After a string of record dealmaking years, the market is looking more fractured after the first quarter, highly dependent upon which market segment you are measuring. Adult fiction continues to drive the marketplace. Once again, our deal reports show a record number of major deals at the high end, and total six-figure deals were up slightly. Total fiction deals look up as well, but the comparisons are a little hard to make this year, since as of the beginning of 2026, deals by mature digital publishers are now categorized in our general pool rather than in the digital publisher category. […]
Industry Statistics
2025 Trade Sales Just Below Flat After December Growth
The Association of American Publishers released Statshot data for December and 2025 as a whole, reporting strong sales for the month and sales just under flat for the year. In December, trade sales rose 14 percent to $752 million. The return rate fell to 12.5 percent from 13.7 percent in December 2024. Adult books sold $541.9 million, up 9.4 percent, with $270.7 million in fiction (up 2.9 percent) and $271.2 million in nonfiction (up 16.8 percent). Hardcovers sold $186.8 million (up 8.4 percent), paperbacks sold $191.7 million (up 25.8 percent), ebooks sold $67.4 million (down 4.2 percent), and audio sold […]
November Shows Big Gains in Adult Audio, Children’s Hardcovers
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released StatShot data from participating publishers for November, reporting overall trade sales up 2.6 percent to $865 million. Adult books sold $604 million, up 1.8 percent, including $295 million in fiction and $309 million in nonfiction. Hardcovers grew 2.5 percent to $243 million and paperbacks fell 2.4 percent to $176 million. Ebooks sold $74.4 million, up 2.1 percent, and digital audio rose 18.7 percent to $95.9 million. Children’s books grew 4.6 percent to $261 million, with $218 million in fiction and $43 million in nonfiction. Hardcovers sold $104 million, a 12.9 percent increase, and […]
2025: The Year In Deals
A strong fourth quarter for domestic deals (+4.4 percent overall), driven by an 18 percent increase in fiction deals, lifted the year’s results to another new record total for PM deal reports. Publisher investment grew even more, setting new records overall and new records for major and significant deals. In particular: – US deals overall were up 1.9 percent, a new record total. – Adult Fiction gained again, for the seventh straight year, up 9.3 percent (on top of 2024’s gain of 10 percent). Nonfiction sales ebbed, down 1.6 percent. – Children’s deals finally broke their three-year decline, finishing flat for the year. […]
Some New Names on the Fiction Bestseller Lists
The NYT highlights five novels from “lesser known and first time writers” that “found unexpectedly broad readerships this year.” Virginia Evans’ THE CORRESPONDENT may be the biggest true sleeper of the year, building readership slowly and progressively over the summer. Circana Bookscan analyst Brenna Connor observers, “This sales trajectory is unusual for any book and almost unheard-of for a debut fiction title.” SenLinYu’s ALCHEMISED, adapted from her hit fan fiction, and Allen Levi’s originally self-published THEO OF GOLDEN both came to traditional publishing with built-in audiences, but both have fulfilled that promise and more. In a different, more modest league […]
2025: The Year in Finance
Publisher sales figures were stable this year, with most reporting companies just slightly ahead of or behind where they were in 2024. (Bloomsbury is the exception, falling from their record-breaking year in 2023, which had a new book by blockbuster romantasy author Sarah J. Maas.) Industry print sales monitored by the AAP ebbed while ebooks remained flat and audiobooks inched higher (now past the big boost from Spotify), outselling ebooks for the second year on record. (But also, AAP stats are missing data from growing publishers such as Sourcebooks and Entangled.) Here’s our roundup of results from the publicly trade […]