Romantasy surge puts second-quarter US print sales up

In the US, a huge increase in print book sales in the adult fantasy category has contributed to overall unit sales of print books increasing 1.1% in the second quarter of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, reports Publishers Weekly (PW).

Circana BookScan figures show that adult fantasy sales increased 85.2% compared to the first six months of 2023, led by sales of Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros titles, while science fiction and suspense/thriller categories each increased by about 20%. Adult fiction as a whole rose 6.3% in the first half, and young adult fiction increased 6.2%, while sales of graphic novels fell 16.1%, marking a continued receding trend ‘from record highs in 2022’, said PW.

Sales of adult nonfiction were down 2.9% for the first half, with the biography category down for the period (-13.2%), in comparison to 2023, when the segment was boosted by Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare. Sales of religion books were up 12.8% in the first half of the year, marking the best performance by any adult nonfiction subcategory, according to PW. In children’s, sales were down 2.9% in fiction and down 3.4% in nonfiction.

The overall increase in sales in the second quarter followed a 1.7% decline in the first quarter, meaning unit sales were down only 0.4% overall in the first half of the year. ‘The slow improvement in print unit sales to date this year offers the industry at least some hope that a two-year slide in sales might come to an end this year,’ said PW.

Category: International news