Brian Hibbs at Comics Beat does a deep dive into the 2022 NPD Book Scan Report.
Ludicrously, this is the twentieth annual report of something that is hard to exactly perceive and understand: the size and shape of the sales of graphic novels and trade paperbacks through the book store market, as seen through the prism of NPD BookScan.
Brian explains the NPD methods:
These reflect actual sales made through bookstores that report to NPD, which includes Amazon. NPD believes that some 85% or more of book sales are captured by them – so even best-case scenario, these are a little light.
But this BookScan report obviously only includes books sold through the venues that report to NPD BookScan – it certainly doesn’t include sources of sales like, for example, school library purchases, or direct-to-consumer sales through things like the Scholastic book fairs. In some cases, those numbers could potentially be many multiples of the retail trade.
This also only includes physical books sold! No digital of any kind. (Broadly, digital is an insignificant channel, comprising single digit percentages of printed books)
Here’s a look at the top four best selling authors of Graphic Novels in 2022:
Brian defines a graphic novel:
I defined “comics” like this: either a) it has multiple panels sequentially producing a narrative (those don’t have to be on ONE PAGE, so someone like Mo Williams is certainly comics) OR b) a single image that, taken solely by itself, provides a complete thought. So, “The Far Side” is comics, but, no, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” is NOT (but very glad to see that number as a comparative)
Heidi MacDonald of Comics Beat summarizes Brian report.
A few bullet points from Heidi of particular interest here:
The top selling GN that was not manga or for young readers was Maus, at #25 with 177k copies sold.
HarperCollins and its associated imprints had a strong year, making it the #3 non-manga publisher, up 11% in units – led by Terri Leibenson and Jerry Craft.
For the entire BookScan report – more than 50K titles – sales were up 1.53% with more than 52 million graphic novels sold.
And here from Comics Beat are The Top 750 Best Selling NPD Graphic Novels.
Below are comic strip cartoonists and former comic strip cartoonists whose books made the 750 list.
#073 – NEW KID: A NEWBERY AWARD WINNER Jerry Craft
#113 – REMARKABLY RUBY Terri Libenson
#147 – BIG NATE: BEWARE OF LOW-FLYING CORN MUFFINS Lincoln Peirce
#237 – CLASS ACT: A GRAPHIC NOVEL Jerry Craft
#238 – PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN: VOLUME 1 Dana Simpson
#271 – BIG NATE: RELEASE THE HOUNDS! Lincoln Peirce
#286 – BIG NATE: TOP DOG: TWO BOOKS IN ONE Lincoln Peirce
#291 – BIG NATE: ALOHA! Lincoln Peirce
#302 – TRULY TYLER Terri Libenson
#331 – HILO BOOK 8: GINA AND THE BIG SECRET Judd Winnick
#350 – THE COMPLETE CALVIN AND HOBBES (paperback ed.) Bill Watterson
#368 – ABSOLUTELY NAT: A GRAPHIC NOVEL Maria Scrivan
#410 – UNICORN PLAYLIST Dana Simpson
#414 – CALVIN AND HOBBES Bill Watterson
#443 – INVISIBLE EMMIE Terri Libenson
#467 – BIG NATE: DESTINED FOR AWESOMENESS Lincoln Peirce
#483 – UNICORN SELFIES Dana Simpson
#526 – BIG NATE: VERY FUNNY!: TWO BOOKS IN ONE Lincoln Peirce
#548 – BIG NATE: IN YOUR FACE! Lincoln Peirce
#549 – THE ESSENTIAL CALVIN AND HOBBES Bill Watterson
#556 – POSITIVELY IZZY Terri Libenson
#587 – JUST JAIME Terri Libenson
#622 – UNICORN FAMOUS Dana Simpson
#629 – BIG NATE STAYS CLASSY: TWO BOOKS IN ONE Lincoln Peirce
#638 – BIG NATE: THE GERBIL ATE MY HOMEWORK Lincoln Peirce
#706 – UNICORN ON A ROLL Dana Simpson
#724 – BECOMING BRIANNA Terri Libenson
Peirce-9, Libenson-6, Simpson-5, Watterson-3, Craft-2, Scrivan-1, Winnick-1