Sales of print books in the US fell by 6.5% in 2022 compared to 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan, Publishers Weekly has reported.
Sales totalled 788.7 million units last year according to the data, down from 843.1 million in 2021, though print unit sales in 2022 were still 11.8% above those from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
Frontlist sales dropped 10.5% in 2022, while backlist sales fell 3.7%, according to the NPD BookScan figures, while sales of hardbacks fell 10.4% compared to 2.4% for trade paperbacks, which accounted for 60% of unit sales in 2022, up from 57% in 2021. Hardbacks’ share of the market declined from 33% in 2021 to 30% in 2022.
Print sales of adult fiction were up 8.5% on 2019, which Publishers Weekly credited to the power of BookTok. US trade publishing’s largest category, adult non-fiction, saw a 10.3% drop in sales in 2022 to 289.6 million copies sold, compared to 322.8 million copies in 2021.
James Clear’s Atomic Habits was the number one non-fiction title again in 2022, selling 1.3 million copies, after being number one in the category in 2021 with 883,000 copies sold. The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama was second, shifting nearly 734,000 copies.
Sales fell 8.8% in what Publishers Weekly titled “juvenile fiction". Jeff Kinney’s latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid title, Diper Överlöde, came out on top, selling more than 830,000 copies. Sales in the category were down 11.2% from 2021.
YA fiction sales dropped 0.2% 2022 while YA non-fiction dropped by 4.6%. Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder topped the charts, selling more than 556,000 copies.
Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us (S&S) was the UK’s bestselling title of 2022, selling 693,850 copies over the year and improving 204% on its 2021 sales. However, the print market’s pandemic boom of recent years began to be eroded by the cost-of-living crisis, with volume falling 2.2% and value dropping 1.4% against the available weeks of 2021 according to analysis by The Bookseller.
