Sales of print books got off to a slow start this holiday season at outlets that report to NPD BookScan: units were 3% lower in the week ended Nov. 27, 2017, than in the comparable week last year. Units were down 9% in the mass merchandiser channel, and sales to retailers and clubs slipped 1%. The only category that had a sales gain was juvenile nonfiction, in which units were 2% higher than in the week ended Nov. 27, 2016. A handful of Christmas titles made their presence felt: two editions of Elf on the Self by Chanda A. Bell and Carol V. Aebersold combined to sell more than 22,000 copies, landing the two titles in the second and fourth places on the category bestseller list. In third place was The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago, which sold almost 12,000 copies. Unit sales slipped 0.6% in the adult nonfiction category from the comparable week in 2016. The top seller in the category was a new release, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything by the Wizards RPG team, which sold nearly 45,000 copies. Another new release, Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss, landed in the fourth spot on the category list, selling about 29,000 copies. The biggest sales decline in the week came in the juvenile fiction category, in which unit sales were 5% lower than a year ago. Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid books were #1 in both years, with the 2017 title, The Getaway, outselling 2016’s Double Down by roughly 19,000 copies. The top-selling titles in the category in 2017 did slightly better than those in 2016, and the weakness in this year’s sales was due to lower sales among the top 100 books. The same was the case with the 2% decline in sales in adult fiction: sales of the top 100 titles in the category were 14% lower than in the comparable week last year.
Unit Sales of Print Books by Channel (in thousands)
| Nov. 27, 2016 | Nov. 26, 2017 | Chge Week | Chge YTD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 15,807 | 15,384 | -3% | 2% |
| Retail & Club | 12,387 | 12,268 | -1% | 4% |
| Mass Merch./Others | 3,419 | 3,116 | -9% | -8% |
Unit Sales of Print Books by Category (in thousands)
| Nov. 27, 2016 | Nov. 26, 2017 | Chge Week | Chge YTD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult Nonfiction | 5,276 | 5,246 | -0.6% | 3% |
| Adult Fiction | 2,584 | 2,516 | -2% | -0.6% |
| Juvenile Nonfiction | 1,468 | 1,493 | 2% | 6% |
| Juvenile Fiction | 5,724 | 5,431 | -5% | 2% |
Unit Sales of Print Books by Format (in thousands)
| Nov. 27, 2016 | Nov. 26, 2017 | Chge Week | Chge YTD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 6,067 | 5,897 | -3% | 4% |
| Trade Paperback | 7,169 | 6,894 | -4% | 2% |
| Mass Market Paperback | 951 | 968 | 2% | -7% |
| Board Books | 896 | 913 | 2% | 10% |
| Audio | 80 | 63 | -21% | -12% |
Source: Npd BookScan and Publishers Weekly. Npd’s U.S. Consumer Market Panel covers approximately 80% of the print book market and continues to grow.
