was no corresponding title in the second quarter.

In the first six months of 2023, sales of adult fiction were up 4.2% but other major categories declined. Adult fiction was led by sales of romance titles, which were up 34.6%, while sales of horror/occult/psychological and fantasy genres were up 32.5% and 26.5%, respectively. The graphic novels category was down 22.7%, but was still the third-largest genre in adult fiction.

Adult nonfiction was down 4.9%, with biography/autobiography/memoir one of only three subcategories to increase, up 4.6%, along with travel (up 6.6%) and religion books (1.9%).

Juvenile fiction declined 5.4%, with the largest decline in the sci-fi/fantasy/magic area with sales down 11.3%, and most other subcategories registering a decline.

Backlist sales were down 2.1%, while the frontlist dropped 4.2%. Only a handful of books published in 2023 landed on the top 25 overall bestsellers list, including Spare (1.1 million copies); Dav Pilkey’s Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (771,000 copies); Colleen Hoover’s Heart Bones (430,000 copies) and Never Never (374,000 copies); and Emily Henry’s Happy Place (415,000 copies).

Category: International news