The year opened with a weak first quarter of dealmaking, following two record years, but the market appeared to have been held back by the strike at Harper Collins, along with later dates for the spring book fairs. Now, we can see with more clarity that deal reports rose modestly in the second quarter, up 2.7 percent overall. The main weakness was in children’s books, which has looked overbought for a while. Indeed, children’s sales fell 9.8 percent, back to their level from 2020. Adult fiction continued its strong run — matched by consumer sales — rising 7.1 percent in […]
