Book Publishing Sales Rose 6.5% in 2024, Per Preliminary Data

Despite a 4.3% decline in December sales at the 1,279 publishers that report their revenue to the Association of American Publishers’ StatShot program, preliminary data for the full year indicates that publishing industry sales increased 6.5% over 2023, to $14.18 billion.

The religious presses category led the increase with sales up 18.9%, to $909.2 million, followed by adult fiction, where sales rose 12.6%, to $3.26 billion. Adult nonfiction eked out a 1.3% sales increase, to $2.88 billion. The children’s/young adult segment didn’t fare as well, with fiction sales dipping 0.3%, to $1.99 billion, and nonfiction sales falling 0.9%, to $433.5 million.

In the other major categories, sales of higher educational materials rose 6.7% over 2023, and university press sales increased 6%. Sales of professional books fell 0.5%. Due to lack of data, no sales figures were released for the PreK-instructional materials segment.

In the adult fiction market, digital audio led the improvement, with sales jumping 31.2%. The format accounted for 16.5% of segment sales in 2024, up from 14.1% in 2023. E-book sales posted a more moderate 5.3% increase and represented 20% of total sales, down from 21.6% in 2023. Hardcover sales, no doubt helped by the popularity of deluxe editions, jumped 17.8%, and trade paperback sales rose 10%. And in further evidence of the decline of mass market paperbacks, sales of the format fell 13.6%, accounting for just 3.4% of the segment’s sales.

In adult nonfiction, digital audio sales jumped 18%, but all other formats saw small gains or declines. Trade paperback sales inched ahead 0.3%, but hardcover sales slipped 1.2%. E-book sales fell 5.8%. Total digital sales accounted for 21.5% of adult nonfiction last year, compared to 20.1% in 2023.

In children’s/YA fiction, digital audio sales increased 15.1%, hardcover sales rose 1.4%, and sales of special bindings increased 3.7%. Those gains were nearly enough to offset a 1.6% dip in e-book sales and a 3.7% decline in paperback. The latter, despite the dip, remains the largest format in the category, generating $800.2 million at reporting publishers.

Paperback sales grew 0.4% in children’s/YA nonfiction and remained the largest format in the segment, posting $215.6 million in revenue, while hardcover sales fell 3.6%. Digital remains a marginal business in the segment, accounting for 1.7% of sales in 2024—down from 1.9% a year ago at reporting publishers.

Hardcovers drove revenue in the religion segment, with sales jumping 23.7%, to $560.1 million, at reporting publishers. Paperback sales did well, increasing 11.6%. Digital audio in the segment also had a good year, with sales up 13.4%. Combined with a small 0.7% increase in e-books, the digital formats each contributed $51 million to segment sales, representing 11.3% of revenue in 2024 compared to 12.6% in 2023.

Last year, AAP’s StatShot program recorded a 0.4% sales increase. That figure was later changed to a decline of 0.8% when final sales, which includes estimates from non-reporting publishers, were included. The AAP will release its final 2024 sales numbers later this year.