In the United States, book sales fell 6.6% year-on-year in the first half of 2022, but remain about 15% higher than the same period in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, reports Weekly editors.
Print unit sales for the period totaled 362.6 million, down from 386.6 million a year ago, with all major categories except adult fiction down. Adult non-fiction, the industry’s largest category, saw the biggest drop of 10.3%.
Sales of the first list (books released in the last 12 months) fell by 11.7%, while sales of the last list fell by 4.1%. Five titles by BookTok favorite Colleen Hoover were among the top 20 overall sellers for the first half of the year, helping adult fiction post a 4.6% gain for the period. Romance titles saw the strongest growth, with sales up 33%, while graphic novels rose 10.5%.
Despite having the best-selling title with James Clear’s Atomic Habits, adult non-fiction sales declined due to declines in all categories except travel. General non-fiction fell 17.7%, reference titles fell 16.1%, and biographies/autobiographies/memoirs fell 15.3%.
All categories of children’s fiction fell in the first half of the year for an overall decline of 7.5%, while children’s fiction fell by 2.7%.
Category: International news
