Unit sales of print books managed to edge ever so slightly into positive territory for the first nine months of 2024 at outlets that report to Circana BookScan. Units were up 0.1% in the nine-month period and by that same tiny amount in the third quarter.

Adult fiction remained the business’s strongest category in terms of sales bumps, although its increase of 5.4% in the quarter was lower than the 6.3% increase it had in the first six months of the year. Fantasy continues to rule in the segment, with units up 62% through the first nine months of the year, followed by the suspense/thriller category, wish saw sales jump by 15.9%.

The small young adult nonfiction category had a quarterly increase of 14.4%, enough to bring its year-to-date sales up 3.2% over 2023. One huge caveat to this increase, however, is the number of adult coloring books, which continue to be classified as YA nonfiction, listed among the category’s bestsellers.

Adult nonfiction was down only 0.4% in the quarter as comparisons ease to last year’s first-quarter blockbuster, Prince Harry’s memoir Spare. Third quarter sales in the segment benefitted from a surprise jump in sales for Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance after the author was selected to be the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate in this year’s presidential race. The memoir sold nearly 577,000 copies at BookScan outlets through the first nine months of the year, with the vast majority of sales coming in the third quarter.

The adult nonfiction category also continues to benefit from strong sales of religion books, with sales up 11.4% in the category. Total adult nonfiction unit sales were down 2% in the first nine months of the year.

Juvenile nonfiction sales had a 2.8% increase in the quarter, with sales down 1.4% in the year so far compared to last year. Super Duper Extra Deluxe Essential Handbook (Pokémon) had a hot quarter selling almost 60,000 copies since its August release. Sales of Taylor Swift: A Little Golden Book Biography stayed strong and were over 433,000 in the year-to-date.

In juvenile fiction, sales fell slightly, 0.7%, and were down 2.2% through September. Third quarter sales received a boost from the late September release of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Wrath of the Triple Goddess, which sold more than 75,000 copies in the week after its September 24 release.

If sales continue to slowly improve in the fourth quarter, print sales at outlets that report to BookScan could post their first yearly increase since 2021.

The Bestselling Books of 2024 (So Far)

Seven of the top 10 books of the year so far are romance and romantasy titles, and both genres continue to drive remarkable sales in the business. As was the case six months ago, five books by queens of romantasy Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros placed in the top 10 of our overall and adult overall bestseller lists. They have, to date, sold 3.65 million copies combined, keeping Maas and Yarros, at least for now, the two biggest authors of the year by a long shot. Colleen Hoover remains a force on the list as well, with two of her titles selling a combined 1.4 million copies in the year to date.

Still, Kristin Hannah retains the top sales slot for the year with The Women, which PW’s review called an “emotionally charged page-turner” and a “magnetic wartime story.” The Housemade by Freida McFadden, with a film adaptation directed by Paul Feig and starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfreid currently in the works, is the #3 seller this year overall to date. As of the nine-month mark, James Clear’s perennial bestseller Atomic Habits is the top-selling adult nonfiction title, and remains the only nonfiction title to place in the top 10 on our overall and adult overall lists, Vance’s election cycle bump notwithstanding.

On the children’s side, backlist continues to buoy the business, with multiple titles by Dr. Seuss, Bill Martin Jr., and Eric Carle placing, as they often do, in the top 10. Dav Pilkey retains the #1 book of the year in the category, and #2 overall, with The Scarlet Shedder, the 12th entry in his ever-popular Dog Man series. In YA, Laura Nowlin continues to rule supreme, with combined print sales of If Only I Had Told Her and If He Had Been with Me reaching nearly 1.2 million. Lauren Roberts is the only other author in the category with two books in the top 10, with the first two titles in her Powerless series selling more than 688,000 copies combined.