Topline
U.S. publishers sold 825.7 million print books in 2021, up 8.9% over the previous year, but Pew data shows that the share of Americans who read print books remained flat over that period, with readers increasingly picking up e-books and audiobooks.
A customer shops for books at a Barnes and Noble store on November 02, 2021 in Corte Madera, … [+]
Key Facts
U.S. print book sales rose by 67.8 million in 2021, with adult fiction sales rising 25.5% and adult nonfiction sales rising 4.4%, according to data gathered by market research firm NPD and reported by Publishers Weekly.
However, the proportion of American adults reading print books remained static at 65%, as did the proportion reading books in any format at 75%, according to a Pew study published Thursday.
The typical, or median, American adult read five books during 2021, a number that has remained roughly consistent since Pew began tracking reading habits in 2011.
On the other hand, Pew found that 30% of American adults read at least one e-book in 2021, up 5 percentage points from the previous year.
Some print bestsellers owed their success to digital influences — print sales gains of 30.7% in the young adult fiction category were stimulated by activity on BookTok, a community of TikTok users who post about books, Publishers Weekly reported.
Key Background
When brick-and-mortar bookstores were closed in 2020 by coronavirus lockdowns, e-book sales by leading U.S. publishers leapt by 22%, according to data from NPD. However, as restrictions lifted and shoppers returned to bookstores, e-book sales returned to more moderate levels. By June 2021, e-book sales had fallen by 8% compared to 2020, but were still 8% higher than in June 2019. It’s possible that e-book sales gained a boost from supply-chain disruptions during the 2021 holiday season, said NPD analyst Kristen McLean. However, data for the second half of 2021 has not yet been published.
Tangent
Pew found that women read more than men, younger people read more than older people, more educated people read more than less educated people, members of higher-income households read more than members of lower-income households and urban residents read more than suburban or rural residents. In 2021, audiobook listening among adults with a household income of under $30,000 rose by 8 percentage points to 22%. Book reading among urban residents rose by 6 percentage points to 81%.
Surprising Fact
The works of J.D. Salinger were not published as e-books until 2019. The author, who died in 2010, was highly involved in the presentation of his works, prohibiting illustrations of characters on most book covers to avoid biasing readers toward a particular interpretation of his writing. With the exception of two National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled recordings of The Catcher in the Rye, none of Salinger’s major works are officially available as audiobooks.
Further Reading
“Three-in-ten Americans now read e-books” (Pew)
“Print Books Had a Huge Sales Year in 2021” (Publishers Weekly)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/01/07/sales-are-up-nearly-9-for-print-books-but-whos-reading-them/