April bookstore sales fell 5.5%, to $758 million, according to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The decline is the biggest so far this year and reflects the large sales numbers that the Fifty Shades trilogy began posting in April 2012. For the first four months of the year, bookstore sales were up 0.5%.
For the entire retail segment, April sales rose 4.2% and sales were up 3.3% in the year-to-date. The government has revised sales for both the first three months of 2013 and 2012.
