Thursday, February 3, 2022

Print book sales way up in 2021


PHoto byn Retiring Guy


Led by the fiction categories, unit sales of print books rose 8.9% in 2021 over 2020 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Units sold were 825.7 million last year, up from 757.9 million in 2020. BookScan captures approximately 85% of all print sales. In 2020, unit sales were up 8.2% over 2019, which saw 693.7 million print units sold.
USA Today, 1/3/2020



7/10/2021 update, "Print book sales continue to surge during 1st half of 2021", starts here.


In the first half of 2020, unit sales of print books surprised many in the industry by posting a 2.9% increase over the same period in 2019 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan, overcoming a slump in sales in early spring following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Print sales finished 2020 up 8.2% over 2019, and that strong performance continued into 2021, with units jumping 18.5% in the first six months over the comparable period in 2020. With the exception of the juvenile nonfiction category, all the major publishing categories had double-digit sales increases in the first half of the year. Backlist had the strongest gains, up 21.4%, but frontlist sales were also solid, rising 12.4%.

5/1/2021 update, "Sales of print books surge during fist four months of 2021", starts here.

World Traveler by the late Anthony Bourdain and his longtime collaborator Laurie Woolever took the top spot in the category, selling more than 50,000 copies. George W. Bush’s Out of Many, One was in the fourth place, selling almost 28,000 copies, followed by Cook This Book by Molly Baz, which sold about 22,000 copies. Adult fiction sales increased 33% over 2020. David Baldacci’s A Gambling Man was #1 in its first week, selling more than 44,000 copies. Within adult fiction, graphic novel sales skyrocketed, and Lovesickness by Junji Ito was the top new title, selling about 8,500 copies

From 2011





Original 1/30/2021 post, "Publishers Weekly:  Record sales for print and ebooks in 2020", starts here.


Publishers Weekly, 1/29/2021
Print sales rose 8.2% over 2019, the largest annual increase since 2005, and the print total of 751 million units sold was the highest since 2009, the year before e-books started to become a meaningful part of the book business.

Unit sales of print books increased 8% from 2019 to 2020

Unit sales of ebooks increased 12% from 2019 to 2020.

Unit sales of print books increased 11% from 2019 to 2020.

Unite sales of print books incfreased 5.5% from 2016 to 2020.


Jumping the gun in 2015



Jeff's crystal ball was a bit cloudy in 2006.



The Guardian, 6/4/2006

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