Print book market has its best start to the year in a decade
The print market has continued its healthy run, following on from 2021’s 5% volume growth and 3% value jump against 2020. For the first six weeks of 2022, print has recorded its highest weekly sales since pre-digital-revolution 2011. Against 2020, the market was up 15% in volume and 12% in value.
Last week, at 14,904 copies sold, Val McDermid’s 1979 (Sphere) becomes the second number one title in a row to sell fewer than 15,000 copies, with Pinch of Nom Comfort Food (Bluebird) shifting 14,432 a week ago. In fact, no number one bestseller has sold over 25,000 copies since the second week of 2022.
However, the print market has remained resilient despite the sluggishness at the very top. The market has only once dropped below 3.5 million books sold in the first six weeks of the year, and its lowest value has been £29.9m. In volume terms, no year since 2011 has notched up weekly sales so high so early. It’s been 13 years since any week in the first six weeks has hit a value above £30m, in 2009. Adult Fiction and Children’s in particular have been driving the boom, up 34% and 23% in volume respectively over the last six weeks compared to two years ago.
Of course, due to Lockdown 3.0 in 2021 preventing Nielsen BookScan reporting weekly sales figures, we can only compare last week to early 2020. Against one of the last few pre-pandemic weeks in February two years ago, last week was 11.8% up in volume and 9.8% in value.
