2018 Book Sales

NPD Bookscan released their final statistics for 2018, counting 696 million print books sold in the US, up 1.3% over last year’s 687 million – the smallest gain seen over the past five years of steady print growth. Adult hardcover sales went up 1.3%, while YA and juvenile sales rose by fractions of a percent. Trade paperbacks declined slightly, and mass-market paperbacks continued to shrink, down to 52 million copies from 55 million in 2017. Nielsen Bookscan in the UK counted 190.8 million copies sold there, up by 600,000 copies over 2017; that service also tracks revenue, and counted £1.63 billion in sales, up £34 million from the prior year. Canadian book sales were roughly the same as last year with 54.7 million copies sold for a total of C$1.13 billion, as reported by BookNet Canada’s SalesData, which tracks at the point of sale. Canadian fiction sales declined by half a percent while non-fiction sales rose by 1.5%.

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