With sales falling in all but the adult fiction category, unit sales of print books had their worst week in 2023, falling 8.8% last week from a year ago at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.
Both the fiction and nonfiction juvenile categories each has a 15.3% decline in sales compared to the week ended February 12, 2022. Little Blue Truck’s Valentine by Alice Schertle was #1 in juvenile fiction, followed by You're My Little Cuddle Bug by Nicola Edwards, selling about 50,000 and 28,000 copies, respectively. Last year, those two titles were in first and second place on the bestseller list with sales of approximately 57,000 copes and 31,000 copies, respectively.
The sales pattern was much the same in juvenile nonfiction. The two titles that were atop the category list last week, Pop-Up Peekaboo! and Baby Touch and Feel I Love You, also led the category a year ago, but sales of Pop-Up fell to about 9,000 copies last week, from 14,000 copies in 2022, and sales of Baby Touch and Feel dropped to approximately 8,000 copies, from 11,000 copies in 2022.
Adult nonfiction sales declined 10.6% compared to a year ago, when Life Force by Tony Robbins was the segment’s #1 seller, selling over 91,000 copies in its first week on sale. Last week, Spare by Prince Harry returned to the top spot, selling more than 36,000 copies. The bestselling new release last week was The Official Disney Parks Cookbook by Pam Brandon, which sold just under 25,000 copies, putting it in third place on the category list.
Sales of adult fiction rose 2.7% over 2022 as Colleen Hoover titles occupied the first four spots on the category list, selling a total of about 180,000 copies. Her streak was stopped by J.D. Robb, whose newest book, Encore in Death, sold nearly 27,000 copies in its first week. Another new release, Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, was seventh on the list, selling almost 21,000 copies.
