Unit sales of print books fell 17.3% in the week ended December 3, 2022, from the week ended December 4, 2021, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The sales total represented an increase over the previous week in 2021, but it is becoming clear that the holidays will not give a significant boost over seasonal sales in 2021.
Unit sales through the week ended December 3, 2022, were down 6.6% compared to a year ago. Still, as some in the industry point out, year-to-date sales are still well up over 2019, up 12.6% at this stage of the year.
For the most recent week, adult nonfiction sales declined nearly 25% from a year ago. Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry was #1, selling about 93,000 copies. A year ago, Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown was #1 in the category, selling about 153,000 copies. For the second year in a row, self-published author Jordan Moore has a Christmas hit: Interesting Facts for Curious Minds sold about 32,000 copies, placing it in fifth place on the category list. The book has sold about 81,000 copies since its release in July.
Adult fiction sales fell 4.8% in the week. Louise Penny’s A World of Curiosities was #2 in its first week on sale, selling nearly 66,000 copies in its first week on sale, trailing only Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us,which sold over 85,000 copies.
The overall #1 book in the week was Dav Pilkey's Collaborations, the fourth volume in Pilkey’s Cat Kid Comic Club series, which sold almost 106,000 copies in its first week. Last year, Perspectives, the second Cat Kid volume, was tops in the week, selling over 136,000 copies.
