The book business is seeing a better year, as Publishers Weekly reports.
A number of big summer bestsellers, a surge in interest in books on social justice, and ongoing demand by parents for children’s books that both educate and entertain combined to continue to push up unit sales of print books through this year’s third quarter. According to NPD BookScan, print unit sales rose 6.4% for the nine months ended Oct. 3, 2020 over the comparable span in 2019.
The accompanying graph shows improvement in all major categories…
…except mass market paperbacks. Maybe they should bring back ComicBacks©.
Publishers Weekly also details the new American Booksellers Association marketing campaign:
“Boxed Out,” … is designed to draw attention to the challenges indie booksellers are dealing this upcoming holiday season with both Amazon and a pandemic.
Allison Hill, ABA’s CEO explained the motive for the campaign as well as its timing, stating: “More than one indie bookstore a week has closed since the Covid-19 crisis began. At the same time, a report forecasts that Amazon will generate $10 billion in revenue on October 13 and 14 during its Prime Day promotion. Convenience has a cost and a consequence. Closed indie bookstores represent the loss of local jobs and local tax dollars; the loss of community centers; and the loss of opportunities for readers to discover books and connect with other readers in a meaningful face-to-face way.”
Newsarama tells us that graphic novels are enjoying a boom in book sales.
Graphic novel sales in the North American bookstore market is up 42% this quarter, according to the market research company NPD Group.
For the months of July – September 2020, 4 million print graphic novels were reportedly sold in the North American bookstore market – up tremendously from April – June 2020’s 2.8 million print graphic novels.
Graphic novels’ 42% gain is the highest growth-per-category for the market, which had an overall 6.4% growth this quarter.
Like the Publishers Weekly article above Newsarama’s report credits Dav Pilkey some of the increase:
This ninth volume of Dog Man was the best-selling book for all of North America from its debut until September 15, when it was surpassed by Bob Woodward’s Rage – which reportedly had the strongest first-week sales of any book this year, to date.
