Publishers Weekly Reports the Book Sales Boom is Over
According to a recent report in Publishers Weekly (Apr 08, 2022) “unit sales of print books fell 8.9% in the first quarter, which ended April 2, from the same period in 2021, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.”
While a decline in book sales is never a good thing, the news is not entirely unexpected. It would be fair to say that everyone at Lamplight was of the opinion that the increased book sales in 2020 and 2021 were due in no small part to the Covid19 Lockdowns which forced so many people to stay at home, a lot on furlough, and find something to do with their time. It was a welcome circumstance that so many decided to read more, but inevitably as the lockdowns ended so too did the reading boom and as a knock on, the book sale boom.
Interestingly, the only category to post a meaningful increase in the quarter was adult fiction. We don’t know exactly what that tells us – but it surely tells us something. It was also of interest to us, and anyone similarly engaged in any way with book marketing, that two of the big winners in terms of book sales are both very active on BookTok – perhaps there’s a message here for both us and our authors.
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