Hardcover and Paperback book sales did not have a very good year in 2022, they declined by 6.5%. This was to be expected, because book sales boomed in 2020 and in 2021, primarily due to the pandemic. The drop in sales was not that surprising in the publishing industry.
NDP Bookscan reported that 788.7 million books were sold last year, down from 843.1 million in 2021. Frontlist sales declined 10.5% in 2022, while backlist sales fell 3.7%. Sales of hardcovers fell 10.4%, while trade paperback sales fell only 2.4%. Trade paperbacks accounted for 60% of unit sales in 2022, up from 57% in 2021, while hardcovers’ share of the market declined from 33% in 2021 to 30% last year.
Adult fiction was the only one of the major categories to have a sales increase last year over 2021, with print unit sales up 8.5%. There is no mystery as to why adult fiction outperformed the rest of trade publishing: BookTok continues to drive sales for numerous fiction authors, and especially for Colleen Hoover. The prolific novelist had the three top-selling books of 2022 and five of the top 10 bestsellers.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.