2019 Book Sales

NPD BookScan reported unit sales for print books dropped 1.3% in 2019, with 689.5 million units sold, down from 698.4 in 2018. The decline was due in part to a lack of big bestsellers to compare with the massive interest in political non-fiction in 2018. Unit sales for adult fiction dropped 2.9%. By genre, science fiction had the biggest drop, down 19.7%, while horror rose 16.6% and graphic novels rose 16.1%. Juvenile fiction had a slim 0.5% drop, but young-adult fiction fell 8.1%. By format, hardcovers basically held steady, up 0.3%, while trade paperbacks dropped 0.7% and mass-market paperbacks fell 15.3%.


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