Since the end of the Easter shopping season, unit sales of print books have followed a fairly regular weekly path, falling by roughly 6% compared to a year ago. That was the result again last week when sales dropped 6.9% from the week ended May 15, 2021, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.
Adult fiction was the only category to post an increase in the week, with units up 0.9%, despite no strong performance by any new release. Book Lovers by Emily Henry remained #1 on the category list, selling more than 36,000 copies. The bestselling new title was Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note Short Stories, which sold just over 16,000 copies, putting it in eighth place on the category list, followed by Jennifer Weiner’s new book, The Summer Place, which sold just under 16,000 copies.
For the second week in a row, sales of adult nonfiction fell by 10%. Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard had the #1 book in the category last week and a year ago. Killing the Killers was tops last week, selling nearly 23,000 copies, while Killing the Mob was #1 in 2021, selling more than 35,000 copies. The highest-selling debut was A Sacred Oath by Mark Esper, which sold nearly 12,000 copies.
Juvenile fiction sales fell 6.8% compared to 2021. The graduate present favorite Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss was the clear #1 in the category, selling over 44,000 copies. Not one new book cracked BookScan’s top 50 bestsellers in the category in the week.
The juvenile nonfiction category had no new books among its top 50 sellers last week either. Unit sales dropped 10.7% compared to 2021.
