With only two new books among the top 20 bestsellers, unit sales of print books fell 9.4% last week from the week ended June 26, 2021, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.
The nonfiction categories had the biggest declines, with the industry’s largest category, adult nonfiction, seeing a 14.2% decline in sales. Battle for the American Mind by Pete Hegseth remained #1 in the category, selling more than 23,000 copies in its second week. Ed Yong’s An Immense World was the top-selling new release, selling more than 10,000 copies in the week, landing it in seventh place on the category list.
Juvenile nonfiction sales declined 17.7%. Last year, Dude Perfect 101 Tricks, Tips, and Cool Stuff sold more than 46,000 copies in its first week on sale, followed by another new title, Barbara Taylor’s Discovery: Build the Shark, which sold over 22,000 copies. Last week, the #1 title was Crystal Radke’s My First Learn-to-Write Workbook, which sold just over 9,000 copies.
The young adult fiction category had the best week, with sales up 15.2%. The gain was driven by five Jenny Han titles, all of which benefitted from Amazon Prime’s adaptation her The Summer I Turned Pretty. Two editions of that title sold a total of more than 91,000 copies, while the #1 title in the category was a reprint of Han’s It’s Not Summer Without You, which sold nearly 59,000 copies.
Sales of adult fiction rose 3.4% over 2021. The trade paperback edition of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was #1 in the category, helped by publicity of the forthcoming movie based on the novel.
