According to the data released by NPD Book Monitoring on July 8, in the first half of 2022, the sales of key new books and old books in the U.S. market declined compared with the first half of 2021. In addition to adult fictional books, the sales of other types of books have declined. Therefore, the sales volume of paper books in the United States has decreased by 6.6% year-on-year, with a total sales volume of 362.6 million copies (in the first half of 2021, the sales volume of paper books in the United States has increased by 18.9% compared with that in 2020). However, compared with the first half of 2019 before the outbreak, the sales volume of paper books in the first half of 2022 still increased by 15%. In the first quarter of 2022, the sales volume of paper books was poor, with a year-on-year decline of 8.9%. This situation eased in the second quarter, resulting in a decrease of 6.6% in the first half of the year.

In the first half of this year, in addition to adult fictional books, sales of other types of books declined. The largest decline was in adult non fictional books, with a year-on-year decline of 10.3%. Adult non fictional books are the largest sector of the American book industry.

Poor sales of key new books are the main reason for the weakness of the US book market. According to the statistics of NPD Book monitoring, the sales of key new books (i.e. books published in the past year) decreased by 11.7%, and the sales of old books also decreased by 4.1%.

Nine key new books entered the top 20 best seller list in the first half of the year, including Colleen Hoover’s verity, which sold 704000 copies, reminders of him, which sold 419000 copies, and Tiktok’s five works entered the top 20 list.

With the recommendation of Hoover and other experts, the sales volume of adult fictional books increased by 4.6% in the first half of this year, and the sales volume of love novels increased by 33%. The picture novels with three digit growth in 2021 also maintained a 10.5% growth in the first half of this year. The decline of adult nonfiction books is not caused by head books. For example, James clear’s “atomic habits” sold 694000 copies, exceeding the sales of two kinds of head books in the first half of last year; It was caused by poor sales of various sub categories: Sales of general non fiction books fell by 17.7%, reference books fell by 16.1%, and biography / memoirs fell by 15.3%. Tourism books are the only highlight of the growth of adult non fiction books, with an increase of 14.3%.

The sales volume of juvenile fictional books fell by 7.5% year-on-year, of which the largest decline was the classic old books, with a decrease of 14.4%. The sales volume of juvenile non fiction books decreased by 9.8% year-on-year, of which, except for the holiday / religion category, which increased by 4.8%, other sub categories all declined; The largest decrease was in social situation / family health category, with a decrease of 23%. The sales volume of fictional books for young people dropped by 2.7%, of which the sales volume of science fiction / magic books fell by 10%, the sales volume of general fictional books increased by 14.9%, and the sales volume of horror books increased by 11%. Sales of non fiction books for young people dropped by 3.4%.

The sales of various editions of books are declining. Among them, the sales of trade paperback fell by 3.3% year-on-year to 212.3 million copies, the sales of hardback fell by 10.4% year-on-year to 100.6 million copies, the sales of hardboard books fell by 5.2% year-on-year to 21.74 million copies, and the sales of mass market paperback fell by 20.4% year-on-year to 15.49 million copies.

In addition, according to the monthly statshot data released by the American Publishers Association, from January to April, the sales revenue of books in the United States decreased by 2.3% to $3.8 billion, of which the sales revenue of popular books decreased by 1.0% to $2.8 billion, the sales revenue of religious books decreased by 6.9% to $235.6 million, the sales revenue of educational books decreased by 5.5% to $797.4 million, and the sales revenue of professional books decreased by 8.6% to $124.6 million.

In the mass book market, the sales of hardcover books decreased by 6.8% to US $974 million, the sales of paperback books increased by 9.6% to US $1 billion, the sales of paperback books decreased by 20.5% to US $63.6 million, and the sales of special cover books decreased by 2.0% to us $56.1 million; E-book sales revenue decreased by 9.7% to US $338.1 million, digital audio book sales revenue increased by 3.4% to US $261.1 million, and physical audio book sales revenue decreased by 31.5% to US $4.9 million.

It can be seen from this that among digital publications, only audio books have been growing. Under the background of declining e-book sales, the income gap between audio books and e-books has gradually narrowed.