Industry Statistics

The Association of American Publishers released June Stashot data from participating publishers, reporting overall trade sales of $616 million, down 3 percent from 2024. Adult books sold $447 million, a decrease of 7 percent. Fiction sold $263 million, down 5 percent, and nonfiction sold $184 million, down 9 percent. Hardcovers fell 5 percent to $184 million, paperbacks fell 12 percent to $158 million, and ebooks fell 1 percent to $73.6 million. Digital audio increased 14 percent to $79.2 million. Children’s and YA book sales gained 9 percent to $168.5 million, with fiction up 8 percent to $136.6 million and nonfiction […]

The AAP released their annual StatShot report for 2024 with results from 1,281 publishers. Trade sales totaled $8.927 billion, a 2.2 percent increase from $8.731 in 2023. And domestic trade sales—excluding exports—were a little healthier, rising 3 percent. Religious presses, counted separately, registered sales of $946 million—a 25 percent increase from 2023. (In the AAP’s monthly reports they tabulate religious presses separately; in their annual, they switch and include the data in “trade.” We prefer a consistent approach.) Adult books sold $6.385 billion, up 4 percent, and children’s book sales were just below flat at $2.541 billion. Those totals include […]

The AAP reported May results from reporting StatShot publishers, with trade sales down 8.6 percent from last year to $671 million. Adult book sales fell 9.6 percent to $493 million; fiction sales were down 8.3 percent to $286 million and nonfiction sales dropped 11.3 percent to $207 million. By format, adult books sold $167 million in hardcover (down 8.6 percent) and $167 million in paperback (down 16.3 percent). Ebook sales were $72.1 million (down 1 percent) and digital audio sold $75.8 million (up 9.8 percent). In the kids and YA book market, sales were down 5.8 percent to $178 million, […]

Circana Bookscan reports that print book sales “remain[ed] steady in the first half of 2025 but has shown signs of slowness in May and June. In the first six months of 2025, print book sales dropped -1 percent based on units sold, compared to the same period last year.” They note, “Key factors behind the drops include retail promo events that occurred in 2024 and were not replicated in 2025, along with the normalization of adult fiction sales volume.” Adult nonfiction was ​”the steepest underperformer,” down 3 million units compared to the first half of 2024, even with sales of […]

The Association of American Publishers released StatShot data for April, reporting trade sales down 2 percent to $673 million. Adult books fell 5 percent to $482 million, with $263 million in fiction (down 8 percent) and $219 million in nonfiction (down 1 percent). Hardcover sales were $166 million, up 3 percent; paperbacks were $154 million, down 9 percent; ebooks were $70.7 million, down 2 percent; and digital audio sales were $76.3 million, down 13 percent. Children’s and YA books gained 6 percent to $191 million, with $158 million in fiction (up 4 percent) and $33 million in nonfiction (up 15.5 […]