Total print unit sales in 10 of the world’s largest book markets outside of the U.S. were flat in 2022 compared to 2021, staying at about 614 million, according to a report issued by Nielsen BookData, the U.K.-based analytics company. (In the U.S., unit sales fell 6.5% last year, to 788.7 million, according to Circana BookScan). Mexico had the best year, with sales up 15.3%, to 20.3 million copies, followed by Australia, where sales increased 8.2%, with 71.0 million copies sold. Other countries where sales increased were Brazil, with sales up 3%; South Africa, where sales rose 2.3%; and Spain, which had a 2.2% increase. Sales in Ireland were flat at 13.4 million.
Two of the largest book markets outside of the U.S. had small declines. In the U.K., sales slipped 1.8%, to 209.1 million copies, while sales in Italy fell 2%, to 124.3 million copies. India, where Nielsen counted 36.2 million units sold, had the largest sales drop (6%), followed by New Zealand, which reported a 4% decline. (2022 sales for Poland were 32.2 million, but Nielsen only began collecting data there last year, so it had no comparable sales figure for 2021.)
Jackie Swope, senior account manager for book research at Nielsen, delivered the findings at last month’s London Book Fair. The adult category had the largest share of unit sales in all countries, but in two places, Australia and New Zealand, the children’s and young adult category captured 46% of sales last year. Adult nonfiction outsold fiction in all countries except Spain, and in Brazil, India, and Mexico, nonfiction held a particularly large share of the markets.
Though adult nonfiction makes up a larger portion of sales than fiction, adult fiction authors dominated bestseller lists, accounting for 27 of the top 50 bestselling titles across all markets. The children’s and YA category placed 18 authors in the top 50, with nonfiction authors taking only five spots.
Across the international markets, books that were popular on TikTok drove sales. Colleen Hoover was the overall bestselling author in Australia, Brazil, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa, and the top fiction author in India and the U.K. Drilling down, the data showed that in the U.K., 80% of her sales were to readers under 35 years old (only 34% of U.K. fiction sales overall went to customers in that age group). In addition, 78% of Hoover’s U.K. sales were in print, versus a typical figure of 51%; just 18% of Hoover’s sales were e-books, while e-books accounted for 40% of overall fiction sales in the U.K.
Like in the U.S., sales of manga have exploded in international markets, doubling in the 10 countries to 26 million copies in 2022, compared to 2019. Two manga authors, Koyoharu Gotouge and Eiichiro Oda, had the majority of their sales coming from Italy—45% for Gotouge and 64% for Oda. In the U.K. in 2022, half of graphic novels and 63% of manga were bought by people under 25, Swope said, adding that television adaptations of graphic novels and manga, particularly on Netflix, were a significant sales driver.
Among nonfiction books, Swope singled out James Clear’s Atomic Habits, which sold more copies in 2022 than in the years since its 2018 publication combined. The book has been particularly popular in India, where it sold about 250,000 units total, with roughly 200,000 sold since 2020. The book has also done well in the U.K., selling 150,000 copies total. Swope said interest in Atomic Habits in the U.K. was driven by social media and video sites, with 71% of sales going to those under 35.
Swope noted that while fiction authors often sell well in multiple countries—as in the case of Hoover—nonfiction authors tend to have more localized sales. Atomic Habits, for example, was the only nonfiction title to be #1 in 2022 in more than one country (India and South Africa).
Among children’s books, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series sold more than three million units in the territories covered by Nielsen last year, while Julia Donaldson’s sales topped more than four million copies, driven primarily by sales in the U.K., making her the top-selling children’s author in the 10 countries. Among U.S. authors, Jeff Kinney was #3 overall, with Rick Riordan coming in at #11.
A few other details worth noting include Nielsen’s tracking of translated fiction, which showed that Japanese fiction is especially popular in Italy, with books by Haruki Murakami selling 234,000 units and books by Tozikazu Kawaguchi, especially Before the Coffee Gets Cold, selling 227,000 copies. In the U.K., Murakami titles sold 133,000 copies and Kawaguchi books sold about 93,000 units.
For this year through March 25, Nielsen reported that sales were flat across all reporting countries compared to the similar period last year, with about 140 million copies sold. The bestselling title has been Spare by Prince Harry, with 1.2 million copies sold. It has been the top title in Australia, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K.
