After three consecutive years of growth, the Australian book market flattened out in 2023. In the year to June 17, 2023, Australian book sales totaled $548 million, up 0.6% on the same period in 2022, while sales by volume were down 0.2% to total 28.3 million units, according to Nielsen BookScan Australia. Compared to the same period in pre-pandemic 2019, the market is up $82 million (18%) by value, following annual growth of 7.8% in 2020, 2.5% in 2021, and 7.2% in 2023.

In 2023, Nielsen BookScan Australia reported growth in the adult fiction category (up 7% by value) and nonfiction (up 1.6%). but a decline in children’s books (down 3%).

Growth in adult fiction was driven by sales of romance (up 37%) and historical & mythological fiction (up 17%) titles. Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us and It Ends with Us (both S&S), as well as Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker (S&S), boosted romance sales, while in historical fiction, local author Pip Williams’ The Bookbinder of Jericho (Affirm Press) spent six weeks as the overall weekly bestselling title from publication date earlier this year, and was the second highest selling adult fiction title in the year to date. Sales of general & literary fiction titles were down 7%, after being boosted last year by bestsellers Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens, Hachette) and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid, S&S).

In children’s, the novelty & activity books (up 7%) and pre-school & early learning subcategories (up 19%), were boosted by Bluey: Happy Easter (PRH) and In My Heart (Abrams), respectively. Nielsen BookScan Australia attributes the decline in children’s fiction (down 14%) to strong sales in 2022 of higher priced Harry Potter and The Bad Guys series, and the release of the latest David Walliams title Robodog (HarperCollins) occurring a month later than his previous title in 2022.

Nonfiction was helped by sales of the year’s overall bestselling title, Prince Harry’s Spare (PRH), as well as strong performances in the travel & holiday guides (up 64%) subcategory. Travel book sales have rebounded significantly since their lowest point in the second quarter of 2020, when pandemic lockdowns resulted in the atlases, maps & travel category reaching just $1.3 million in value, compared to a pre-pandemic average of $4 million per quarter. For 2023 to June 17, the category has reached $8.1 million in value, down 6% on the same time in 2019. The general food & drink category was up 17%, helped by local author Nagi Maehashi’s bestselling cookbook RecipeTin Eats: Dinner (Pan Macmillan).

Top 10 bestsellers in year to June 17

Spare (Prince Harry, Bantam Books)

RecipeTin Eats: Dinner (Nagi Maehashi, Macmillan)

It Starts with Us (Colleen Hoover, S&S)

The Bookbinder of Jericho (Pip Williams, Affirm Press)

It Ends with Us (Colleen Hoover, S&S)

Atomic Habits (James Clear, Random House)

Homecoming (Kate Morton, A&U)

Verity (Colleen Hoover, Hachette)

Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (Dog Man #11) (Dav Pilkey, Scholastic)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid, S&S)

© 2023 Nielsen BookScan. Covers week ending January 7, 2023 to week ending August 12, 2023.

Booksellers are facing a tough retail market: inflation and cost-of-living pressures have hit consumer confidence, and customers are spending more cautiously. Despite this, Nielsen BookScan’s Bianca Whiteley told the BookPeople conference in June that there had been a slight increase in the percentage of those who bought print books at independent stores, with a decrease in internet retailer sales.

One of the biggest names in online bookselling in the Australian market—Booktopia—continued its messy trajectory from burgeoning ecommerce start-up to embattled publicly traded company. The retailer reported its revenue for the 2023 financial year was down 18%, and recorded an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss for the second year in a row. The company’s value has also fallen steeply: at September 1, its shares were trading at $0.11 per share, giving the company a market cap of around $25 million—a fraction of its initial issuing at $2.30 per share, which valued the company at $316 million in December 2020. With a new CEO appointed in April, and a larger, more efficient distribution center operational ahead of the 2023 Christmas season, Booktopia has its sights on returning to profitability in 2024.

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